Gotha/Erfurt/Eisenach/Gera/Mühlhausen (dpa/th) – The digitization of processes in the municipal authorities in Thuringia is progressing slowly. “A reasonable, centralized and uniform approach with clarification of the follow-up costs would be necessary in order to advance digitization,” summarizes Anke Pfannstiel from the Mühlhausen city administration. In a dpa survey in the cities of Gotha, Erfurt, Eisenach, Gera and Mühlhausen, many municipalities complained that they did not have sufficient staff and financial resources to implement digital offers. Among other things, there is a lack of suitable software solutions for the sometimes highly sensitive data exchange. Communication between authorities is also sometimes difficult due to different interfaces.
It is now possible to book appointments online at the Citizens’ Registration Office in almost all of the municipalities surveyed. In many cities, applications and other information can be accessed via the Internet and sometimes also submitted this way. The city of Erfurt currently offers around 30 forms that can be filled out on a home PC and sent electronically to the city. In Mühlhausen there are almost 18 cases, in Gera five and in Eisenach around 40.
The number of users increased with the offer, but are also still very restrained, according to the unanimous information. In Erfurt, for example, the digital registration of a car is hardly used because the eID function has to be activated in the ID card, explains spokeswoman Heike Dobenecker. The appointment backlogs that have accumulated in many places due to the restricted public access have now been worked off in most municipalities. The waiting time for an appointment is two weeks on average, in urgent cases there is usually an appointment within a maximum of three days.
