The Act on Information Management Governance in Public Administration was enacted on 1 September 2011. The purpose of the Act is:
to improve the efficiency of activities in public administration and to improve public services and their availability by laying down provisions on information management governance in public administration and on promoting and ensuring the interoperability of information systems.
Under the Act, the Ministry of Finance is responsible for the development and (steering) governance of public sector ICT and its e-Service operations. The ministries are in charge of developing information management and information management projects within their respective fields of responsibility. The Ministry of Finance is devising an overall enterprise architecture for public administration (central and local government, indirect central government, municipalities). The authorities in public administration each plans and specifies their enterprise architecture. In doing so, they must comply with and make use of the public administration’s common enterprise architecture and its elements.
In a recent newsletter, the Ministry of Finance writes:
The evaluation of government IT projects is one good example of how the Act is applied. Major IT projects (e.g. projects costing over EUR 5 million) should be reviewed by the Ministry of Finance before an investment decision is made. The review is based on an evaluation report. Before the review, once a feasibility study has been made and before the procurement process actually starts, projects must be evaluated by using the Common Evaluation Framework for IT projects. It is highly recommended that major projects be evaluated by external assessors from other public sector organisations or from the private sector.