1. 56
Saarland
“CONIFERE is a precious tool that will help us use our limited resources wisely.”
Karl Rauber, Minister of Federal and European Affairs, Head of the Chancery, Saarland
At all times, the government must be able to
justify the use and success of public funds and
grants. Given its tight financial situation, the
Saarland government has decided to increase
the visibility and efficiency of its funding
system, at the same time optimizing
administration management. With this in
mind, in 2002 it began planning to set up a
public-funding database, called CONIFERE.
The system was designed jointly by the
software firm Proximity i tec and business
intelligence (BI) expert Business Objects.
More than just an information management
system, in the short term the new solution
was to offer query and performance analysis
features at several aggregation levels.
A Centralized Database
CONIFERE allows permanent access to
comprehensive and up-to-date information on
the status of all projects and programmes
funded by the land, the federal state, the
German government and the European Union
(EU), which are often closely imbricated and
interdependent. Ongoing monitoring of
funding practices should also facilitate the
work of the departments in charge of legal
and administrative control.
By processing the data entered, they can, for
example, check whether the funds earmarked
for support projects throughout the land were
allocated to the proper recipients and used
appropriately. It gives the administration the
means to identify fraud or unduly paid
amounts early on, and to correct the situation.
Decentralized Data Sources
The centralized database contains information
supplied by all the ministries in different
forms. Departments that grant many
subsidies, e.g. for the job market or business
development, process the applications using
dedicated workflow programs and transfer
the data to CONIFERE through electronic
channels or via defined interfaces. In addition
to sending the funding data to the database,
these applications produce the reports
required by the EU and automate funds
application processing in the concerned
departments. The objective is the integrated
processing of all funding measures. In
addition to this automatic processing by
dedicated applications, in a few special cases
the data is entered manually in standardized
Excel spreadsheets.
CHALLENGE
1 Saarland devotes
roughly a third of
its budget to
funding public
programs and
projects
SOLUTION
1 Implementation
of a public funding
database called
CONIFERE, based
on Business Objects
BENEFITS
1 Improved insight
and efficiency of
funding system
1 Optimized
management of
administration
S TATE FUNDING ADMINISTRATION
Germany

2. 57GOVERNMENT/EDUCATION
For ministerial departments and services that do
not grant enough subsidies to justify the use of
dedicated applications, they can enter their data
directly in CONIFERE using input screens. This
way, the data from the decentralized systems is
immediately available.
CONIFERE Meets Varied Needs,
Manages User Rights
Since mid-2004, some 150 employees working in a
number of ministries and departments use the
central funding database CONIFERE as a complete
reporting and BI system.
The database currently contains more than 30,000
records. Using the InfoView module, a component
of the Business Objects analytic environment
integrated in CONIFERE, users with the
appropriate access rights can create their own
reports with point-and-click ease—without needing
additional technical skills.
In addition to customized reports, a number of
standard reports can be accessed by specific user
groups. However, to extract information from
CONIFERE, users must log in and can only access
the information they are authorized to see.
Business Objects also manages user rights using
a sophisticated authorisation concept.
An Informed Minister, 24/7
The Saarland Minister of Economic Affairs also
enjoys another advantage. When the minister,
Dr. Hanspeter Georgi, travels, he can query the
public-funding database using his laptop via the
UMTS and GPRS network to perform
fine-grained analysis and generate ad hoc reports.
He can then quickly know, for example, how many
new jobs were created by the “single business
investment incentive” in town X or district Y.
Likewise, he can easily compare the number of jobs
actually created against program objectives.
In this manner, no matter where he is, the minister
can always access all necessary information on the
use and availability of funds. Before the Business
Objects solution was implemented, this kind of
query had to be entered manually, which was very
time-consuming.
Next Step: Creation of a Guide
and a Control System
This information management and reporting
system is just the first step. Other steps to develop
the central funding database CONIFERE are
currently being studied. A public-assistance
funding guide and a monitoring and management
system are currently being considered. The guide
would contain all the information on Saarland’s
public-funding and grant programs and provide
directives in this area. Furthermore, by gradually
developing the database into a monitoring and
management system, subsidy programs and
support initiatives could be assessed using relevant
indicators.
Saarland Points the Way
for the Rest of the Country
Saarland has bigger plans than the stated objectives
of its public-funding support programmes (such as
job creation). In the medium term, it hopes to
expand its objectives on a broader scale (e.g., by
optimizing the job market sector) in accordance to
the plans of the federal government. The Ministry
of Economics and Labor and the Ministry of the
Interior, Family, Women's Rights, and Sports were
chosen as pilot sites for this management system.
But Saarland already has the reputation of a
pioneer in Germany. It is currently the only state in
the country to have successfully implemented a
truly integrated, real-time solution for subsidy and
grant monitoring through a central database.
About Saarland
1 Activity:
Government
Saarland is one of the smaller German states with roughly 1 million inhabitants.
The state lies in the south west of Germany and has France and Luxembourg as its
neighbours,The areas of activity of the Ministry for Economic Affairs are financial and
logistical help for jobs, infrastructure and general business conditions in Saarland,
practical research and use of technology in businesses, investment support, promotion
of foreign trade, career training, support for start-ups and young enterprises and career
training.