The Danes have got it!

In the past few days, my colleagues and I at IT&Telekomföretagen visited Copenhagen. The purpose was simple; to be inspired by the best in the field! And the area I am talking about is of course digitalization.

Unlike Sweden, Denmark has moved from talking about IF to HOW, i.e. how to benefit most quickly, best and most effectively from the positive effects of digitization. In healthcare, schools and the public sector in general. This is being done in a purposeful and coordinated way. There is even a Digitization Board whose mission is to coordinate and drive the digitization of the public sector. The board (equivalent to our government agencies), which is directly under the Ministry of Finance, has 185 employees whose main task is to strengthen growth and productivity and ensure an efficient public sector. And the solution to this is digitalization. This is something that three Danish governments, from right to left, have stated and supported for a number of years now.

And I think that is one of the main reasons why so little is happening at a coordinated level in Sweden. Someone (preferably the Prime Minister himself, as was done in Denmark back in 2008) must take the lead and clearly point out the direction we want policy to take. This someone must also make demands for coordination and prioritization. Why not demand that all political decisions made within the government offices include a digitization aspect! Because just as we talk (rightly!) about gender equality being a matter for the entire government, so too should digitization be.

While we in Sweden are still (!) discussing whether digitization is a good way to meet the challenges of the future (not least the debate that followed the latest PISA survey ...), our neighboring country is already in action. There, they are already far ahead in the work of resource efficiency in the public sector in order to maximize every single tax dollar, in order to meet the demographic challenges of the future, etc. Politicians also "dare" to talk about the fact that a lot of it is simply about ensuring that tax money will be sufficient in the future. The aim is thus not only to create increased citizen benefits but also to get more "bang for the buck".

In Denmark, as I said, prime minister after prime minister has put this high on the political agenda. Even the Danish Queen mentioned the possibilities of digitalization in her annual Christmas speech last year. The fact that our Swedish king would embrace this in his speech, I see perhaps not as the most important measure, but rather that our Prime Minister points out a clear direction for the digitization of the public sector - to go from the if to the how. Time for Löfvén to get the message!