Suomi.fi Messages has significantly reduced the amount of paper mail in Tampere early childhood education and care – ‘Messages could benefit municipal organisations across the board’

The City of Tampere introduced the eVaka system in spring 2022. Now, decisions on early childhood education and care and pre-primary education are also delivered electronically with Suomi.fi Messages via eVaka. The change significantly reduced the number of decisions to be sent by post and work related to mailing, and it streamlined internal processes. Based on the positive experiences, the city employees are amazed why Suomi.fi Messages are not used even more extensively in municipal organisations.

The City of Tampere introduced the eVaka system a few years ago. The system had previously, in 2020, been developed and implemented by the City of Espoo. For developing the system, the cities were granted joint support from the Ministry of Finance. After Tampere, eVaka has also been implemented by Oulu and Turku. At the moment, implementations of the system are also made available in Tampere to the eight surrounding municipalities.

Suomi.fi Messages has always been part of the system and it is implemented in all participating municipalities. All decisions made in early childhood education and care and pre-primary education, such as decisions on places, values and payments, are sent electronically through the Messages.

"The ecological aspect is important in all this.
When we do not spend working time
on mailing decisions, the costs are lower.
You can focus more on real issues."

Suomi.fi Messages has reduced the amount of paper mail

The introduction of Suomi.fi Messages has significantly reduced the amount of paper mail in early childhood education and care in Tampere. For recipients who have not enabled Suomi.fi Messages, letters are printed and mailed directly through the Suomi.fi service. In other words, paper mailing no longer means separate working hours for the staff of early childhood education and care because Suomi.fi Messages can automatically direct messages to either the electronic or the paper mail channels. Tampere city employees are happy that, in addition to reducing working hours, the change also reduces their negative impact on nature. 

"The ecological aspect is important in all this. Of course, at the same time the costs are lower, when we do not spend working time on mailing decisions, and you can focus more on real issues’, says Heli Ketola, eVaka Product Owner at the City of Tampere.

In addition, they are happy that people who use Messages receive decisions much faster. The service ensures the guardian gets the decision immediately, whereas it would take several days, sometimes even a week, to get a hold of the decision as a paper letter.

Municipal organisations could use Suomi.fi Messages across the board

At the moment, the employees are able to share that a few more municipalities are considering introducing eVaka, and we have received inquiries about it. They feel Suomi.fi Messages could be used considerably more in municipal organisations.

‘Yes, Suomi.fi Messages streamlines processes, and the benefits of the service are evident. However, it is surprisingly rare in the services of many other municipalities. We believe that there is great potential for new implementations across the board’, Ketola says.

The more citizens switch to receiving official mail electronically via Suomi.fi Messages, the smoother the process will become.