In particular, the programme is intended to enable public services to meet increasing demand with fewer human resources, a challenge that is expected to take effect over the coming years as ongoing demographic developments will accelerate further.

The programme spans across all public sector activities, and a range of projects are currently funded across different thematic areas including “Telecommunications Solutions and Information and Communication Technology (ICT)”, “Robotics and Automation”, “Digitalisation” and “CareTechnology”.

In 2008, the Danish Government dedicated 400 million Euros (3 billion DKK) for that purpose between 2009 and 2015. A dedicated foundation (the Danish PWT Foundation – Investments in Public Welfare Technology; in Danish: ABT-fonden) was set up to administer the programme.
The programme recognises that the public sector will be experiencing increasing demand for supportive services over the coming years due to ongoing demographic developments.

At the same time, a growing share of public sector employees will be reaching the retirement age, one consequence being that fewer human resources will be available to meet increasing demand from an ageing population. Public authorities are expected to benefit from a more efficient utilisation of available resources, ultimately being able to deploy liberated resources elsewhere.Through the use of innovative, labour-saving technologies and intelligent reorganisation of service delivery processes, the programme aims to:

• Increase productivity and efficiency in the public sector
• Improve current working conditions of public employees, thus making jobs in the public sector more attractive to a shrinking labour force
• Provide the choice of more flexible, user-centred services to citizens, empowering them to remain independent for as long as possible and to take responsibility for their own lives.

Thus, ultimately the programme will result in a ‘triple-win situation’ for the public sector.

Across the entire public sector, public authorities can apply for project funding, either alone or in collaboration with private companies. The thought behind this being that the development of welfare technologies is a potentially very important area for growth for Danish trade and industry. A prerequisite for obtaining funding is that the projects must address labour-saving potentials by means of implementing new technologies and/or reorganising current service delivery processes in an intelligent way. Two different types of projects are funded:

• Local demonstration projects where new labour-saving technologies and organisational models are tested in pilot settings;
• National implementation projects where well-proven technologies and practices are implemented at a national scale.

A range of projects are currently supported across different thematic areas, one of which is focusing on “Care Technologies” in particular. Here, current projects aim for instance at testing/deploying age-friendly toilets, electronic bath/shower chairs, electronic tools supporting people with autism, alarm/tracking systems for people with dementia, medication reminders for people with mental disorders, electronic tools for self-activation of retarded adults, solutions for lifting/moving frail older people, electronic door locking systems and fall management.

The programme is located in and administered by the Danish Agency for Governmental Management (a governmental agency under the Ministry of Finance). This agency supports and develops efficiency and good financial management within the area of public administration. To this end, the agency engages (among other things) in the implementation of cross-government sector digitalisation projects, where the projects under the PWT-programme are but a few of the many focus areas.

Key learning points:

• The potential for developing the public sector is great, and throughout the public sector there are many public employees who care strongly for their work and are passionate about driving innovative processes resulting in a better public sector. Also, there is a great market potential for new technological solutions aimed at improving the service for the elderly population.
• The establishment of a dedicated programme on a national level that can gather the best new ideas and projects, fund them, evaluate them and communicate key learning points to all involved partners has great potential. This programme should coordinate and help facilitate sharing of knowledge between different initiatives (e.g. in different parts of the public sector) in order to generate synergy effects and reap benefits on a larger scale.
• Access to the right decision-making arenas on a national level is a key to success. The best solutions must become more than just good examples – they need to be implemented on a greater scale as soon as the evidence is gathered and a viable business case can be established. And this needs to be linked to budget negotiations on a national level. These decision-making arenas will differ from country to country. Denmark is a very decentralized country when it comes to providing welfare. Every year, the government (via the Ministry of Finance) engages in budget negotiations with the municipalities and the regions (the latter of which are responsible for the health care sector). In this way, by linking budgets with the use of new technologies and more efficient ways of working, the state will be able to steer the development of the public sector in a clear direction.

Further information

Website for the Danish Agency for Governmental Management (in English)