City of Reykjavik

In many municipalities today, what's now considered standard wasn't the case before. For those applying for financial aid—a last resort in the welfare system—there's no longer a need to invest time and energy in figuring out the service details and its functioning. The anxiety associated with visiting the service center or discussing with the service representative is a thing of the past. Applicants can now effortlessly log in using digital credentials and respond to some simple questions. Following this, they receive a clear and concise update on whether they are eligible as well as their application's status and progress.

Alongside the application, the City of Reykjavík and Kolibri developed a back office solution for applications that has since been implemented and adapted by the Association of Icelandic Municipalities and Digital Iceland, and rolled out to over 10 other municipalities since then. The back office interface simplifies the handling and communication with the applicant, and reduces manual work.

The time saved by stopping printing, scanning, photocopying, and explaining the same things over and over again to people was real, but no city employee was laid off. The time that was saved simply went into providing better welfare services - supporting applicants to enable them to get off financial aid and stand on their own two feet sooner.