The possibility (or even the obligation) to carry out more and more administrative procedures on the Internet has long pushed more and more people to use the Internet to carry out their administrative procedures.
The Digital Barometer tracks, year by year, the way the French appropriate (or not) the possibility (and sometimes the obligation) to perform administrative procedures online.
According to the 2016 edition of the Barometer, 90% of people who had completed administrative procedures online felt that " it had been easy": (41% considered them "very easy" and 49% "fairly easy").
While 94% of the most educated people, 96% of senior executives and 95% of high-income earners found these online administrative procedures easy to carry out, this judgment was relatively high among the non-educated (79%), those with low incomes (82%) and those aged 60-69 (92%).
The main result, the most commented on, is that about 15% of adults declared themselves unable in 2016 to obtain administrative information on the Internet, to download or fill in administrative forms online. Since then, many studies, and in particular alerts from associations and the Defender of Rights, have documented the difficulties encountered by a large number of our fellow citizens when faced with the dematerialization of public services.
The Barometer recorded a decline in the proportion of individuals using e-government in 2018 for the first time.
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Proportion of individuals who have completed an administrative procedure on the Internet in the last twelve months (2005-2018)
After a peak in 2017 (67%), it was only 65% in 2018. " A more consistent decline for young adults (18-24 years), the self-employed and people who reside in large provincial agglomerations (- 9 points)."
In order to better understand the expectations and frustrations of the French in their dealings with government agencies, the Digital Agency has introduced several new questions in the 2019 Digital Barometer.
Less than one in five French people believe that relations with the administration have become simpler
To the question "in recent years, regarding your relations with public administrations, would you say that they have become simpler, more complex or have not changed", only 19% of respondents answered that they have become simpler.
Perception of the evolution of relations with public administrations
For 41%, relations with the public administration have not changed, or worse, have become more complex (37%).
The judgment is severe. It is expressed differently according to the social position of the individuals.
Age is the first determining criterion: for 53% of young people under 25, relations with the administration have not changed (12 points more than the average). 29% think that they have become simpler (12 points more than the average) and more complex for 14% of them. (-5 points). "For these young adults, the history of relations with the administration is, it is true, relatively short, which tends to increase the feeling of stability.
The judgement is reversed among the older people: with age, the proportion of individuals who think that relationships are unchanged decreases while the feeling of complexity tends to increase: 50% for the 60-69 year olds (+ 9%)
The most highly educated (26%), the highest income earners (26%), executives (30%), the self-employed (23%) and residents of Paris and its suburbs (30%) are more receptive to the idea that the process has been simplified.
Symmetrically, the perception of complexity is most pronounced among retirees (44%), people with low incomes and the lower middle class (40%), people living in rural communities (40%) and people living in small towns (42%).
Digital technology would contribute as much to the simplification of relations with administrations as to their complexity
The answers to the question "what role did digital technology play in these changes?" seem to verify this ambivalence of the French regarding the perceived changes in relations with the administration.
86% of people believe that digital technology has played an important role in these changes, regardless of its effects, whether they are simplifying or increasing complexity.
Perception in 2019 of the role of digital in the evolution of government relations in recent years
Those who see simplification are more likely to blame it on digital (93%) than those who deplore complexity (82%)
The complexity of online procedures: the main obstacle to e-government
Another question introduced this year by the Agence du Numérique aimed to qualify the obstacles to completing your administrative procedures online. While a third of French people (32%) say they do not know any obstacles to using e-administration, a majority of them mention different types of obstacles.
25% of respondents mention the complexity of the procedures ("The administrative procedures are too complicated in themselves"), 20% their lack of comfort with computers and the Internet, and 18% the difficulty in contacting a person to assist them in their procedures.
18% cite poor design of administrative sites. 14% point to too many administrative sites, 13% " lack information on procedures" while 9% report "difficulties in managing their accounts, logins and passwords".
The complexity of the process itself is highlighted by the oldest people (30% of those aged 70 and over, +5 points compared to the population as a whole), by the non-educated (31%, +6 points) and by the inhabitants of small towns of 2,000 to 20,000 inhabitants (34%).
The same characteristics are found among people who describe themselves as not being comfortable with digital tools, i.e., mainly those who had to learn to use digital tools late in life: 60-69 year olds (31%, +11 points) and 70+ year olds (46%, +26 points), non-graduates (53%), retirees (41%) and, to a lesser extent, people who live at home (30%).
Conversely, the people who have encountered " no obstacles" to completing their administrative procedures online are the youngest (41% of 18-24 year olds and 42% of 25-39 year olds), the highest social categories (46% of executives and 39% of members of intermediate professions) and high-income earners (41%, +9 points compared to the general population).
The administrative obligation to log on is thus "very unequal among individuals: a person receiving social rights subject to a quarterly declaration of resources is automatically more obliged to log on than a person not receiving social benefits. Here we find the famous double penalty, mentioned by Credoc in 2016. It is the most precarious individuals, both economically and in terms of social isolation, who are the least connected, even though they are more dependent on social rights and benefits and therefore have a greater obligation to do so.
It should be noted, however, that those who are most comfortable with computers and the Internet, and who are best equipped to deal with the complexity of online procedures, express a form of annoyance on certain subjects. 21% of university graduates deplore "the difficulty of contacting someone to help them with their procedures" (+4%). Similarly, 24% of 18-24 year olds mention the poor design of administrative sites.
In this regard, let's mention, without being exhaustive, in addition to the Inclusive Digital Plan (which is aimed at people who are far from the digital world) and FranceConnect (which simplifies the management of accounts, logins and passwords), several initiatives underway:
- The observatory of the quality of online procedures. Launched in May 2019, this observatory monitors the progress of 250 administrative procedures and evaluates the user experience through several indicators (31% of these 250 procedures are not yet feasible online).
- VoxUsagers. This site has allowed users to share their experiences, good or bad, to improve public services. 597 experiences have been published. 79% of them received a response
- Démarches Simplifiées. Since March 2018, the Démarches-simplifiées.fr platform has enabled administrations and local authorities to put online, very quickly and at very low cost, the procedures still managed on paper or to replace old and expensive online services. This form generator has already made it possible to dematerialize 8,130 procedures.
- AidantsConnect. This device will soon allow a professional authorized beforehand to carry out administrative procedures on line in the place of a person who has difficulty doing them alone
A perceived complexity that varies, in fact, according to the nature of the procedures
The results of other surveys, with less global or more graduated questioning, make it possible to qualify these judgments, which may seem abrupt.
The Barometer of Administrative Complexity (carried out among 7,700 people by BVA on behalf of the Interministerial Directorate of Public Transformation, DITP) undertakes, for example, to measure the "perceived complexity" through 26 "life events", such as "I am driving a car", "I am retiring", "I am a resident of another country", "I am looking for a job", "I have lost a loved one", "I am the victim of a crime", "I am drawing up my identity papers", or "I am moving house
According to the latest edition of this Barometer, which covers all procedures, regardless of the channel (counter, telephone or Internet), 21% of users consider the administrative procedures they have carried out over the last two years to be fairly or very complicated.
Above all, we note that the perceived complexity varies considerably depending on the situation of the person or the event to be dealt with: it ranges from 6% for the employment of a home-based employee to 46% for foreign residents (outside the European Union).
According to the 2018 Digital Gouv' barometer (Sopra Steria & Ipsos), 66% of respondents consider these new services easy to use. While 86% see a significant increase in the number of services now digitized, 51% are slow to see the effects of this digital transformation. 52% consider in particular that content should be simplified. 82% consider that digital public services will be more difficult to access for some French people who are not comfortable with technology.
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