Encouraging Society Participation Through Conversations About Public Service Processes

Abstract

This paper posits the idea that conversations about public services encourage society participation in public issues and establish closer ties between society and government service providers. It is argued that by making society aware of how a service is provided – its process - citizens (clients) may develop a better attitude for interacting with government and other service users, by discussing problems, correcting previously-available information, increasing their knowledge about the processes. This paper presents a tool designed to support conversations about public service processes and the results obtained with a case study of its use. The results suggest that conversations have stimulated interaction among citizens and government services providers as well as allowed identification of service improvement opportunities.