LEEUWARDEN. The municipality of Leeuwarden wants to make major leaps in the use of information technology in the coming years. This first costs a lot of money, but should ultimately lead to lower costs.The mayor and aldermen presented a digital agenda last week, in which the IT steps for the coming years are listed. In business life, developments are going very fast and municipalities cannot lag behind.More and more electrical devices and processes are connected to the Internet ('the internet of things'). In the meantime, computers are getting better at analyzingdevelopments based on large amounts of data (big data and artificial intelligence). In the future, this provides opportunities for municipalities to work more efficiently and provide better service, the agenda states. Leeuwarden does not necessarily have to lead the way nationally, but it does want to belong to the sub-top, which learns from experiences elsewhere. This note is referred to as "smart tracking".
In the end, the innovations are likely to lead to a cheaper method of working, but "the costs will go to the benefits and so substantial investments will have to be made in the coming years". At present, IT is still considered a separate cost item, just like with example the floor covering or the chairs. In the future, however, the municipal apparatus will become increasingly intertwined with new technologies.Collaboration with a large number of other organizations is part of the plans. Further development of security methods must also be accelerated to protect the safety and privacy of citizens and businesses.
For 2019, 68o.ooo euros has been allocated as the starting amount for the digital agenda. This is just the beginning. Substantial amounts must be invested in this in the coming years. Old IT systems will be "phased out".