Kirkkonummi municipality, with more than 31.000 citizens, is centrally located in the vicinity of the Finnish metropolitan region. The local council of Kirkkonummi has now decided to implement efficient electronic services. The new web service will be provided by Teamware Group, specialized in solutions for the public sector and municipalities in particular. The primary objective of the web service will in its first phase be to improve the operations and interaction of the 200 or so elected officials of Kirkkonummi.

'The elected officials will be communicating electronically in the future. Our aim is to ensure a speedy and simple way to share information, carry on discussions and provide access to the key sources of information necessary in the decision-making processes. We have realized that traditional e-mail is quite rigid for the above-mentioned purposes', Administrative Director, Mr. Risto Pakarinen explains. 'The new system will also bring transparency into municipal decision-making.'

Kirkkonummi municipality has long been an active user of the e-mail and calendar systems of Teamware Office™. Now it can easily extend the groupware system to include new Teamware Pl@za® web services. Later on it will also be possible to include services in the same system for the nearly 2.000 public servants and employees of the municipality.

'We ended up selecting the solution offered by Teamware since they were the only vendor to perceive the web solution as the entity we had visioned. This was crucial as we are now creating a total environment for renewing our operations. Traditional portal solutions, also offered to us, did not meet our requirements', Mr. Pakarinen concludes.

The Kirkkonummi electronic services will be based on virtual workspaces created for different user groups. In the first phase of the project, the local council piloting the system will be given individual e-mail addresses and access to the electronic libraries. The next phase users will include other council groups and organs. Each group will have their dedicated, closed workspaces in addition to the common workspace available to all users.

'The fact that we decided to start developing our electronic services was a natural and actually inevitable decision', states II Vice President of the Kirkkonummi council, Mr. Kristo Savola, who also heads the municipal committee steering the project. 'I strongly believe that we will be making better decisions when our work is supported by efficient systems, such as electronic libraries, providing us easily - independent of time and place - with all the material necessary in the decision-making process. We will also be able to carry on preparative discussions prior to meetings. In addition, we need to motivate and attract the younger officials, thus our tools must be up-to-date', Mr. Savola says when describing the council work.

'Another extremely important factor in this project is that the citizens of Kirkkonummi will soon be able to follow the decision-making in its different phases as smoothly and as in real time as possible as the current governance thinking is based on openness. Moreover, we do expect the new services to bring savings in the long run in photocopying, mailing and travel expenses.'

The key services of the new system will include news and current topics, event calendar, document folders, discussion forums, interactive business cards, notification of new/edited information, search, virtual workspaces, single sign-on to the Teamware Office system as well as easy administration and content management tools.