Better Public Service?
The New Zealand government wants to increase the proportion of many public service transactions carried out on-line from 30% to 70% (The Dominion Post 14.8.12).
The most pure public service ethic is for a government department to provide its services, within the law, when, where and how the public wants them.
In practice, this ethic becomes tainted for various reasons and most of all when there is an economic climate of government cost cutting leading to public servant redundancies.
The above statistic shows that 70% of people currently requiring the government services referred to get them off-line either because they prefer it or for lack of availability on-line.
The ethic is not tainted if more services are made available on-line to meet known latent demand or when existing on-line services are improved to make them more useful to the public. Service cuts are another matter all together.
The current catch-cry of government is one of “delivering better public services”. It is apparent, however, that what is happening is what is good for the current government without much regard for the consumer.
As an example, once you could walk into a government department and be served immediately or after a reasonable wait. You can’t do that anymore in many situations and have to have an appointment. That is if there is still a local office to serve your needs. There are fewer of those nowadays.
Those inconveniences to the public are a lowering of standards of service. Our freedom of choice is reduced.
Let’s call it what it is rather than dishonestly try to sell it as better public services.
The most pure public service ethic is for a government department to provide its services, within the law, when, where and how the public wants them.
In practice, this ethic becomes tainted for various reasons and most of all when there is an economic climate of government cost cutting leading to public servant redundancies.
The above statistic shows that 70% of people currently requiring the government services referred to get them off-line either because they prefer it or for lack of availability on-line.
The ethic is not tainted if more services are made available on-line to meet known latent demand or when existing on-line services are improved to make them more useful to the public. Service cuts are another matter all together.
The current catch-cry of government is one of “delivering better public services”. It is apparent, however, that what is happening is what is good for the current government without much regard for the consumer.
As an example, once you could walk into a government department and be served immediately or after a reasonable wait. You can’t do that anymore in many situations and have to have an appointment. That is if there is still a local office to serve your needs. There are fewer of those nowadays.
Those inconveniences to the public are a lowering of standards of service. Our freedom of choice is reduced.
Let’s call it what it is rather than dishonestly try to sell it as better public services.
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