If you drilled a hole through my floor and maneuvered a tad south, you’d wind up near Craig Thomler’s office, where he writes about Australian electronic government initiatives. Craig, an online communications manager for the government, raises probing questions and I enjoy reading his perspective on eGov AU.
In his latest entry, Craig questions whether the Australian government should increase the number of public services online or improve the delivery of existing services.
To support his quandary, Craig points me to an article at MyCustomer.com that profiles the British government and their public sector mantra of service, service, service.
Recognizing a failed deadline to have every United Kingdom service online by 2005, government officials stepped to bat with the goal to improve employee- and customer-centric marketing techniques, including the necessity to operate more services with less overhead.
Not an easy task for any business, let alone a government infrastructure; but armed with a desire to enact sustainable change, collaborate more efficiently, adopt a problem-solving philosophy, and form public-private partnerships, things started to happen.
MyCustomer.com editor Jennifer Kirkby talked to Cambridgeshire chief constable Julie Spence, who provides the following guidelines that help to provide myths and facts on civic engagement:
Citizen focus myths
a. Face to face contact
b. Spending more time with people
c. Being nice
d. Doing everything in the guidance/doctrine
e. Soft and fluffy
f. Doing everything the citizen wants
g. Neighbourhood policingCitizen focus facts
i. Adult to adult relationships
ii. Listening and understanding
iii. Being responsive to citizens views on good service
iv. Being fair
v. Treating people with integrity, respect and sensitivity
vi. Positive, proactive, professional service
vii. Supportive development of staff
Focusing on the third fact, how many federal government agencies (let alone state and local governments) are responsive to citizenry? Responding to a citizen is not limited to the rare occasion someone enters a public building or is encountered at an outdoor event.
How many government employees are taking the time to engage with their customers — the taxpayers who fund their salaries and the voters who usher in new leaders? Engagement cannot effectively occur from the corner office or behind veiled curtains.
As to whether the old ways should be tossed or the new should be brought in, I don’t think it’s so cut and dry. The question for every government manager to answer is who determines the priority of what is old and what is new: the manager or the citizen?
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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{ 2 comments }
“…how many federal government agencies (let alone state and local governments) are responsive to citizenry?”
In this day of interactive collaboration, it’s still amazing to see the only way to communicate with most elected official is through their “contact me” button that launches a form or your Outlook email.
What is even more deflating is to hit the “send” button and see a pop-up that states to the effect: “due to the amount of email I receive, (a) I only respond to requests from my constituents” or (b) “…it may take days or weeks for me to respond.” I believe they would be better off simply suggesting if you want to contact me, either “call my office or mail a letter.”
I work for a small interactive agency that is finding a niche in eGovernment for small- to medium-sized cities. As far as your question goes, I can’t answer it for the federal or the state level, but I do know that the cities we’ve converted to the eGovernment system so far seem to be happy with it.
In our initial interviews, we’ve found that the city employees want to make both their lives and their citizens’ lives easier by putting certain things online, such as paying property taxes, requesting birth and death records, requesting building permits, and posting basic information that they get asked a hundred times a day, such as when leaves are picked up in certain neighborhoods. Thus far the response from the cities we have built “virtual city halls” for is great, and they say their citizens like the idea, too. I think that this sort of eGov is fine for smaller populations and on a more local level, because if there is ever any problem people can still literally walk into city hall and take care of things, but anything bigger I think may get way too impersonal.
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