OGCIO expects to save up to 1.7m per year in postage by switching to digital postboxes

Savings in the Irish public sector

The use of the digital postbox will cut across the education, welfare, and revenue sectors in the government. For example, the Department of Social Protection plans to issue Contribution Statements and Payment Statements to individuals with the use of the digital postbox.

Another way that the digital postbox will be used is through the sending of transaction statements to individuals. More specifically, the Office of the Revenue Commissioners plan to issue annual tax credit statements to all individuals.

“While both departments are already offering a digital service to their customers, the benefits here are for the individual. The Digital Postbox will allow an individual that engages with departments for different services to view a range of their personal communications in one safe and secure location,” Flanagan clarified.

Finally, it will also be used in the sending of digital payslips to public sector employees. Currently, the Department of Education currently posts payslips to approximately 120,000 staff. This started on the 12th of May, 2022.

According to Flanagan, by making the payslips available online, it will save on postal costs for the department and also it will be more efficient for the staff who will have all their payslips stored digitally in the one place.

At present, there is a spend of approximately €1.7 million each year on posting payslips to approximately 120,000 staff every fortnight.

“This will be a great saving of much needed funds that can be reused for better purposes,” Flanagan said.

The same can be said for the other departments. When OGCIO carried out a survey in 2018, they found that the total spend across all Government Departments on postage stamps was 54 million.

“While we may never completely eradicate this cost, the move towards digital will allow this spend to be allocated to something more beneficial by departments. It will also enhance digital services for customers being able to access their correspondence in one safe, secure location,” Flanagan added.

More benefits of the Irish digital postbox and future digitisation efforts

According to Flanagan, adopting a single Digital Postbox can measurably improve government expenditure by reducing IT, postal, paper, envelopes and manual processing costs.

“It will provide public bodies with an alternative cost-effective solution to the delivery of traditional physical post,” she said.

She identified more specific benefits, which include:

• Savings on postal delivery, paper, envelopes, printing, handling, and manual processes.

• Savings in terms of IT Costs and the implementation of numerous electronic communications systems across different public bodies.

• Eco-friendly benefits by reducing the amount of paper processing and lowering CO2 emissions.

Ireland is one of the countries that has a Climate Bill, which outlines a path to net-zero emissions by 2050, and to a 51% reduction in emissions by 2030.

In terms of future digitisation, which can greatly contribute to this initiative, the government has also launched a new digital strategy in February 2022. Called Harnessing Digital – The Digital Ireland Framework, it aims to enable the digital transition across the Irish economy and society.

Dimension 4 of the framework is Digitalisation of Public Services which includes delivering the first iterations of a new Life Events Portal. This will enable the digital registration of births and deaths, as well as the registration of businesses of those returning to Ireland.

With all these digitisation efforts, with the digital postbox at the heart of transformation, OGCIO expect some of the long term expected benefits will be realised:

• Providing a cost effective alternative to conventional postal services

• Supporting public service bodies to send digital communications more cost effectively

• Public Service Bodies will not need to build and manage their own messaging systems

• Digital communications can be delivered in real-time - instant access to messages

• Centralising efforts can also help harness economies of scale which can lead to savings

• Process standardization and economies-of-scale efficiency improvements

• Individuals can access their government communications in one place

• Highly secure access to email underpinned by MyGovID

• Access is controlled cutting out spam, fraud and phishing

• Conserving the environment and reduce public expenditure

With this framework and the full utilisation of platforms such as e-Boks’ digital postbox, Ireland remains committed to its status as one of Europe’s tech powerhouses.

Do you want to learn more about how you can use the digital postbox in your own organisation or government?

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