Chemnitz wins innovation award
The Saxon State Minister for Justice and Europe, Dr Jürgen Martens, announced the winners of the KOMMUNOVUM innovation prize at a ceremony today and awarded the city of Chemnitz 3rd place. In doing so, he honoured the "Joint customer portal for social services" project of the city's social services department. The event took place in the auditorium centre of the Technical University in Dresden. The prize of 5,000 euros will be used to install a tactile guidance system.
The project honoured today was launched in May 2013. Following renovation work, a new central contact point was created on the ground floor of the Moritzhof Citizens' and Administration Centre in Bahnhofstraße. Since then, it has made it easier for customers of the social welfare office to apply for financial social benefits (see also PM 280/2013). These are benefits that serve to secure livelihoods in the broadest sense. The city had centralised the application for these benefits, which were previously offered in eight different service areas of the social welfare office.
The new portal on the ground floor of the also includes a new waiting area. Once customers have purchased a ticket for the social benefit they require, they are directed to the ten caseworkers in the individual service areas via an automatic call system.
Two other employees are available to provide waiting customers with quick information and general assistance. For example, blind and visually impaired people or people with other disabilities can ask them to log into the call system.