Optimizing digital governance: the Danish approach

Denmark. Denmark. Denmark. During the Gebruiker Centraal (User Needs First) Conference in March 2026, the name of this Scandinavian country came up repeatedly during the panel discussion on the Dutch Digitalisation Strategy. According to the panel, Denmark has a stronger foundation, legislation is simpler, and policy is clear. The country is a great example of what a digitalisation strategy should look like. But are things really as a good as they seem in Denmark? And if so, what are they doing differently? We asked Morten Meyerhoff Nielsen, expert in public sector digital transformation at the United Nations University.

Morten is no stranger to User Needs First. He was one of the speakers during our international conference in 2025. A year later, we asked Morten whether digitalisation in Denmark is going better than in the Netherlands. And yes, when it comes to the strategic approach to policy and governance, it is.

Strategy first

Denmark’s approach to digital government stands out from other countries in one fundamental way. While led by a specialised agency (the Danish Agency for Digital Government), it doesn’t just cover the central government. “It covers all three layers of the Danish public sector: local authorities, regions and central government.” The coordination of these three layers is not just on paper. The strategy is developed in close consultation with representatives across all three layers of government, but also non-governmental stakeholders. “There is a cross-governmental steering committee which both monitors and makes decisions around the implementation of the action plan.”

This steering committee ensures that the strategy is implemented — and that technology-enabled change does not get stuck in political debate. It’s a long-term administrative vision. “The vision is to ensure that the public sector is, for instance, efficient and effective”, regardless of the political vision or targets set by politicians.

The result is a public sector which strives to keep moving forward. That continuity requires political stability. Innovation, administrative reform and educational health reforms are too important to have changes in direction every three months or every two years. But that stability is easier said than done. One reason strategies stall is electoral timing. “Decision makers don’t make decisions when they’re up for re-election or campaigning.”

Denmark found a way to work around this. The approach has been to build broad political majorities across party lines — ensuring that a change of government means fine-tuning, not starting over. While other countries are still debating, Denmark has moved on to solving a more practical problem: how to stop governments asking citizens and businesses for information they already have.

Digital by default

One of the key answers was the digital-by-default strategy. This strategy started in 2012, and was largely accomplished in 2015. In that period, Denmark made a decisive shift. “The use of online services was no longer an active opt-in, no longer voluntary. It became mandatory.”

That shift did not happen without resistance. Danes were initially reluctant —they were comfortable using digital services for banking and shopping, but did not engage with government in the same way. The argument that eventually won them over was straightforward: good public services cost money, and with an ageing population, something had to change. “Something needs to be done. One of the things that is easy to do is changing the behavior of the government.”

The communication to both citizens and businesses was clear and direct. “The message was, if you’re online, you have to opt-in. If you don’t have access to the internet, don’t have the necessary digital skills or if you’re in a unique situation, call us or come to a service center and we will help you or help you get an exemption. But you must come down and ask for it.”

That mandatory shift came with a promise: “You may have to do this online, but we’re going to make it easy for you.” That promise was backed up with a usability standard for all government services online. When the government made this promise, Morten was head of section and part of the policy, strategy and business development team for borger.dk, a digital gateway to the public sector. “My last act as a civil servant was implementing the usability standard for government services and websites.”

A different political approach

This kind of decisiveness is harder to achieve in other countries, like the Netherlands. “Digital-by-default and mandatory use of key services online is far more politically sensitive in the Netherlands than it is in Denmark. In Denmark, it’s about efficiency, it’s about productivity, it is a user satisfaction and customer satisfaction agenda of doing things better.”

It’s also about coordination between the layers of government. Although many countries have the building blocks, that coordination between authorities, and especially the layers of government, remain a weak point. This is a weakness the Netherlands shares with many other countries. Dutch people pay high taxes, so they expect services from the government. “But why is government not coordinating between the different layers and between the different silos, such as municipalities, the tax authority and pension funds?”

Part of the explanation lies in recent history. The Dutch child benefits scandal — in which algorithms wrongly flagged thousands of families as fraudsters, with devastating consequences — cost a whole cabinet their job and left a deep mark on public trust. It made politicians and civil servants acutely wary of data-driven government. “And this is not uniquely Dutch. In Denmark, we’ve had similar challenges. Australia and Canada have had similar failures of IT projects. But it’s the way that government handles it that makes a difference.”

In Denmark, the tax agency is a case in point. “Our tax agency is a classical example of how not to use technology.” That said, the Danish Tax Agency does one thing right when things go wrong. When a data leak is identified, this agency immediately assess the extent of the damage, identifies who is affected, and notifies them. That is the right approach. But this went wrong in the Netherlands. “The worst you can do in terms of trust is to try and ignore the problem or claim that there is no problem.” Which is exactly what happened in both the Dutch and Australian cases.

Data as shared infrastructure

Another big difference between Denmark and other countries is that in Denmark, data exchange between government organisations is treated as a public good, not a transaction. “Government does no longer issue invoices to other government agencies. That’s sort of the guiding principle on that.” The same principle applies to core registers like the population and business registries. “The once-only principle has been applied. The central population registry is financed for all of the public sector in one go.” The alternative — citizens and businesses acting as messengers between agencies — is seen as absurd. And when government makes it easy, citizens respond.

Proactive government

The logical end-point of this thinking is a government that acts before citizens and businesses have to ask. “Government knows when you’re entitled to retire. Why do you have to apply for it?” What that looks like in practice becomes clear when you look at something as mundane as moving house. In Denmark, when you tell your municipality that you are moving, it asks whether your partner is coming along, automatically proposes a change of school or day care for your children, and issues a new health insurance card.

Similarly, all government and private sector entities that need your physical address will automatically be notified. And this is not just about moving house. For births and deaths, government trusts agents, like medical staff, to reach out to you proactively. In short, citizens do not need to navigate between agencies — the government connects the dots and in this respect, there is an untapped potential to use technology in different ways.

Usage, not access

A proactive government only makes sense if digital services are actually used. The gap between a country like the Netherlands and Denmark is not about who is online. The gap is not in the numbers. In both countries, the percentage of citizens who interact with government online is roughly the same: around 97-99% in Denmark, 96% in the Netherlands. But in Denmark, citizens interact with government much more frequently. In the Netherlands, it is often just once a year — for the annual tax return. Contact with local government is rare. That is where Denmark pulls ahead.

One group often cited as a reason to go slow on digital services are seniors. That argument does not hold up in reality. “Seniors are online. And the longer you wait, the more seniors will be online.” Every time two Danes retire, there’s only one Dane entering the labour force. If nothing changes, this will become unaffordable in the future. This demographic pressure makes proactive, effective and cost-efficient service delivery urgent. That is why Denmark has chosen to use technology not as a goal, but as a means.

A window of opportunity

One concrete opportunity to accelerate that change is already on the horizon. The EU ID-wallet is coming — and it is more than just a digital identity card. This wallet offers a new opportunity. By breaking down traditional service silos, government can design predictive, proactive and personalised services. Technology and data are the foundation for a new generation of government services – smarter, faster, and built around the citizen rather than the institution. It offers an opportunity for countries to close the gap with Denmark. Perhaps something we can then happily discuss at a future conference.