Valtiontalouden tarkastusvirasto

National Audit Office of Finland (VTV)

The development and use of identification services in public administration Read full summary in English

2008 report 376/54/06

The audit examined the implementation and coordination of projects aimed at developing identification services in public administration, cooperation among authorities in this area and compliance with legislation in procuring services. The audit also examined development, control and monitoring structures regarding identification services. The audit focused on electronic identification services that are used in public administration's electronic transactions.

In the report page 1

- Identification services have been developed in public administration according to each actor's own needs and conditions

- lack of overall coordination in developing IT activities in the public sector

- overlapping and uneconomical solutions

In the report page 2

- cooperation among authorities based on different strategies

- inadequate procedures

- guiding of this cooperation have not been effective

- increasing competition among different authorities

- not reasonable for the state's financial management as a whole

In the report page 2-4

- Procurements have been arranged in an irregular manner particularly in projects conducted by the National Board of Taxes and the National Board of Medicolegal Affairs.

- the procedures followed by the Ministry of Finance in joint procurements and framework arrangements have not complied with the provisions in the Public Procurement Act in all respects

- system requirement specifications should be prepared in such a way that they do not favour a particular supplier

The risk cases visible on this page are collected and described by the e-Government Subgroup of the EUROSAI IT Working Group in contact with author Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI). In the same way, analytical assumptions and headings are chosen by the Subgroup. We encourage you to read the original texts by SAIs - to be found in the linked files.