News

At the expert hearing of the Home Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag on 16 October 2023, Prof. Dr Jan Ziekow commented on the draft of the 'Fifth Act Amending Administrative Procedure Provisions' ('Fünfte Gesetz zur Änderung verwaltungsverfahrensrechtlicher Vorschriften' - 5. VwVfÄndG). Numerous provisions of the Amendment Act relate to the increased use of electronic communication in planning and approval procedures with the provision being based on recommendations developed by the NIPAG that resulted from the evaluation of the Planning Assurance Act (Planungssicherstellungsgesetz - PlanSiG) carried out on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI).

The NIPAG completed the evaluation of the Thuringian Transparency Act (ThürTG) commissioned by the Thuringia State Ministry of the Interior and Municipal Affairs (Thüringer Ministerium für Inneres und Kommunales - TMIK) in August 2023. An interdisciplinary research approach was chosen for the evaluation, combining perspectives from legal, social and administrative sciences and various methods of empirical social research.

On 19 October 2023, a delegation from the Turkish Ministries of Youth and Sports, National Education and Labour and Social Affairs visited the Competence Centre Youth-Check (ComYC) in Berlin. The delegation was invited by the German-Turkish Special Committee of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

The Committee on Internal Affairs and the Interior of the German Bundestag invited Dr Jonas Botta (NIPAG Research Associate) as an expert. Dr Botta made his expertise in the fields of general administrative law, e-government law and constitutional law available to the Committee. The occasion was the Federal Government's proposed amendments to the Online Access Act (Onlinezugangsgesetz - OZG), the key law for the digital transformation of public administration in Germany. In his statement, Dr Botta advocated – in addition to the amendments already proposed – binding follow-up deadlines for the implementation of the OZG, a legal right to digital administration, independent monitoring, an optimised data protection cockpit and more digital participation.

The practical workshop on 'New Work in public administration', organised by the National Institute for Public Administration Germany (NIPAG) and chaired by Prof. Dr Jan Ziekow, was held on 12 and 13 June 2023. A range of experiences and insights into approaches to New Work from the private sector and public administration were presented to leaders at federal and state level.

The Committee for Internal and Legal Affairs of the Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein heard the testimony of Dr Jonas Botta (NIPAG Research Associate) as an expert. Dr Botta advised the committee on general administrative law, e-government law and state constitutional law.

The kick-off workshop for the project 'Evaluation of the implementation status of the Schleswig-Holstein Open Data Act (ODaG)', was held on 30 January 2023. The act, which came into force in April of last year, regulates the provision of public data to be published on the Schleswig-Holstein Open Data Portal.

In November 2022, the NIPAG completed its evaluation of the communication measures implemented by the Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE) and an external service provider commissioned by the BASE as part of the search for a repository for high-level radioactive waste.

In December 2022, the NIPAG completed the study commissioned by the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) and the German Civil Service Federation on 'The prevalence of violence against workers in urban and intercity passenger transport, and considers potential courses of action'. The study revealed a high level of violence against workers in the transport sector.

The final conference on 13 October in Berlin entitled 'Evaluation of the Planning Assurance Act: Experiences with the implementation of digital forms of public participation in planning and approval procedures', the research project 'Evaluation of the Planning Assurance Act (PlanSiG)' commissioned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) came to an end.