Читать книгу Digital Government Excellence - Siim Sikkut - Страница 75

The Ministry of Finance has been taking care of shared or common services in Finland: from financials and human resources to purchasing and real estate. In 2008 or so, the responsibility to steer the municipalities was moved from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Finance. Then they also combined the public sector ICT guidance responsibility there in 2011.

My political boss was the minister in charge of the public administration side in the ministry. We always had two ministers in the house in my time. One handled the state financials, budget, taxation, and such; the other oversaw all the public sector steering, the municipalities, and the common service areas. I did have a civil servant boss as well in the permanent secretary who supported me in how to work with the minister or with the parliament. My own or the government CIO role was officially titled the Director-General of Public Sector ICT Department.

The role is meant for coordination: to get everyone to work together and onboard, to show the direction of where to go. To show what is digitalization and what we want to achieve, what are the benefits. It is a person who needs to put things together, to gather the ideas and persons together, and organize them so that we are able to meet the outcomes. One important part of the role is to negotiate the financials. My staff praised me when I left office that I had gotten all the money we needed!