Outgoing mail management (Brupost)
The communication preferences of citizens and companies have changed in recent years. We are witnessing a digital transition that can be seen in the increasing use of email and online forms, as well as the eBox. The institutions of the Brussels Region want to respond positively to this change and be able to communicate digitally with those of their interlocutors who wish to do so. At the beginning of 2022, more than 27% of Belgians aged over 18 had already activated their eBox.
Sending a letter: the findings
For Brussels public administrations, sending a paper letter costs an average of €1.84 (excluding personnel costs).
In Brussels, nearly 10 million letters are sent by public administrations each year, costing 19 million euros excluding personnel costs.
A preliminary study in 2021
In 2021, easy.brussels analysed the outgoing mail processing of 104 regional and local institutions of the Brussels-Capital Region.
This analysis found the following:
- 81% of mail is sent on paper and prepared internally by the various departments (printing, enveloping, etc.). Only distribution is entrusted to an external service provider (bpost). In-house paper processing is the most expensive: €2.01/dispatch on average, excluding personnel costs.
- 11% of mail is sent on paper and processed by an external service provider. Mail is sent in digital format to the external service provider which takes care of printing, preparation and injection into the postal network. The cost of sending a letter is €1.13 for centralised paper processing via an external partner.
- 8% of mail is sent directly digitally (by email or in the eBox). The average cost of a digital mailing then decreases to €0.10.
Several administrations have launched actions to digitise mail processing and the related administrative processes. However, the analysis revealed certain obstacles to this digital transition: technical obstacles, legal and organisational constraints, and financial investments that are sometimes too high for the budgetary resources of some institutions.
BRUPOST, a regional outgoing mail management service
easy.brussels, in collaboration with the BRIC (Brussels Regional Informatics Centre), has launched the Brupost service.
Thanks to its regional and centralised approach, Brupost provides a technical and functional framework that will help overcome the obstacles to digital transformation by supporting administrations and institutions in making the change.
Brupost’s objectives:
- offer the public administrations of the Brussels-Capital Region the possibility to send mail to the eBox of those interlocutors who wish this (citizen or company);
- optimise and centralise the processing of paper mail sent by post by working with an external partner.
BRUPOST operation
In practical terms, the Brupost service will serve as an intermediary interface between mail senders (administrations) and recipients (citizens, companies, administrations, etc.). Administrations will send mail to the Brupost service in digital format. The mails will then be sent in accordance with the choice of the recipients:
- either in digital form to the eBox (citizen or company),
- or by mail via an external partner which will print them, put them in an envelope, stamp them and give them to a postal operator for distribution.
This external partner will be selected via a regional public contract so that all administrations in the region can enjoy the same conditions.
Contact
If you have any questions, please contact easy.brussels via the email address [email protected]