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Public Policy Analysis was a major subject for my Masters course at the LSE. Later as a consultant at the Ministry of Finance in Mauritius that I gradually realized the disjoint between the intentions of #policymakers, the execution by #civilservices and the services the citizens ultimately receive. I moved on to head the #publicservice consulting arm of a pan-African firm and subsequently moved around in several countries across the world interacting closely with residents, #politicians and #civilservants. With the rare exception of Singapore, I am yet to come across a place where I haven’t found the same disjoint and hence the discontent that I witnessed in Mauritius. Communication is the favorite whipping boy of public sector consultants and many symptomatic solutions have been attempted to address it to no avail. A single platform that puts all stakeholders on one side and the problems they address on the other create a transparent process. It builds a trusted relationship helping to deliver #citizencentric services efficiently. This may not be a panacea but a right foot forward for a government that wishes to, as President Joe Biden said in his inauguration speech, “lead by the power of its example and not by example of its power”.

The challenges results from:

• Citizen and government interfaces are opaque
• Online forms are not for everyone, particularly often for those most in need – e.g. aged, underprivileged, immigrants
• Contact Centres are frustrating to get through; services are often poor due to inadequacy of often low-skilled, fast moving staff and incongruity with service delivery
• Lack of shared understanding of state of affairs among policy makers, service producers and citizens

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Mike Phillips 20 Aug, 2024

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BattlepassHIP 20 Aug, 2024