Policy

The 'Federal Government's electronic legislative process' project comprises part of the effort to consolidate Federal Government services and aims to put the legislative process on new IT footing. The project aims to eliminate existing media breaks and redundancies in the process within and between the Federal Government, the German Bundestag, the German Bundesrat, the Mediation Committee and the Office of the Federal President, and to implement an end-to-end electronic legislative process. The objective is to conduct the legislative process at the federal level completely electronically, without media discontinuity and interoperably between all parties involved, in order to future-proof the legislative process and adapt it to current technological developments. The 'E-legislation' project is comprised of multiple sub-projects and products. The National Institute for Public Administration Germany is responsible for one of the sub-projects and is working on the consolidation and digitalisation of the numerous guidance documents, guidance and manuals available at federal level for the legislative process.

In 2021, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend - BMFSFJ) published a guidance document on the implementation of a gender-sensitive impact assessment of legislation. The guide offers direction throughout the legislative process as to whether and what gender equality-specific effects are to be expected, as well as how the gender equality impact of a regulation can be enhanced when the Federal Government is engaged in drafting a regulation. The objective of the study was twofold: firstly, to examine the prerequisites for incorporating an assessment requirement in government regulatory projects and secondly, to identify the conditions that must be met for the gender perspective to become a permanent feature of the Federal Government's decision-making process in the future.

This cross-sectoral study, initiated by the Federal Chancellery, addressed the potential for an analysis of open government in the federal administration. The study was conducted in accordance with the implementation of the first obligation of the National Action Plan for Germany's participation in the Open Government Partnership. This involved the identification of areas of research and action for the continued development of open government in Germany.