DEMOSCIOCRATIE

Translation of the French article by Jacques Rouchaud

We were promised that computers would simplify everything. Less paperwork, fewer queues, fewer procedures. The result is exactly the opposite. In France, as in most European countries, every administration, every fund, every bank, every insurer has built its own software, in its own corner, without ever thinking of the person who has to use it: the user.

Today, it is the patient, the customer, the taxpayer who does the work. And often two or three times over.

1. The citizen turned into an office clerk

Taxes, social security, health insurance, bank, pension fund, prefecture, energy supplier: each time, you have to create an account, choose a password, fill in the same information — name, address, date of birth, family situation, income — and send the same supporting documents. What you declared to one body the day before, you have to repeat the next day to another.

Each piece of software is different, cumbersome, often poorly suited. Elderly people, those who are not comfortable with a computer or who do not have a good connection are left by the wayside. Computing, which was supposed to serve people, has become one more chore.

2. A single card, from birth

Yet there was a simple solution, which politicians never really wanted to think through to the end: a single card, with a chip, on which the citizen’s basic information would be recorded only once, from birth, and then updated over the course of his or her life.

A change of address, a birth, a marriage, a new job: you declare it once, and every authorised service is informed automatically. No more forms in duplicate or triplicate, no more supporting documents to send again and again. The system works for the citizen, and not the other way round.

This information belongs to the citizen. Each service must access only what it needs, and everyone must be able to know who has consulted their data. Simplifying does not mean handing everything over: liberty remains the first right.

3. Making things heavier where they should be simplified

The most absurd thing is that we do the opposite of what we should. Where we should simplify, we make things heavier: ever more fields to fill in, boxes to tick, successive screens. And where we should go into detail, check seriously and do things properly, we multiply useless procedures.

4. The example of VAT: centralising everything in Paris

Take VAT. Declarations from the whole country go up to the central systems of the Ministry of Finance, in Paris. Enormous volumes of data converge on a single point, with gigantic infrastructures that are costly and energy-hungry.

It would be much simpler, and much more ecological, to process this data at the level of the territory, where the businesses are, and then to send only the results up to a small national server, responsible for oversight by the Chambers and by the government. Fewer transfers, fewer machines, less energy, and oversight closer to reality.

5. The current systems: a series of costly failures

This is not just an impression. The major IT projects of the French State have piled up fiascos, paid for by taxpayers:

• Louvois, the payroll software for the military: thousands of soldiers underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all for months, before it was abandoned in 2013, after several hundred million euros had been spent.
• The Opérateur national de paye (National Payroll Operator), meant to unify the pay of all civil servants: abandoned in 2014, again after hundreds of millions of euros.
• SIRHEN, the staff management system of the Ministry of National Education: abandoned in 2018 after years of delay and costs out of all proportion to the result.

And what does work only half works. The Carte Vitale (health insurance card) has a chip, but it contains almost nothing: each fund keeps its own file. A common login now makes it possible to connect to several public websites, but once inside, each service asks you again for your information and your supporting documents. A common front door has been added to houses that still do not talk to each other.

The private sector does no better. Every bank, every insurer, every supplier imposes its own app, its password, its two-factor authentication, its forms. Citizens end up with dozens of accounts and spend hours doing, for free, the work that these organisations once did themselves.

6. The reign of consulting firms

Why have we come to this? Largely because the State has entrusted the design of its systems to large consulting firms, often American, which sell ever heavier, ever more centralised, ever more expensive architectures. The more complex the system, the more consultants are needed to run it.

In 2022, a Senate committee of inquiry revealed that the State had spent more than one billion euros on consulting services in 2021 alone. Politicians sign, the bills pile up, and it is the user who pays twice: through taxes, and through the time lost in front of the screen.

7. What demosciocracy proposes

Demosciocracy, applicable in every country, starts from a simple principle: the administration is a tool at the service of the population, and not an organisation meant to ensure its own permanence.

• A deliberately light administration. Every structure must correspond to an identifiable and necessary mission. Duplicates, useless bodies and overlapping procedures must be able to be abolished.
• Digital technology to lighten, not to burden. IT and artificial intelligence must automate administrative tasks, checks and information exchanges, in order to considerably reduce formalities for citizens and businesses.
• The territory first. The territory is the fundamental unit of management. Data is processed where it originates, and only the results go up to the national level for oversight by the two Chambers.
• Permanent financial oversight without useless constraints. IT systems must make it possible to track financial flows and reduce administrative costs, without multiplying the obligations weighing on businesses and citizens.
• Users and trades involved in decisions. In each Territorial Council, half of the members represent the corporations and activities. Those who use the tools take part in designing them, instead of suffering them.
• Officials who are accountable. A system that does not work, a project that costs too much: the person responsible must explain, and can be replaced.

Conclusion

Computing was supposed to free up time for citizens. It steals it from them. It is not the technology that is at fault, but the way it was conceived: far from users, excessively centralised and entrusted to those who have an interest in making it complicated.

A single card, data entered only once, processing at the level of the territory and a small national oversight system: that is what an administration at the service of the people could be. That is the spirit of demosciocracy.

Liberty — Equality — Truth

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