20 I I I . I N N O VAT I V E P U B L I C A D M I N I S T R AT I O N zzBasic services for Federal Government departments must only be developed once and in a single location. We are planning and developing these services within the framework of the programme “Sharing Government IT” (Gemeinsame IT des Bundes) and making them available to all federal authorities. zzThere is a need for swifter, more efficient management of procurement processes. We are therefore standardising and ramping up the digitisation of the government’s procurement processes. Our work on further developing e-procurement and e-invoicing is in process. 2. Government IT: protecting its autonomy and ability to take action Cloud computing and largely closed IT ecosystems are increasing the technological dependence of private and government users. In order to protect the government’s autonomy and ability to take action, we want to reduce or avoid, if possible, the reliance of government information technology on global IT corporations. zzWe are merging the government’s IT networks and computing centres and creating the necessary legal framework for this purpose. zzWe are giving public procurement a more innovative focus. This approach is supporting innovative companies and boosting competition in the IT sector. zzWe are supporting uniform standards and championing greater interoperability. To this end, we are developing and implementing a comprehensive legislative framework for ICT standardisation within the federal administrative authorities. zzIn the case of procurement by the federal administrative authorities, we are eliminating practical obstacles to Open Source Software (OSS) to promote equality of opportunity. 3. Ensuring secure government communication We will maintain and further improve the trustworthiness of the German government’s communication systems. zzWe use our own dedicated networks to the greatest extent possible, using trusted components, to route data belonging to the federal administrative authorities. zzWith the major government network consolidation pro- ject “Netze des Bundes”, we are providing a cross-departmental communication infrastructure offering highlevel security. The three cross-departmental or Federal and Länder networks (IVBB & IVBV/BVN and DOI) are being fully migrated to this infrastructure, which can act as an integration platform for all of the federal administration’s wide area networks. Agreements on integrating cross-departmental networks are to follow from 2018. zzIn the area of information security, we are working closely together with representatives at all government and public administration levels. Where possible and practical in this process, we are drawing on the standar­ disation expertise of the IT Planning Council arising from the Interstate Agreement on IT.