e-Strategy and Profile of the Association of Towns and Communities of the Czech Republic
(Model Example)
Identification and contact
Name of the association (union)	Association of Towns and Communities of the Czech Republic (SMO ČR)	
State	Czech Republic (CR)	
Website	www.smocr.cz	
Contact person
for e-Strategy and IT benchmarking	Tomáš Renčín, Chairman of the ISMO Committee,
rencin@isss.cz, +420 284001284
Jaroslav Šolc, member of the ISMO Committee
jaroslav.solc@cityofprague.cz, +420 236002682	
Date of drawing up	17. 2. 2004	
Basic profile of the association and country 
Population of the country 	10.219 million	
Structure of regional administration division	Basic unit – municipality: 6249 municipalities
Structure according to population: 1,294 municipalities with over 1 thousand, 131 over 10 thousand, 22 over 50 thousand, 5 over 100 thousand inhabitants
Higher territorial self-governing units – regions: 14 regions
Note: The Capital City of Prague is both a region and a municipality 	
Membership base of the association	2,457 towns and municipalities (73 % of the CR’s population)	
Origination, fundamental goals	The organisation’s roots reach back to 1907, afterwards the development was interrupted on several occasions. Renewed in 1989.
The Union’s goals: To support and develop democracy in the self-government system. To be a constructive partner to the Government and/or Ministries and Parliament of the CR, to defend and assert the interests of self-governments. To strengthen municipalities’ influence in the legislative sphere. To contribute to the creation of conditions for preparation and increased professionalism of elected members of local governments, as well as specialisation of local governments’ employees. To enhance the economic independence of municipalities. To contribute to the creation of conditions for provision of basic and specific services for towns and municipalities. To assist in establishing partnerships and other forms of international cooperation. 	
Bodies and structure of the association	Assembly – the supreme body of the Union (within 6 months following municipal elections, possibly also extraordinarily).
Council – manages the Union’s activity between assemblies, 93 members.
Board – coordination of activity between boards, 11 members, Chairman - Oldřich Vlasák, Hradec Králové Lord Mayor.
Work committees – housing, tourism, transport, energy, financial, for information systems (ISMO), property, for the disabled, social, regional, education, legislative, foreign, security and environment.
Office of the Union – at present, 15 employees, departments: legal, foreign, press and administrative. 	
Resources for securing activity	Membership fees (89 %), state assistance – subsidies (6.4 %), own resources (4.2%)	
Cooperation with other groupings, primarily international (IULA, CEMR etc) and membership of them	Membership in the Delegation of Observers of the CR to the Committee of Regions of the EU (the Union has 5 observers + 5 surrogates), the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the EU (CLRAE, 4 + 3), the CEMR Political Committee (4 + 3) and through CEMR also IULA.	
Data on information society development (LORIS topics)
The association’s body responsible for ICT and e-Government issues 	Committee for Information Systems (ISMO, www.munet.cz).
It develops activities pertaining to information systems for self-government. It promotes use of the internet for the work of town and municipal authorities, cooperates with ministries in the preparation of standards for self-government, organises specialist conferences, expresses its opinions on proposed legal rules from the respective area.
The Committee has 18 members, of which 10 members have a decision-making vote (representatives of Union members) and 8 members have an advisory vote. The Committee Chairman is RNDr. Tomáš Renčín. 	
Governmental body responsible for ICT and e-Government, cooperation with the association	Ministry of Informatics of the CR (MI ČR, www.micr.cz).
It was constituted on 1. 1. 2003 as the central state administration body for information and communications technologies, telecommunications and postal services. MI ČR has assumed to the full extent the competences of the Office for Public Information Systems, the communications section of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, as well as competences concerning electronic signatures of the Office for Personal Data Protection.
Self-government issues are also in the competence of the Ministry of the Interior of the ČR – Department of Public Administration Informisation (MV ČR – OIVS, www.mvcr.cz).
Both ministries collaborate with the ISMO Committee (comments, conference activities, projects). 	
Other national organisations and associations with relation to information society and self-government (LORIS) issues	Association of Regions of the CR (AK ČR, www.kr-urady.cz). Informatics Committee of the Council of AK ČR.
A number of professionally oriented associations and societies, e.g.. Czech Association for Geoinformation (CAGI, www.cagi.cz), Czech Association for System Integration (ČSSI, www.cssi.cz), Association for Information Society (SPIS, www.spis.cz), BMI Association (www.brezen.cz) and others (telecommunications, trade, education). 	
Existence of a national e-strategy or action plan (name, when it was drawn up, by whom), its relation to LORIS topics	State Information and Communications Policy (MI ČR, at the end of 2003, version for comments, making public expected in the first quarter of 2004).	
Creation of e-strategies of regions, towns and municipalities	Information strategies of municipalities are also created according to the requirements for test certificates of public administration information systems in compliance with Act No. 365/2000 Coll. 	
Number of regions, towns and municipalities having their own websites, the type of information they make public (e.g. according to the requirements of law, standards, methodologies)
	The requirements for making information public also arise from Act No. 106/1999 Coll., on free access to information, draft according to the ÚVIS standard. Almost all towns and big municipalities have websites. There are no official statistics. There are portals with references to websites of territorial self-governments in the CR (ePUSA, www.epusa.cz or MOOL, http://mesta.obce.cz )	
Degree of provision of on-line information services (according to e-Government categories: information, one-way interaction, two-way interaction, transaction) and building up multi-platform on-line services (web, call centres, one stop)	Mostly services of the information provision category, possibly, supply of forms. Development of two-way interaction services has been launched, mainly in bigger towns. Multi-platform solutions are just starting to be developed, sporadic. 	
Conference activities, benchmarking and best practices 	Internet in Public Administration and Self-Government (ISSS/LORIS, www.isss.cz) conference, regularly since 1998. Furthermore, professionally oriented conferences (GIS, system integration etc) and special projects (e.g.. March: Internet Month).
Best practice – Golden Crest, a competition for best websites of towns and municipalities of the CR (http://zlatyerb.obce.cz), received the Stockholm Challenge Award. 	
Existence of national government support for
e-Government development activities at the local and regional level (programmes, grants, projects)	Specific projects supported by the Ministry of the Interior of the CR, especially in relation to public administration reform. 	
Experience and involvement in joint projects, including international, and projects drawing support from EU funds 	To date, sporadic activities. Participation in TeleCities, Global Cities Dialogue and Elanet networks. Participation in international projects (e.g. Prague, Vysočina region). Preparation for use of EU Structural Funds for IT projects (seminars, publications, the Phare project for absorption capacity development etc) has started.	
Further experience with solutions pertaining to: Re-engineering, e-Health,
e-Learning, e-Security,
e-Democracy, CRM etc	So far, sporadic and under preparation. Mainly at the level of regions and bigger towns. 	
Experience and lessons learned, plans	Strengthening cooperation with the Informatics Committee of the Association of Regions of the CR. Joint operation of self-government in the dialogue with state administration. Creation of a platform for collaboration between cities. Development of international cooperation – exchange of experience, projects. Development of benchmarking-type activities.