Development of: the Citizens’ website of the Barcelona City Council’s Housing Institute
SOCIAL BACKGROUND
Universal telematic access for citizens to all types of procedures and formalities with the State has been growing recently, not only in Spain but also internationally. Reasons are obvious, some of them are:
• Closeness image between government/citizen
• Greater transparency
• Greater agility and simplicity in the procedures
• Bureaucratic barriers relief
• Time and money save
• Resource Optimization
And even more so in these times (summer of 2020) avoiding displacements, queues and physical presence in closed spaces is not only an interesting issue, but one of maximum social relevance.
THE CITIZEN’S WEBSITE
To achieve this, both enterprises and governments usually create a kind of virtual space “owned” by the citizen or interested party: the citizen’s website.
This is where all the formalities and processes can be carried out by the citizen. In turn, the corresponding entity is responsible for sending communications or documentation to this space. The user can view, download, print, request and even pay all kinds of accessible procedures.
PAYMENT GATEWAY
Some procedures involve fees payments, taxes or other concepts, including invoices. One goal of the citizen’s website is that you do not have to go to a third party (bank) to make a payment. Rather, the intention is that the entire management process should be completed in the same operation – including payment, if any-. For this purpose, it is common for this kind of sites to have payment gateways related to the main credit institutions.
PERFORMANCE AT IMHab
During the summer of 2020, the “Institut Municipal de l’Habitatge i Rehabilitació de Barcelona” entrusted Flash Data with the development of a Citizen’s Folder that would meet all the characteristics outlined previously. This is called “La Meva Carpeta”.
Users who have a contract with IMHab may carry out different procedures. Within the website there is a section of “procedures and formalities” where you can pay receipts and download vouchers for them, as well as many other formalities such as requesting an appointment, etc.
From this page registered users will be able to make a request for a procedure. For example, a person who thinks he is paying too much for a rent and believes he is eligible for a reduction would go to the rent reduction section and proceed with the application. This generates a request within the citizen’s folder who will be waiting for the manager reply. If any information or documentation is missing, the citizen can enter it when requested.
Any citizen within his or her corresponding folder will have all procedures record that he or she has made. A useful filtering functionality has been created based on dates.
Of course, in the aim of security, all this functionality is available after validating the identity (login) by means of digital certificate, DNIe, CatId card or login/password mechanisms.
USED FRAMEWORK
Microsoft .NET technology
Some program screenshots
