Digitisation brings great new possibilities for the public service provider. If the change process is handled right, there is a potential service leap from traditional face-to-face interaction with the citizens to new forms of self-service and citizen empowerment. This leap can help bridge the increasing gap between what the average citizen expects and what the public servant is actually able to provide.
For every citizen moved from traditional to digital service, the cost reduction is so substantial that it can easily finance further investments in optimising services - digital and others.
An important part of this change management is empowering citizens that currently do not understand or have access to the modern digital world. Empowering the most able in society to use self-services is a first step as it enables us to channel our efforts to the groups in society that are in great danger of missing out on the digital revolution.
As public servants, our responsibility here is not only or primarily the design and implementation of new services or the handling of cutbacks in service personnel that follow. More importantly, our long-term success is measured by our ability to reallocate and reinvest resources to those citizen groups which are lagging behind in digitisation.
Digitisation gives us a unique chance to rethink the way we interact with citizens and to give the service experience a welcome makeover. If we do it right, it also has the potential to ease access for the most vulnerable groups in society. If we do not, there is a substantial risk that we are adding a digital barrier to the barriers that are already there.
So first things first - as the main element in the underlying business case is moving as large a group as possible as fast as possible to digital self-service, it is pivotal to get a very precise understanding of the number of citizen interactions on the various contact channels (self-service, telephone, face-to-face, email and letter).
These numbers are to be a central part of your business intelligence as the success of the change process can be monitored here. When we established this information back in 2009, among other things we found out that 27 per cent of Copenhageners preferred to contact us by mail or email. And also that we used more than 51 per cent of our resources to provide services to this group of citizens.
Out of this came a determined effort to reduce written communication with the citizens as much as possible. And for every single interaction per email or letter replaced by digital self-service we save US$ 21.2 that is reinvested in better citizen services.
The reinvestment strategy is made able by a clever approach to cutbacks and business cases in the local government; as a general rule an internal bank hands out investments up front to all projects with ROIs of 16 per cent minimum. This makes it possible to finance and implement digital solutions first, then work hard to actually change the citizen contact pattern, and as a final step to reorganise resources and move personnel to where they are needed more.
What is crucial from a change perspective is that it gives us time to make things work before cutting the budgets. All too often the process is reversed and we are forced to reduce spending without investing in our organisation or being able to update the service to what is expected of us.
Finally, nothing happens without the political will to change the relations between citizens and public sector, and to set ambitious goals. The Danish National Parliament has passed legislation stating that 80 per cent of all interactions on a long list of service areas must become digital self-services by the end of 2015.
This sends a very clear signal about what to expect from both public service providers and from the citizens. And also tells us that it is of utmost importance that we finish digitisation of the vast majority as fast as possible. From 2015 onward, we will need all the resources we can muster to ensure that we leave no one behind in this digital revolution.
Hear more from Kristoffersen as he speaks on December 2, 2013 at GovCFO Forum Australia. He will be sharing on digitisation as an opportunity to rethink the relationship between citizen and public service provider.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Siggi Kristoffersen
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 18.11.2013
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