Ethiopian Public Administration,

Governance and Ethics

Concepts of Public Service Delivery

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 Contents

1. Definition of Public Service Delivery

2. Elements of Public Service Delivery
3. Improving Public Service Delivery
4. Citizen-Centered Service Delivery

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 1. Definition of Public Service Delivery

• Public service is
- a service provided by the government to people
living within its jurisdiction, either directly or
indirectly.

• Public service delivery includes those activities of

government institutions aimed at:
- satisfying the need and wants of citizens,
- ensuring the well being of society, and
- enforcing laws, regulations and directives of the
government. (e.g., police, defense)
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 Reflection

• Describe the concepts of customer

expectations, wants and needs?

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 The concept of customer expectation, need
and wants
• Customer expectations are simply what the customer
expects regarding their interactions and service levels
they will receive from organizations.
• Customer needs refer to what the customer requires in
order to solve a problem
• Customer want refers simply what the customer desires.
for example, a customer may "want" a particular model of
a car, but it's quite possible that would be a poor choice for
the customer.

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 1. Definition of Public Service Delivery …

• Public Service delivery requires systematic methods

whereby activities are arranged properly
• When there is a good process, customers can get the
services in an effective, efficient, transparent and
equitable manner.
• Public service delivery involves input-
process- output
• The government institutions deliver services by using
different inputs, and carries out these inputs through a
process of transformation to get the outputs.
 Reflection
• Discuss in pair about the major problems of
public service delivery in Ethiopia and reflect
to the plenary

• 5 minutes

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 2. Problems of the Ethiopian civil service in the delivery of services

 Positive attitude towards public service has not developed to the

desired extent;
 Insufficient recognition and acceptance that citizens have rights
to receive services from government
 Lack of accountability in civil service institutions for failure to
meet expected performance
 Service delivery is long and time consuming, based on
excessively hierarchical organizational structure and obsolete
management practices
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2. Problems of the Ethiopian civil service in the
delivery of services
 Services are in most cases provided in a manner that
suits the administrative convenience of the providers
rather than meet the needs of the recipients;
 They concentrate more on concerns for inputs and
routine activities than on achieving tangible outputs;
• The public is seldom given clear and adequate
information on the availability of particular services
and the conditions required to get these services;
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 2.Problems of the Ethiopian civil service in the
delivery of services
 Some organizations do not have any formally constituted

complaints handling mechanism and some do not use it

properly

 Service users are rarely consulted about their needs

 Service delivery improvement is not given sufficient attention

 Lack of coordination and cooperation among various

departments within an institution and between related

institutions often hamper efficiency in service delivery;

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 3. Characteristics of Public Service

Public services have unique characteristics that makes

them different from private service, such as:
• They are provided using tax payers money.
• Target a significant proportion of the citizenry (any
citizen does have a right to claim to get the public
service).
• Public services are basic goods. If these services are
not properly provided to the citizen, it may harm the
well being of the society.
• The out puts of public services mostly are the
results of group efforts.
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Basic components of customer services

Customer service contain two basic elements.

Such as
1. Material service like quality, time, cost, etc.
2. Personal service like body language, verbal
communication, using customer’s name,
showing respect, being calm and confident

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 Group Discussions
• What are the fundamental elements to do
effective service delivery?

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 Group Discussions
• What are the Fundamental elements to do
effective service delivery?
1. Identify and understand customers
2. Build customer service strategy
3. Recruit and manage the right people
4. Set service standard
5. Shape policy and practice with customers

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 4. Elements of public service Delivery
• To provide effective public service delivery, our public
institutions need to follow certain fundamental
principles/elements.
1. Identify and understand your customers
-a customer is someone who makes a habit to purchase
goods or services or the ultimate beneficiary of the
service provided.
- Customers can be grouped into:
– Internal Customers: people working in different
departments, branches, etc. with in an organization.
– External Customers: Individuals, business people,
groups outside the organization,
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etc.
 4. Elements of public service Delivery …
-We have to know which category of citizen
we are here to serve?
– Who are they?
– Where they are found?
– What they need? etc.
-We have to ask them their wants,
expectations, and their priority needs.
-So, unless we identify them and understand
our customers, it is very difficult to take
measures to satisfy their needs.
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 4.Elements of public service Delivery …
2. Building customer service strategy
- To provide effective service, Public service
organizations should build effective service strategy
that put the citizen at the centre.
- This means all the planning process, all the
delivery process of the public institutions must take
at the center the expectations and the needs of the
citizens.
- A customer service strategy consists of a vision,
an action plan, an implementation plan and the
measurement of improvement.
 4. Elements of public service Delivery …

3. Recruit and manage the right people

- Government institutions should be able to recruit
the right people; and not only recruiting but they
should also be able to maintain them. Because
experienced civil servants are very much
expensive.
- So, we have to recruit the right person on merit
base and try to retain them by providing all the
necessary rewards and compensations.

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 4. Elements of public service Delivery …
4. Service standards
• Standards are measurable indicators or levels that are
agreed upon to ensure that products or services are of
the desired quality.
• Service standards clearly outline the level and quality
of service that our customers expect from our
institution.
• Standards may measure the outcome of the service or
the process of giving the service.
• Service standards should be communicated to
internal and external customers.
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 4. Elements of public service Delivery …

• Unless we set the standard at which we are

ready to provide the services to our citizens, it
is very much difficult again to properly
respond to customers expectations.

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 4. Elements of public service Delivery …

5. Shape policy and practice with customers

Public sector policies and practices should be
developed through consultation with
- community and stakeholder groups.
- the expertise and opinion from customers.
- commercial enterprises.
- Non-for-profit institutions

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 Discussion Question

Discuss the problems and

drawbacks of the Ethiopian
public institutions in delivering
services to citizens.

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 5. Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…
• Citizen-centered service delivery is simply mean:
- incorporating citizens’ concerns and interests at
every stage of our service design and delivery
process.
- the guiding principles of our public sector
organizations must be citizens’ needs. Citizens’
needs have to become our public organizations
organizing principles.
- We have to think from customers’ perspectives
rather than from our organization’s perspectives.

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 5. Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…

• So, what measures need to be taken to make

our public service more customer-centered?
• The South Africa’s Batho Pele (Citizen first)
principles can really provide our public
institutions an excellent policy framework in
implementation strategy for citizen-centered
service delivery.

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 Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…
• The following layers are dedicated to describe each
of these principles.
i) Consultation
-To identify and set priority needs and
expectations of our citizens, there must be an
involvement of the citizens.
ii) Setting Service standards
-This is to mean setting indicators by which we can
measure the outputs of our services or the
indicators to measure the processes of giving
services to the citizens.
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 Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…
iii) Access
• accessibility is an important indicator that shows
our services are really customer-centered or not
• Because public service is citizen service, all
citizens must have equal access to the public
service.
• For instance, the disables, those in rural areas
should have to get equal access to all the
government services.

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 Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…
iv) Courtesy
- It is giving public services to the citizen in good
manner.
- All the necessary respect are expected from civil
servants while they are providing services to the
customers .
v) Information:
-Customers should get full & accurate information
about public services they are entitled to get.

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 Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…

vi) Openness:
-Public service is a service provided by tax payers
money. So, they have the right to see how public
institutions operate, such as the process that
follow, the capital they have investing, so on.
vii) Redress:
- When ever there are unfulfilled promises by
public institutions, the institution should ask
apologize to the customers. Not only this, but
effective key remedies are expected from that
institution. Fisseha GHM
 Citizen-Centered Service Delivery…

viii) Value for money:

-Public service should be given to citizens
economically and efficiently.

ix) Transparency:
-Public institutions should be open while they
are providing services. Therefore, all the
citizens can get access to information about
what, why, how public institutions are
providing such services.
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 Discussion Questions
• Are the Ethiopian public sector
organizations giving a focus for
Citizen-Centered Service Delivery?
• Evaluate the service delivered by the
Ethiopian public organizations as per
The South Africa’s Batho Pele (Citizen
first) principles.
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 Five–Drivers of Service Delivery
Improvement
• the five drivers that influence customer
satisfaction are:
– Timeliness
– Knowledge, competence of staff
– Courtesy, comfort
– Fairness
– Outcome
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 Measuring customer satisfaction

• The internal and external variables of

the service delivery process that should
be measured are:
– Client expectations
– Perceptions of service experience
– Level of importance
– Level of satisfaction
– Priorities for improvement
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 Measuring customer satisfaction…
• Understanding the client expectations at the onset of the service
experience is crucial to addressing service satisfaction
• The presence of service gap affects customer satisfaction
• A service gap is defined as the disparity between a client’s
expectations of a service and their perception of the service
experience.
• The existence of a negative service gap (i.e. when expectations
exceed actual service delivery levels) leads to a less than
satisfactory service experience.
• Conversely, when expectations are lower than the level of
service delivery, a satisfactory service experience is realized .

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 The citizen’s charter
• The citizen's charter is a policy
statement about relationship
with customers.
–Customers/Citizens- Rights
–Responsibilities of Citizens

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 Customers/Citizens- Rights

• Right of Ethical Conduct

• The right to obtain access to personal
information
• The right to obtain access to official
information
• The right to obtain reasons for official
decisions
• The right to procedural fairness
• The right of protected disclosure of official
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 Responsibilities of Citizens
• To comply with the law
• To comply with the reasonable procedural
requirements of the body
• To provide reasonable proof of their identity
• To provide reasonable proof of any claim,
entitlement, or complaint which they seek to
have recognized by a body
• To refrain from encouraging a civil servant or
public official to act corruptly or unlawfully
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 Responsibilities of Citizens
• To refrain from deceptive, dishonest or
fraudulent conduct
• To refrain from making frivolous or
vexatious complaints
• To give an honest account at all times of
their official dealings with civil servant,
public official, or public body

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