Key facts
The Federal Office for National Economic Supply (FONES) is the federal competence centre for supplying the country with essential goods and services. Over the past seven years, several studies and reports have criticised the FONES’s structural and procedural organisation and, above all, the level of digitalisation in national economic supply (referred to as “national supply” in the report). The Federal Council therefore decided in 2022 to implement a comprehensive reform to ensure that national supply remains functional even in times of instability and uncertainty. The core of the reform involves fundamentally professionalising the organisation, harmonising and digitalising processes, and revising the legal basis. In 2024, the FONES launched the “Harmonisation of Digitalisation National Economic Supply” (Hardi NES) digitalisation programme with a budget of CHF 18.7 million. The Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) examined the programme to determine whether it sufficiently digitalises the monitoring of the supply situation.
The audit showed that the programme’s projects have so far yielded good results and made initial progress in terms of digitalisation. The programme is helping to improve the monitoring of the supply situation. However, the programme’s projects are focused on the six existing specialist areas and have not yet exploited the potential offered by standardised and digitalised processes. In addition, the FONES must ensure that the list of essential goods and services specified in the National Economic Supply Act is kept up to date. Furthermore, the FOCL should make more consistent use of its statutory powers and clearly define how it exercises its role within the Federal Administration.