The Role of Public Services in achieving National Prosperity

A country whose quality and delivery of public services cater to its citizens’ changing needs and expectations is poised to excel in the global market. When accessibility to those services requires minimal effort, individual and corporate citizens achieve an improved quality of life from being better able to use their time and other resources, while enhanced work practices within the public service give rise to greater commitment and productivity of civil servants. Being able to attract a more educated and skilful workforce into the public service further generates better quality services, while the country reaps the benefit of being recognised as a superior place to invest, operate, and live.

The delivery of public services in developing countries can normally be associated with a system  that is mostly static, bureaucratic, inflexible, and in need of improvement to keep pace with the evolutions in technology and the exponential expectations of its citizens. In developed countries, a public service system would generally undergo continuous improvement with the aim of becoming more flexible in meeting its citizens’ needs and expectations, and being a place of choice employment by staying abreast of best practices in management, human resources, service quality and technology.

‘Public services’ refers to those essential services that a government provides to all its citizens, irrespective of income, and supplying this complement of services to its people is every government’s duty. Transformation of public services becomes necessary when the quality and delivery of public services fall short of citizens’ and civil servants’ needs and expectations.

Aegis has extensive working experience and knowledge of transforming public services; our notable experience takes us to Trinidad and Tobago, where an innovative approach to public service transformation was adopted. We were selected as a ‘private sector’ organisation to partner with the Ministry of Public Administration to co-ordinate, manage and deliver a national public service transformation initiative; this partnership allowed the richness of knowledge and experience in delivering public services to be augmented by the world-class skills and competencies that Aegis brought. With this first-hand experience, we are now better placed to understand that national prosperity increases with a country’s ability to improve its delivery of public services to its citizens.

Our experience has also led us to advocate that the most enabling and enriching approach to the process of public service transformation occurs when there is active participation from various groups—the public sector, the private sector, civil society, and a combination of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community-based organisations (CBOs), and faith-based organisations (FBOs)—each playing a unique and critical role in the process. The public sector consists of civil servants who are the ‘doers’ of public service delivery and transformation. The private sector brings the most modern skills, expertise, and best practices as its participants have the ability to keep on par with rapid changes and trends. Civil society consists of the citizens who are the recipients of public services and the yardstick for measuring their effectiveness. NGOs, CBOs and FBOs collectively form the conscience of public services as their concern and passion about ‘giving back’ to society ensures that they satisfy varying needs and represent all points of view. This participative approach is likely to result in public service transformation that is dynamic, sustainable, widely-accepted, and more successful overall.

We have also seen that Cabinet has distinctive responsibilities in the transformation of public services. Being champions and sponsors of the type of public services that government wishes to build and deliver is a role that Cabinet Ministers are perfectly suited to adopt in order to generate the support and commitment from all levels and sectors of society.  If not the entire Cabinet, then ministers forming an inter-ministerial steering committee responsible for directing and regularly monitoring progress also leads to enhanced implementation of public service transformation.

Finally, we have observed that the Office of the Prime Minister is the best home for owning and being accountable for public service transformation.

For many developing nations, the advancement leading to human prosperity remains a dream. We believe that this dream can become reality as long as there is political will, conscience of the private sector, dedication and focus of NGOs and a civil society that is willing to speak out about their desires and hopes for a better life.

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