Principles For Service Delivery

STANDARDS FOR
SERVICE DELIVERY
STANDARDS FOR SERVICE DELIVERY WITH GOOD PRACTICE
PROCEDURES FROM EU COUNTRIES
Rozalija Karchicka Vasilevska M.Sc, August 2019 EU funded project

Florin Bondar, PhD.

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CONTENTS
Terminology and definitions ............................................................................................................................... 1
Foreword ............................................................................................................................................................ 4
I. Leading principles for service delivery ..................................................................................................... 5
EU Recommendations and Principles for Service Delivery Standards ............................................................ 5
Initiatives in the Public Administration and Collaboration Between Member States in Providing Specific
Public Services ............................................................................................................................................ 8
National Legislation Related to Service Delivery ............................................................................................ 9
Setting up national service standards ........................................................................................................... 11
Service charters ............................................................................................................................................ 11
II. Standards for service delivery ................................................................................................................ 14
1. Meeting User Needs and Expectation ............................................................................................... 14
1.1. Learning for needs/expectations of users .................................................................................... 15
1.2. Holistic approach in problem solving .......................................................................................... 17
1.3. A joined‐up experience across all channels ................................................................................. 20
1.4. Simplification of consumption of services ................................................................................... 21
1.5. Services available to everyone .................................................................................................... 23
1.6. Measuring users/citizens satisfaction .......................................................................................... 24
2. Providing a Good and Optimized Service Delivery ........................................................................... 26
2.1. One contact‐ one counter / one web‐one service ........................................................................ 27
2.2. Engage a multidisciplinary team ................................................................................................. 29
2.3. Agile ways of working ........................................................................................................................ 30
2.4. improve frequently ............................................................................................................................ 30
2.5. Protect users’ privacy ......................................................................................................................... 31
2.6. Define success and collect performance data .................................................................................... 32
III. Using the Right Technology .............................................................................................................. 33
3.1. Selection of technology and right tools ............................................................................................. 34
3.2. Make new source code open .............................................................................................................. 35
3.3. Apply open standards and common components/patterns ............................................................... 36
3.4. Establish a reliable service ................................................................................................................. 37
References ........................................................................................................................................................ 38
Annex 1. Checklist for standards in service delivery .................................................................................. 42

TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS

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 Administrative reform/ guillotine ‐ a simplification of the back‐office services to create more
simplified services
 Application programming interfaces (APIs) ‐ a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building
software applications, used when programming graphical user interface
 Back‐office – is supports front office to deliver the service, using the resources that are devoted to
actually producing a service and all the other labor that isn't seen by customers, such as
administration or logistics.
 Citizens or users charter ‐ a unilateral declaration by a public service provider, respecting the
jurisdiction and mandate they have, define the purpose, scope and standards of service delivery so
that citizens know what to expect.
 Customer/client‐centric ‐ an approach to delivery services that focuses on creating a positive
experience for the customer by maximizing service and/or product offerings and building
relationships. Client‐centric services ensure that the customer is at the center of a business's
philosophy, operations, or ideas. Client‐centric services believe that their clients are the primary
reason that they exist, and they use every means at their disposal to keep the client satisfied.
 Customer journey ‐ complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with
public institution/organization for the service delivery
 Digital services – the services where the digital technology is utilized and usually have three main
components: service provider, service receiver and the channels of service delivery (i.e., technology).
 e‐Services – same as digital services
 ‘Life events’ ‐discrete experiences that disrupt an individual's usual activities, causing a substantial
change and readjustment (eg. of life events include marriage, divorce, illness or injury, and changing
or losing a job)
 Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – a quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an
organization, employee, etc. in meeting objectives for performance.
 Multi‐channel delivery ‐ the deployment of public services through a variety of channels: personal
computers with Internet access, TV sets, mobile phones, etc.
 Front‐ office ‐ in contrast to the term back office, interact directly with customers, it is related to a
service delivery system, where employees engage with customers.
 One‐stop‐shop – a centralized platform for delivering services to citizens: “a single point of access to
services and information offered by different public authorities” ‐ Wimmer,2002
 ‘Only once’ principle‐ an e‐government concept that aims to ensure that citizens, institutions, and
companies only have to provide certain standard information to the authorities and
administrations once
 Open standards ‐ are standards made available to the public and are developed (or approved) and
maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. "Open Standards" facilitate
interoperability and data exchange among different products or services and are intended for
widespread adoption.
 Process re‐engineering ‐ tailoring the ‘back office’ and ‘front‐office’ processes to make service
delivery as user‐friendly as possible
 Public services ‐ all the interactions between government and citizens/ businesses, whether directly
or by intermediary services are provided by the state, such as social services, health, education,
employment registry, IDs and birth certificates, police, fire service, welfare, etc.
 Public –Private Partnerships (PPP, P3)‐ a long‐term contract between a private party and a
government entity, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears
significant risk and management responsibility, and remuneration is linked to performance

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 Private‐funded initiatives (PFI) ‐ a way of financing public sector services through the private
sector, where the private company handles the up‐front costs instead of the government
 Regulatory reform/ guillotine – generally refers to reduction of burdens in legislations and
regulations issued by government at all levels. In the case of public services regulatory reform
refers to administrative simplification and aims at obtaining more simplified public services for
the citizens.
 Service delivery‐ outline principles, standards, policies and constraints to be used to guide the
designs, development, deployment, operation and retirement of services delivered by a service
provider
 Service provider – the institution, or organization, government body, agency or independent private
or civil society entity who is engaged in the phase of introduction, deployment, operation and
retirement of services
 Source‐ code (in software) ‐ a text listing of commands to be compiled or assembled into an
executable computer program. The source‐code is consider Intellectual Property and therefore the
legislation for IPR is applied to it.
 Social networks ‐ Internet‐based social media sites to stay connected with friends, family,
colleagues, customers, or clients. Social networking can have a social purpose, a business purpose, or
both, through sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, among others
 Traditional service delivery – procedure of delivery public services on traditional paper work without
usage of the digital technology
 User‐centric – same as customer‐centric
 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1), level AA ‐ keep the internet accessible to
everyone no matter what their needs are or what modifications they may require

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FOREWORD

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I. LEADING PRINCIPLES FOR SERVICE DELIVERY

‘The public sector is, collectively, the world’s largest service
provider. Any incremental improvement in public services
positively affects millions of people. The first step to
‘delivering the customer promise’ is to know your customers
and their needs.’
‐ Wim Oosterom

Opening this charter with definition of what are public services, we will come with understanding that broader
spectra of what are public services include every instance in which citizens, businesses and others contact the
administration and some form of exchange of information or finance takes place: registering, licensing,
applying, paying, borrowing, making an enquiry, etc. By definition, public services are all the interactions
between government and citizens/ businesses, whether directly or by intermediary services are provided by
the state, such as social services, health, education, employment registry, IDs and birth certificates, police,
fire service, welfare, etc.
One of the crucial aspects that we are attempting to address in this document/ paper are standards for quality
of service delivery. Each EU country and EU aspirant country is striving to meet the economic goals
articulated in Europe 2020’s drive for growth and jobs. The quality of service delivery is intertwined with the
ease of doing business, and hence each country’s ability to meet and fulfil the highest level of standards in
service delivery. The country’s motivation for improving service delivery can be manifold – whether in
response to demands from citizens and businesses for higher quality or greater accessibility, or due to an
internal search for more cost‐effective ways of working and better organisation.
When it comes to organization of service delivery each country systematizes its public services in its own way,
depending of national institutions, traditions, culture, and its choices regarding the boundaries between
public and private provision, and state, community and individual. However, this environment revolutionary
has been change with the rise of the ‘digital society’. This era has heightened expectations from e‐Service
delivery among citizens and businesses. In era of globalisation, the digital society, 24/7 media and social
networks have risen awareness among citizens and businesses to what is possible. Bringing commercial
sector practices in this area, the target groups are expecting public services, which are better, faster, cheaper,
and in many cases, they want more excellence from their public service providers. In other words, ICT has now
game changer role in public service design and delivery.
In the EU, the creation of the Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe1 (DSM) provides a further motivation
to ensure the creation of a real internal market, ensuring public services that also work cross‐border. New EU
policies aim to remove existing digital barriers and to prevent further fragmentation arising in the context of
the modernisation of public administrations. Likewise, EU policies2 are ensuring high quality, user‐centric
digital public services for citizens and seamless cross‐border public services for businesses.

EU RECOMMENDATIONS AND PRINCIPLES FOR SERVICE DELIVERY STANDARDS

1
EU eGovernment Action Plan for 2016‐2020,
2
Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment ‐ the Tallinn Declaration October 2017

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This chapter will contain main directions of the efforts initiated at the European level institutions by issuing
regulation, recommendations, directives or other initiatives, which are the basis of an institutional framework
for developing common standards for public service at the level of European Union and its Member States.
The information contained in this chapter could be used as an example for non‐EU Member States and as a
guide for identification of possible way forward in developing or improve the actual profile and delivery
process of public services for their citizens.
At the level of European Union there is no explicit regulation imposing the development of standards for
public services in domestic public administration of the Member States. On the other hand, a set of initiatives
proofing a common effort of inducing reform of the public service can be stressed. These initiatives are aiming
both for an increased quality of public services, as well as better interoperability capacity among the public
institutions of all Member States.
There are three direction by which this effort could be assessed:
1. Service directive3
This is an initiative setting the general framework at the level of European Union for increasing the
accessibility and quality of all types of services, for both citizens and businesses across its entire territory. The
importance of this directive is that it provides the basis for initiating a common approach in shaping the
content and process of delivery of public services for users from different countries. Even though this directive
is dealing mainly with services of an economic nature offered to natural or legal persons of the Member
States, the general objective is to remove legal and administrative barriers to trade in all the services sector
within and cross borders of the Member States. The Services Directive was adopted by the European
Parliament and the Council on 12 December 2006. The deadline for transposition was 28 December 2009.
Under the Directive, Member States are obliged to set up “points of single contact”, through which service
providers can obtain all the relevant information and deal with all administrative formalities without the need
to contact several authorities. The “points of single contact” have to be accessible at a distance and by
electronic means. Each Member State can choose exactly how to implement this in national law.
Following the effort of implementing this directive, all the Member States have established an electronic
“point of single contact” in the form of a portal accessible through the internet. Either this portal is a separate
portal uniquely designed for this purpose or it is part of a general‐purpose government portal. Certain
Member States have taken the opportunity to go a step further and have extended their points of single
contact to public services for citizens as well (e.g. Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary).

2. Common framework in providing public services at the level of European Union
(Interoperability Framework)
In close relation with the initiatives of various Member States, proofing the common effort to implement the
above‐mentioned service directive, a series of related actions were undertaken in order to increase the level
of interoperability between various institutional set‐ups for delivery of public services by public
administrations of the Member States. This led to adoption of the objective of establishing the European
Interoperability Framework (EIF), aiming at improving cross‐border interoperability between the public
administrations within the European Union. By means of this framework, the Member States are encouraged

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DIRECTIVE 2006/123/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 12 December 2006 on
services in the internal market

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to promote and support European public services and the EIF guides the public administration in achieving
this. It also seeks to connect the various National Interoperability Frameworks (NIFs) at European level.
The EIF is an interoperability framework that stimulates the cooperation of public services based on an agreed
approach. To achieve this cooperation, a set of interoperable assets was defined in advance (e.g. vocabulary,
concepts, principles, policies, guidelines, etc.). One of the most important was the recommendation of
providing a catalogue of public services4, which should be compatible in terms of definitions and concept used
across the public administration of all Member States. One of the main quality of these catalogues was to
ensure a high level of transparency for citizens in order to better access and benefit from the public services
delivered at the level of European Union. One of the main prerequisites of these catalogue of services is
represented by a Core Public Service Vocabulary Application Profile (CPSV‐AP), which is a standard data
model describing public services across Europe.

3. Public sector information (PSI) directive
A common approach in development and provision of services, as well as the efforts in insuring a high level of
interoperability among Member States public administration is complemented by an initiative focusing on the
flow of information among various institutions, as parts of the same public administration structure. PSI is
setting the conditions for the re‐use of public sector information (Directive 2003/98/EC, known as the 'PSI
Directive') and entered into force on 31 December 2003. It focuses on the economic aspects of re‐use of
information rather than on the access of citizens to information. In the logical framework of this study, the
provisions of this directive are referring to the way connections among different institutions is established so
that the level of quality of services is increased. For instant, in case of a set of information provided by a
citizen when demanding a certain permit or certificate, it can be used further, under the specific previous
agreement, by other institutions in cases when other services are to be provided in the future to the same
citizen (ID information, social security, etc.). The directive addresses material held by public sector bodies in
the Member States, at national, regional and local levels, such as ministries, state agencies, municipalities, as
well as organisations funded for the most part by or under the control of public authorities (e.g.
meteorological institutes). The Directive also covers written texts, databases, audio files and film fragments;
it does not apply to the educational, scientific, broadcasting and cultural sectors.
In June 2013, a revision of the Directive has been adopted by the Union legislator (Directive 2013/37/EU
amending Directive 2003/98/EC on the re‐use of public sector information). Member States have two years to
transpose the provisions of the revised Directive into national law.
The revised PSI Directive is aiming to:
 introduces a genuine right to reuse by making reusable all content that can be accessed under
national access to documents laws;
 lowers the upper ceiling for charges on reuse applicable in standard cases to marginal costs, i.e. the
costs incurred by the individual request for reuse (reproduction, provision and dissemination costs);
exceptions are allowed in a limited set of cases;

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A useful tool in deveoping a catalogue of publc services, as well as information about its possible content can
be found in „Guidelines on how to build catalogues of public services at one‐stop‐shop portals and improve
user experience”, DIGIT, European Commission,

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 expands the scope of application of the Directive to certain cultural institutions such as libraries
(including university libraries), museums and archives, but making them subject to a number of
different rules that reflect that set of rules of the 2003 Directive, namely:
‐ There is no genuine right to reuse; only such documents the reuse of which has previously
been allowed are reusable;
‐ Cultural institutions can charge re‐users based on the principle of full costs recovery,
including a reasonable return on investment;
‐ Cultural institutions may engage in the award of exclusive exploitation rights if necessary to
ensure digitisation projects,
 reinforces the obligation to be transparent on conditions and on charges applied to reuse
 invites Member State to make more documents available in machine‐readable and open formats.
A significant share of content, which is produced by public services, falls under national access to documents
laws and is therefore covered by the right to reuse of the revised PSI Directive. Any person or organisation
may request this content for commercial or non‐commercial reuse.
In addition to that, the PSI Directive has led to the establishment of a growing number of Open Data portals
on which public sector information is made available to the public – as repositories or as link catalogues. Such
portals may be considered as a public service. The FCOPS, as described in the vision, is a repository containing
public information and hence falls under this directive.

INITIATIVES IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND COLLABORATION BETWEEN
MEMBER STATES IN PROVIDING SPECIFIC PUBLIC SERVICES
For the purpose of this study, the common type of efforts identified in this section is referring to specific
regulation, standards or other interinstitutional cross‐border agreements between Members States. These
efforts reflect a common approach in delivering specific public services in an effective, efficient and
transparent manner to EU citizens, no matter their country of residence. In this category could be considered
also the specific examples further described in this study, aiming at better illustrate how the general
standards identified in each of the following chapters were actually implemented at various level of public
administration ‐ local, regional or national level – in the Member States. As we will mention, these examples
were possible due to specific domestic regulation issued. They reflect a common approach in better
responding to the needs and requirements of public services of the European citizens.
On the other hand, these examples should not to be considered as directly applicable in Macedonian case, but
should rather be used as inspirational benchmarks for development of specific activities, aiming at increasing
the quality of public services and their delivery framework. The second objective of the description of these
examples consist in the fact that they could be also considered as possible guidelines in order to better align
the values and path of PAR related activities In Macedonia, with those of the reforms initiated by the
European Member States.
One of the most important initiative mentioned above as being one of the main aspects of delivering public
services a European Union based on a common understanding is the catalogue of public services. These
initiatives as well as other important components of a common European approach are mentioned in the
figure below. The overview indicates the target audience for each initiative: administrations (A), businesses
(B), citizens (C). Capital letters indicate the primary focus audience and lower case letters indicate a secondary
focus audience for a particular initiative. A connection with the different public administration portals of the
Member States is shown beneath the federated catalogue of public services because it will be useful to have a

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first look already at the different portals to see how they are structured and provide their services to the
public.

Figure 1. Overview of existing initiatives
Source: „DIGIT – Federated catalogue of public services, D1.3 Final Report – WP 1: Current State of Affairs”, Arnaud Berghmans,
Peter Wynands, Pieter‐Jan Beyls (Deloitte Consulting CVBA), 2013, European Commission – ISA Work Programme
NATIONAL LEGISLATION RELATED TO SERVICE DELIVERY
The Law on General Administrative Procedure (LGAP), which entered into force on 1 August 2016, regulates
all modern institutes that are characteristic of the European Administrative Space, as well as those deriving
from the European Services Directive. In this regard, it is prescribed between the obligatory acquisition and
exchange of data ex officio. In terms of European experience, it is the legal obligation for mandatory
electronic exchange of data and documents between institutions. The special laws have been harmonized
with the LGAP in order to simplify the procedures, shorten the deadlines for resolving cases and strengthen
the mechanism for exchanging data and documents electronically.
With the amendments to the Law on Electronic Management and Electronic Services adopted in 2019, in
order to implement the provisions of the LGAP, a service for electronic recommended delivery of documents
with and between institutions was introduced, which should ensure fast, reliable and secure delivery of

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documents. Delivery ensures the efficiency of the procedure and its cost‐effectiveness, whilst fully respecting
the highest safety standards. According to the Law on Electronic Management, adopted in 2010, a functional
Interoperability Platform has been established, which currently has 14 institutions able to safely exchange
data through 1035 developed web services.
The Law on Personal Data Protection, regarding the security and protection of personal data, fully
transposes the provisions of EC Directive and Council no. 46/95 and the Council of Europe Convention no.
108/81. In 2017, the Directorate for Personal Data Protection started the process of harmonization of the
legislation of the Republic of North Macedonia in the field of personal data protection with the European
Union law, which will transpose the solutions contained in the General Regulation on Personal Data
Protection of the European Union.
The Law on Introducing a Quality Management System and the Common Framework for Performance
Appraisal and Service Delivery, May 2013 laid the foundation for the introduction of international and
national standards (minimum ISO 9001 and CAF) for quality management. According to MISA records, so far
53 institutions have introduced ISO 9001 Quality Management Standard, and 35 institutions have introduced
CAF and 9 are in process.
Adopted in 2019 a new Law for electronic documents, e ID and confidential services replaced the Law for
data in electronic format and digital signatures. This law is a transposition of the EU eIDAS regulation (The
Regulation (EU) N°910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the
internal market).
With regard to the availability of services, both physical and e‐services, the UN Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities requires appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have access
and access on an equal basis with others. The WCAG Web Accessibility Standards6 have also been adopted
at AA level, and guidelines for accessing web content have also been developed.
MISA has developed a software solution for managing a Catalog of Services, which will be a systematized
database of all administrative procedures in the country, which will enable qualitative analysis and further
simplification of services and their digitization. The data to be kept for each service is data on the legal bases,
title of the services, conditions for issuing service, proofs, documents and data needed for provisioning the
service, value of administrative taxes and fees, legal remedies, and other relevant data.
Data quality standards in the systems of institutions cover: data categories, characteristics of quality data,
their translation, as well as mechanisms for their validation, verification, correction and control. The standards
have been adopted and they are obligatory according to the Law for electronic management and electronic
services. In order to improve the availability and quality of services, during 2015 MISA started the activities for
introducing the concept of Single Point of Service (SPS), which includes 12 institutions, which goal is to enable
the citizens and the business sector in one physical place to receive services from several institutions.
National e‐Services Portal, as well as the establishment of a Central Electronic Population Register as a
central database of citizens for use by all institutions to provide administrative services. In addition, the
project also includes the creation of a legal framework.

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Most up‐to‐date number about the services and institutions could be found on
https://www.otvorenipodatoci.gov.mk/dataset/jincta‐co‐be6‐cepbncn‐kon‐ce‐ha‐pacnojiarahbe‐
nhteponepa6njihoct
6
See http://wcag.mioa.gov.mk/

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The lack of a national legislation for the electronic identity of the citizens further complicates the process of
their identification, authentication and electronic signature. Existing e‐identity and e‐signature solutions are
expensive for citizens even if the number of e‐services is to increase significantly, which does not benefit
citizens to stimulate the use of existing e‐services. As a result of this, at the moment, the number of available
e‐services for citizens is significantly lower compared to the number of e‐services for businesses.
SETTING UP NATIONAL SERVICE STANDARDS

When it comes to service delivery, every democratic government is hold accountable to addressing the needs
and expectations of the citizens. Ultimately, the test of good service delivery is whether government/ service
providers understand what users want and whether they meet users expectations.

Every administration has two potential instruments to define and check performance of its service delivery.
The first is to codify user expectations in the form of service charters: committing to a set of standards
against which services can be judged. The second is to engage in measuring customer satisfaction to ensure
performance levels are being reached, and ideally exceeded. In both cases, these tools can be a catalyst for
action and further innovation in the public administration sector.

SERVICE CHARTERS

It is broadly accepted EU practice to establish citizens or users charter as a unilateral declaration by a public
service provider, respecting the jurisdiction and mandate they have, define the purpose, scope and standards
of service delivery so that citizens know what to expect. The Citizen charter defines a number of standards for
its services and subsequently publishes these standards. In this part, we would try to close up the theme of
service charter what it is, its characteristics, illustrative samples, practices and recommendations.

The essence of a user charter is the promise of expected quality from the service, which can be summed up by
the 3Cs:
Client‐oriented
Communication and
Commitment.
Analyzing what are the benefits of service charters, it concludes that service provider or public institution
welfares as:
 help public institution to manage the expectations of service users;
 defines a consultations framework with service users;
 obligates public institution to measure their performance;
 increase transparency by telling the public about the standards they can expect and how institutions
have performed against those standards;
 Improve performance of public institutions where promised standards have not been achieved;
 Increase satisfaction of service users

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The service charters indicate what the user can expect. On the other side, the users can then determine
whether the standards are met. In the charter are allow a ‘soft’ standard, such as: “We will treat you with
friendliness and respect”. However, the most important standards are ‘hard’ ‐ concrete and measurable.
Therefore, this standard should be set up as: “You will be served/helped within 15 minutes” and not “ready while
you wait”, which is not sufficiently specific and difficult to measure.
A good standard should be formulated from the individual client’s perspective. For example, “you can expect
to receive an answer from us within two weeks”, rather than “95 percent of the letters are processed within two
weeks”.
The standards can concern the entire spectrum of service. They can say something about the service/product
in itself (e.g. “the street lighting will be repaired within two working days”); the process (e.g. “you will receive a
digital report confirmation”); and the content (e.g. “on your request, we will speak with you in a closed
consultation room”). In the latter case, options are letters of apology to users providing some kind of exchange
(a letter of apology or compensation) convince users that the institution takes them seriously.
The whole idea behind a charter is that the public institution is committed to realising the standards and
clearly indicate the consequences if a promise is not kept. Together with the users, the employees of the front
office are an important target group of the citizen charter. If all goes well, having a charter leads to a change
of attitude, working method and performance.

In this way, the charter encourages the user to hold the administration to account and demand corrective
action, if the service falls short of the published standards. In this way, the charter could be said to set a
benchmark for assessing performance.
Figure 2. Key questions for Service Standards Delivery
In defining standards for service delivery, several Key questions that will shape the further structure around
the standards:
1. Meeting user/ citizens needs and expectation for the service delivery
2. Improving and optimizing processes and systems for service delivery
3. Using the right technology in eService delivery
4. Meeting users demands in front office interface

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5. Measuring users/citizen’s satisfaction with service delivery

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II. STANDARDS FOR SERVICE DELIVERY

The purpose of this document is to develop general standards for service delivery and to supplement with a
set of good EU practice procedures and standards for service delivery that would apply for all services
delivered on front‐desks in each institution. Service delivery outline principles, standards, policies and
constraints to be used to guide the design, development, deployment, operation and cancelation of services
delivered by a service provider with a view to offering a consistent service experience to a specific user
community in a specific business context.
In the Republic of North Macedonia, the services provided by the public institutions are mainly perceived from
the point of view of what kind and if new technology is utilized or not. For instant, IF THE DIGITAL
TECHNOLOGY IS UTILIZED, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT DIGITAL SERVICES. OTHERWISE, WE ARE
TALKING ABOUT TRADITIONAL SERVICE DELIVERY.
The standards for service delivery are outlined into three main categories that are related with users’ needs
and expectations, provision of good and optimized services, and using the right technology when it comes to
digital services. The analysis of the EU practices in establishment of standards for service delivery showed
that UK has a most extensive and solid background in this field.
Following are listed the 3 categories and total 14 standards that are proposed to be accepted as general
standards for service delivery in the Republic of North Macedonia. In addition, in annex 1 of this document a
checklist is given for this set of standards, which public institutions/ service providers can use it for self‐
evaluation of the level of fulfilment of the standards.
I. Meeting User Needs and Expectation
1.1. Learning for needs/expectations of users
1.2. Holistic approach in problem solving
1.3. A joined‐up experience across all channels
1.4. Simplification of consumption of services
1.5. Services available to everyone
1.6. Measuring users/citizen’s satisfaction

II. Providing a Good and Optimized Service Delivery
2.1. One contact‐one office / one web – one service
2.2. Engage a multidisciplinary team
2.3. Agile ways of working
2.4. Iterate and improve frequently
2.5. Protect users’ privacy
2.6. Define success and collect performance data

III. Using the Right Technology
3.1. Selection of technology and right tools
3.2. Make new source code open
3.3. Apply open standards and common components/patterns
3.4. Establish a reliable service

1. MEETING USER NEEDS AND EXPECTATION

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The Service Delivery Standards helps to create and provide great public services. This multidisciplinary
standard of how to meet users’ needs and their expectations for the service delivery will include several sub‐
standards that need to be fulfilled. As primary, we need to deal with understanding the profile of the users
and their needs and expectations. The service provider should attempt to solve a whole problem for users at
once, not partially to add solutions. Next is to provide a joined‐up experience across all channels, means to
work towards creating a service that meets users’ needs across all channels, including online, phone, paper
and face‐to‐face. The general intention to follow is to build a service that is simple, intuitive and
understandable for every user. At this phase, one of the musts will be provision of a service available for every
user, including people with disabilities or other legally protected characteristics. This is even is not mentioned
in the existing legislation to include people who do not have access to the internet or lack the skills or
confidence to use it.
1.1. learning
for needs/
expectation
s of users
1.6. 1.2.
Measuring wholistic
users approach in
/citizens problem
satisfaction solving
I. Meeting
user/
citizens
needs and
expectation 1.3. joined
1.5. services up
available to experience
everyone across all
channels
1.4.
simplificatio
n of services

Figure 3. Meeting Users needs elements
Further is elaborated on each of these aspects, in order to better resent each standards and the
recommendations at the end of this first chapter include some tools and mechanisms for measurement of
these standards.

1.1. LEARNING FOR NEEDS/EXPECTATIONS OF USERS

Before each start of a new design of service, it is good to have a solid understanding of users and the problem
that is trying to be solved. Services designed based on good understanding of the users’ needs are more
likely to be used and will help more people get the desired outcome, cost less to operate by reducing time
and money spent on resolving problems.

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Understanding as much of the context as possible gives service provider the best chance of meeting users’
needs in a simple and cost effective way. Focusing on the user and the problem trying to solve ‐ rather than
providing a particular solution with a short impact. It is often a case that the real problem might not be the
one we originally thought needed solving. Testing the assumptions early in the process often reduces the risk
Example 1. Liverpool City Council’s services to citizens oriented website (United Kingdom)
The Liverpool City Council website is a very good example of how to use internet in order to find more about the
needs and expectations, as well as interests of the citizens in a large city. The website is developed so that the
services provided by the city local administration is best found by the its users and information are given
regarding the way the service is provided.
One way of identification of needs of residents is by assessing the most frequently accessed internet pages within
the website providing information about specific services. For example, at the time this study was developed,
the most popular sections accessed in the „Resident” section were those referring to: „school administration,
school term dates, bin collection dates, Mayor summer Lunch Scheme”. The last one, shows for instant that
during summer, citizens are very much interested in services such as those referring to the leisure time for
children, generically called „Major Summer Lunch”. Those services consist in leisure time programmes
developed by the municipality as hosting various games and leisure activities for children. These programmes
were taking place in various locations in the city which were presented on an online map.
Similar information regarding the needs or expectations are provided in the „Business” section. This section
provides information useful for the businesses developed in the city. For instant, at the time of preparing this
study, the most accessed information was referring to the following services: „Taxi licences, Search the licencing
register, Pay an invoice or Regeneration Liverpool”.
Another section is referring to the information related with various activities of the council and which are more
accessed by the residents visiting the site. In this section, the most common searches are referring to: „Plan
making of Liverpool, find your councillor, key statistics and data, privacy notice.”
Another important feature of the website is that it proves that the Liverpool local authorities took a ‘facts not
opinion’ approach to developing their website. Once the top tasks were established, they were tested with real
customers. To achieve excellence in web management, you must make decisions based on what your customers
actually do on your website. Not what you would like them do. Not even what they tell you they would like to
do. What they actually do when given a task.
Sources: https://liverpool.gov.uk/council/; http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new‐thinking/top‐tasks‐and‐
council‐websites
of building the wrong thing.

Service provider should learn as much as possible about the problem users need them to solve by research,
use of web analytics and testing prototypes. This is only illustrative list, not binding requirement.
It is recommended before the design of the particular service to do the following:
• Research to understand what users need using available research and
feedback mechanisms
• Testing on so‐called prototypes to see if the real needs and
expectations are addressed
• Using web analytics and other data that’s available to enhance their
understanding of the problem
Some mechanisms and tools recommended may be:
• Direct contact (surveys, panels, and focus groups)

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• Indirect feedback and representation
• Mystery shopping
• ‘Life events’ analysis
• Customer journey mapping
• Consultation, stakeholder participation, co‐production
• Data driven insights from non‐personal digital behavior (e.g. from internet of things, digital
infrastructures)

1.2. HOLISTIC APPROACH IN PROBLEM SOLVING
“Holistic approach" refers to a big picture mentality, and understand that the whole is often greater than the
sum of the parts. Holistic problem‐solving is important to fix real problems, rather than just symptoms. A
holistic perspective is a zoom out the view and works well when deploying, conceiving and redefining a
problem more precisely and solve it more systematically and creatively.
Discussing for the service delivery, fragmented services are difficult to use, because
users have to do the hard work to make sure they are doing what is expected from
them. They should have the whole scheme in their head and to know what is next step,
Fragmented services although could be found everywhere, should be follow by some
“roadmap” so that users are well informed for the process and they know whata re the
steps forward. For example, working out which of several similar schemes they are eligible for or other
instance is choosing the right form to fill in out of several near‐identical options, but still it is maybe for some
other step/ phase of the fragmented service. The ideal will be when service provider will work and develop
service that solves one whole problem for users, collaborating across institutional framework.
Taking about holistic approach, as standard in service creation does not mean that service creators will try to
fix everything at once. For sure it is not that new developed services based on holistic approach will be with
complicated transactions, non‐intuitive and non‐user‐friendly. It is only a direction for service providers to
make sure the increments are part of a plan. Also to bring related content and transactions together that
makes sense to users, regardless of which institution/agency they ‘belong’ to. Because users are not obligate
to understand how government works in all the institutions.
It is recommended for this standard to:
Identify and understand any open legislative constraints/changes that affect the service
(recommended to consult policy officers or lawyers for opinion if this is a case)
Distinguish the services that are needed for providing proofs and evidence for other
service and services that users really need and apply to
To identify duplication and gaps in institutional responsibilities, in order to be
possible to describe the process of service delivery in a unique manner
Analyze if the developed service is a part of any bigger journey that solves a whole problem for users
(as if birth certificate is a part of the social aid service)
Have clear understanding and agreement/s with other institutions if this service is combines with
other institutions services in other bigger service delivery (like social service aid)

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Open the design process so that people outside the institution know what is developed (means that
increasing the potential for collaboration and reducing duplication of effort, especially with civil
sector and donors)
Consider alternatives to creating a service and to collaborate/ outsource/ public –private partnerships
or private‐funded initiatives ‐ for example publishing website content, running a campaign,
partnering with a non‐government organisation or making data available to third parties
Utilizing principle ‘only once’ in collecting information from users
Work across institutional framework where that is necessary to solve a whole problem for users

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 Fax: The claimant fills in the specific form, which is available in every municipal office, and sends it by
Example 2: ‘Complaint Desk” project ‐ City Council Milan (Italy)
fax to a leased number;
The example of City Council of Milan is relevant for its various types of innovation of the delivery framework of
 Post: The claimant fills in the specific form that is available in every municipal office, and sends it by
public services initiated at this administrative level. It includes illustrations of how several of the standards
post to the back‐office address.
mentioned in this study are actually implemented and what are the results. The solutions given in this case to
the problems related with public service delivery could provide an useful best practice for aspects referring to
Following registration of the filled forms, the Customer Care Service manages the procedure for recording and
„Learning for needs of users/citizens”, as well as „the holistic approach” undertaken in order to solve various
sorting them out. Moreover, the Customer Care Service identifies the internal or external responsibilities as
problems raised by the residents at local level. „Simplification” and „Optimisation” were also relevant among
far as the complaints are concerned and verifies that the citizens’ demands are satisfied properly and in time
the activities developed in this case.
(within 30 days).
This example has as a central point the „Complaint desk” (CD) project initiated in 2006 at the level of City Council
The Complaint Front Office records and manages the dissatisfaction with the public services provided to
in Milan (Italy). The project aimed at getting the local government closer to their citizens and city users by
Milan’s 2 million inhabitants. Before the creation of this service, there was no institutionalised front office
creating a network of access (call centre, mail, email, website, etc.) for the 2 million‐plus daily city users, to
able to record and manage all incoming complaints.
enable them to get in touch with the municipality without the need to physically show up at a counter.
The positive impact of the activities developed in this project are best illustrated by the graph presented
After the first 5 years of operation, a huge organisational renewal completed in 2011 changed it from being a
below, were the evolution of the number of complaints processed in the new system is clearly following an
simple container of city user’s complaints to a powerful monitoring and controlling system.
upper trend.
CD uses complaints information in conjunction with customer satisfaction surveys and other performance
measures to improve the quality of feedback to managers for corrective actions, with the annual aim being to
improve municipal service delivery to citizens on a day‐to‐day basis. The intended logic was to join the idea of
improving the access to municipal front‐of‐office services for citizens, using technological solutions and the
internal know‐ how, with a focus on organisational efficiency, unification of organisational units and
administrative processes, uniformity, coherency and a lower level of fragmentation of decision‐making
processes.

Up to now, what at beginning was only a point of complaints for citizens has become more like a monitoring

and evaluation structure dealing with complaints and using them as a indicator of the quality and efficiency of
public services provided. This has become possible by introducing standardized complaints management
Evolution of number of complaints processed after the implementation of the reform.
processes and, annually, becoming a more sophisticated monitoring and controlling system. But what is
interesting to highlight is that, despite the political party in power changing, they all refer to the idea of
improving the effectiveness and efficiency of municipal services on a day‐ to‐day basis. In other words, the
Source: ”In Search of Local Public Management excellence ‐ Seven Journeys to Success, Julia Bosse, Alexander
innovation here does not consist of big investment projects where the output is tangible and easily countable.
Heichlinger, Emanuele Padovani, Jan Ole Vanebo, 2013, European Institute of Public Administration.
An important component of this project was the „Complaint Front Office”. The citizens’ complaints
formulated via standardized forms can be registered using several channels:
 Website: The claimant fills in the form on the web and sends it directly to the back‐office computer.
The website offers online services and exhaustive information about the sectors in which the body
operates.
 Front Office: The operator receives the specific form and scans it directly to the back‐office
computer;
 Contact Centre: The operator explains to the claimants the different ways in which they can make a
complaint and provides them with the contacts; the Front office and Contact Centre are two indirect
ways of communicating, thanks to an operator and/or facilitator

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1.3. A JOINED‐UP EXPERIENCE ACROSS ALL CHANNELS

Users want their interactions with the public sector to be efficient and conveniently available. One way of
meeting these expectations is the deployment of public services through a
variety of channels: personal computers with Internet access, TV sets, mobile
phones, etc. Multi‐channel delivery of public services allows users to access
those services anytime, anywhere and anyhow and therefore, this standard is
addressing work towards creating a service that meets users’ needs across all
channels, including online, phone, paper and face‐to‐face.
Users should not be excluded or have an inferior opportunity because they
lack access to technology or the skills to use it. This is making exclusion of the
basic human rights for every citizen to be equal and have access to the services
as others. Service providers can design an experience that makes sense to the user independently what
service they use.
Recommendations for this standard are going to be following:
 The service team should take into consideration as many channels possible/ suitable for the service
delivery
 The service team is empowered to find the best way of solving the problem with the each channel for
delivery
 Front line operations staff responsible for answering users’ questions know how the online service
works, and there’s a process for keeping them up to date with changes
 Front line operations staff should collaborate in user research and to contribute to prioritisation
decisions
 Designers and user researchers are working with front line operations staff on testing of both online
and traditional channels (for example, call centre protocols, templates and letters)
 Data and user research on the online part of the service is used to improve traditional channels, and
the other way around
 Increase of digital take up don’t involve making it more difficult to find details via internet/online,
phone, paper or face to face channels

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 Designers should be able to identify any problems with internal processes, systems or structures that
make it more difficult than it needs to be (recommendation to fix them by having an agreed
procedure for resolving issues with the online service that are causing problems for the traditional
channels and vice versa.
Example 3: Three channels in the City of Linz (Austria)
Provision of public services is not the only focus in development of possible reforms at the level of public
institutions from various administrative levels. A proactive attitude is not exclusively related to find more
sophisticated ways of dealing with the aim of getting closer to the needs of citizens. Proactivity incudes also a
special interest in finding and securing proper channels of provision of public services by taking into account
the actual conditions of the users. The example of City of Linz provides a good example of how public
authorities from local level deal with provision of services to their citizens by taking in considerations various
channels. In 2001, the municipal authorities of Linz launched a service offensive with the aim of giving their
citizens much better access to the individual services. Based on their customers’ need for information,
communication and interaction, which had undergone some changes, new forms of organisation were created
for the three most important access routes:
 Front‐office: This channel refers to those public services for which there is a great pubic demand and
do not require any special standardization process. These direct provided services were offered at
„single points of contact” which were easy for the customers to get to (e.g. Citizens’ Service Centres,
decentralised libraries). The specialized easy to provide services which refer to specific domains were
brought together in so‐called specialised centres (e.g. Construction Service Centre, Fee Service). Since
2008, services for special target groups have been offered within the framework of the „mobile
citizens services” at locations convenient for the customers (e.g. student registration, travel
documents etc.).
 Internet: The platform ‘service A‐Z’ under www.linz.at offers citizens access to information regarding
the provision of services as well as many online services. There is also a special portal for
entrepreneurs (www.linz.at/wirtschaft) to ensure the best possible service to this target group around
the clock. This type of internet service is widely present at local and central level in many EU
countries;
 Telephone: With the establishment of the Teleservice Centre (TSC) in 2006 and the continuous
expansion of the services it offers in recent years, it has been possible to optimise the means of access
to the municipal administration that is most frequently utilised by citizens. The TSC thereby completes
the comprehensive service concept from which both the citizens of Linz and the municipal
administration benefit: the citizens enjoy an improved quality of services and the administration is
able to deploy its resources more efficiently. The value of this approach has been confirmed by the
excellent results obtained in the surveys of customers and the ‘mystery actions’, both of which are
carried out at regular intervals, as well as by contacts with customers (both direct and by phone).
Source: www.linz.at; www.linz.at/wirtschaft
1.4. SIMPLIFICATION OF CONSUMPTION OF SERVICES

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Simplification of administrative procedures and removing the irrelevant ones in order to improve
transparency is consider as a revolutionary measure showing the commitment of the public administration in
the process of simplification of the system. Build a service that is simple, easy, intuitive and comprehensible
is exactly what users and citizens are expecting. Because people just expect services to work, and
government services should be no exception.
The other side of the medal is that it costs government time and
money to deal with mistakes that happen when services do not
work well. This is questioning citizens’ trust in government and
the public services.
The simplification of consumption of services should also deal
with revision of the list of services available to be for citizens/ business. Sometimes, a service may be an
obsolete/ outdate because of the change of legislation, change in the environment, new technology etc.
These services upon revision of the list need to be retired. On the other hand, the same factors named above
may induce need of new services to be developed. This same apply if some of the service need to be modified
because of the same or similar reason.
This standard’s recommendations are following:
Continually test for usability with actual and potential users
Integrally test all the parts of the service that the user interacts with ‐ online parts and traditional
parts (like templates/ letters/ documents)
Test and make sure the service helps the user to get the final result they need as simply as possible
(it is recommended that people succeed first time, with the minimum of outside‐help)
Services should also provide users with a consistent experience from start to finish (being consistent
with National portal for services)
Periodically with predefined dynamic do a revision of the list of services that your institution is
delivery, in order to find if there are some need for modification/ retirement or development of a
new service.

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Example 4: Reduction of administrative burdens for citizens (Austria)
The reduction of administrative burdens is a large concept behind various programs initiated at the level of European
Union Member States better regulation programmes were developed. In Austria, In April 2009, the Council of Ministers
decided on a comprehensive programme to reduce administrative burdens for citizens and improve the quality of
governmental services. The aims were two‐fold:
 Cutting time and costs spent on information obligations ‐ reducing official channels by fostering the use of e‐
government solutions, enhancing intra‐governmental cooperation, providing one‐stop‐shop solutions; and
 Improve service quality ‐ making questionnaires and forms more comprehensible and easier to access,
providing information in a barrier‐free way at a central point of interest, and developing interactive
procedures.
After the first quantitative and qualitative research, the 100 most burdensome activities were identified and workshops
were organized to discuss potential mitigating solutions.
After a large consultation process, it was calculated that most burdensome information obligations for citizens cause
22 million requests, solicitations, petitions and declarations per year. This equal 32.3 million hours’ total burden for all
Austrian citizens, consisting of: 4 million hours for obtaining information, 18.8 million hours for processing, 9.5 million
hours for arriving at the local authority, and EUR.113 million out‐of‐pocket‐expenses (copies, fare, etc.).
Simplification measures already implemented contribute to a time reduction for citizens of 7 million hours. Key
measures are setting up an electronic register for the civil status of citizens, the simplification of free public transport
for pupils and trainees and the introduction of the Mobile Phone Signature (“mobile citizen card”) in administrative
procedures. The latest report on the measures can be found in an annex to the budget:
https://service.bmf.gv.at/BUDGET/Budgets/2014_2015/beilagen/Better_Regulation_2014_2015.pdf.
Source: Quality of Public Administration ‐ A Toolbox for Practitioners, 2017 edition (abridged version)
1.5. SERVICES AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE

Inclusive, accessible services are better for everyone. Provide a service that everyone can use, including
people with disabilities or other legally protected characteristics.
Especially services should be accessible for the people who do not
have access to the internet or lack the skills or confidence to use it.
It is EU vision that the government services must work for everyone
who needs to use them. Public sector institutions have a legal duty
to consider everyone’s needs when they are designing and
delivering services. For example, using simple words and sentences
helps people who are in a hurry as well as people who have a learning disability. Some of already accepted
and standards are referring that the language of explanation of the services should be so simple that the 12
years old children could easily understand (addressing the different level of literacy and education, avoiding
specific terminology). Second generally accepted standard is addressing the time that user have to read all the
instructions. The standard is for minimizing the explanations, descriptions, optimization of the given text,
highlighting the main points/ steps/ tasks.
Recommendation for this sub‐standard are going to be following:

24

 The service design should meet
work on the most commonly used
accessibility standards for front‐desk meet level AA of the Web Content assistive technologies ‐ including
offices, including both online and Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) screen magnifiers, screen readers
as a minimum and speech recognition tools
traditional parts
 The service designed should not
excluded any groups within the Accesibility standards
audience they’re intended to serve
(make sure that people aren’t excluded
from being able to use the service have an accompanying accessibility
include people with disabilities in page that explains how accessible
because they lack digital skills or user research the service is
internet access, providing appropriate
assisted digital support to cover any
gaps) Figure 4. Accessibility Standards
 Continually carry out research with
participants who represent the potential audience for the service, including people with access needs
Example 5: Improving access to the Ł.dź–Bałuty tax office (Poland)
This example refers to an effort to make specific public services to be made available for citizen with disabilities as part
of the initiative to increase the level of access of all citizens to public services.
The Polish Tax Office Ł.dź–Bałuty (Drugi Urząd Skarbowy Ł.dź–Bałuty) established cooperation with organisations
representing and associating with disabled persons. The intention was to obtain valuable insight into their needs, in
order to enhance their social functions, and, in particular, to facilitate the process of fulfilling their fiscal duties. A series
of consultations were developed and specific conclusions were drawn regarding how the people with disabilities can be
best served. The result consisted in a set of guidelines developed for providing services to the disabled.
During the meetings, emphasis was placed on modern, safe and costless way of accounting for the tax office
electronically. The participants were informed about the possibility of deduction of income tax from individuals, in
particular, relief rehabilitation. Organisations of persons with disabilities are informed regularly (every quarter) in
electronic form on the planned training courses organised at the headquarters of the local office, including its
scope including, among other things, changes in tax law. This resulted in a number of effective actions: an instruction
manual and training in sign language and communicating with the blind for the employees, and architectural
improvements (room admissions for people with disabilities, an access ramp for wheelchairs, bright colours and
contrast in materials displayed in wall‐mounted display cases, etc.). The headquarters office is in contact with the local
tax office to provide access to the services of an interpreter of sign language into Polish and from Polish into sign
language, using wideotłumacza. The film promoting the above method of communication can be found at
http://youtu.be/RLuK_xrEgV4, which may also be accessed through the website office: www.2usbaluty.lodz.pl.
In addition, the office has implemented a system that allows the transfer of information and communications to
customers via SMS / e‐mail related to the fulfilment of tax obligations. For example, customers with disabilities are sent
information about relief rehabilitation.
1.6. MEASURING USERS/CITIZENS SATISFACTION

It is a measure of how services delivered by service provider meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer
satisfaction is defined as "the number of customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience
with a firm, its products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals." The service providers must

25

plan continually to improve the user experience of the services delivered. By measuring user satisfaction,
service provider can determine what users think about the service and where and when they face problems or
difficulties. In this way, the service providers will exactly know what to improve in the service delivery.
It is recommended that service providers allow users to give feedback
about the service at various stages of using it
I. Within the service, when users are able to give feedback from any
point in the service
II. When users drop out of a service at any point for various reasons.
III. At the end of the service, once they’ve completed
the whole process
The service providers should try to get feedback from these users, as they will likely have important
insights about how the service can be improved and what are the service’s weaknesses and bottle
necks, as a process
To be able to measure users’ satisfaction there are many tools but some of them will include:
‐ To use “Semaphore” for indicating level of satisfaction of the users experience with
front‐desk offices
‐ To use public surveys or other instruments named in section 1.1. Learning the users’
needs/ expectations
‐ To use in‐service feedback page (with digital services)
‐ To set up web analytics to record the point in the service where the users submit
feedback and also any feedback scores they give
After the providers have collected data from users’ satisfaction instruments they should analyze
collected data and plan to increase user satisfaction
 Identify statistically significant patterns in satisfaction data and user feedback.
 Use this data to choose which parts of the service to change (improve/ avoid)..
 Test these changes on real users using a prototype of the service.
 Implement any changes that test well.
 Repeat this process regularly.
 Continually monitor user satisfaction ratings to make sure that changes have the effect
you anticipated.

Improvemen Piloting the
Analitics t Decisions changes Going live Repetition
Identify Use this data Test these Implement Continually
statistically to choose changes on any changes monitor user
significant which parts real users that test satisfaction
patterns in of the service using a well. ratings to
satisfaction to change. prototype of make sure
data and the service. that changes
user have the
feedback. effect you
anticipated
Figure 5. Steps in Measuring Users Satisfaction
It is good to share data for the user satisfaction data at least once a month and share it through the
service dashboard.

26

Example 6: Measuring customer satisfaction in the European Social Fund (Lithuania)
The European Social Fund Agency in Lithuania prepares and performs surveys on the quality of services it provides. The
first measurement of customer satisfaction was performed in 2006. The main aim of the survey was to receive
customers’ feedback on trainings and seminars organised by the Agency. The first survey to evaluate the quality of all
the services provided by the Agency was performed in the beginning of 2008, and then again at the end of each year.
The Agency uses a combination of several tools for measuring customers’ satisfaction:
 Once a year, the Agency distributes an e‐mail satisfaction survey on the quality of services provided, including
the following aspects: quality of the services provided, professionalism, communication and perfection.
 Self‐completion surveys are distributed after each training and seminar, including the following aspects: is the
aim of the training clear; does the information provided during the training correspond to the level of
knowledge of the participants; the quality of the presentations, slides, hand‐outs; the competence of speakers;
overall organization of the event, etc.
 Surveys on the web are performed, e.g. in 2014, so called ‘a question of the month’ ‐ a short question on the
most relevant subject at the time ‐ were placed in the Agency’s web page.
 Net Promoter Score (NPS) is used to gauge the loyalty of the Agency’s customers’ relationships.
 Customer panels are organised; during these events, project promoters (representatives) gather together and
share their positive and bad practices while implementing projects and working with the Agency.
 Group interviews/meetings with the ministries (the Managing Authority and Intermediate Bodies) are
organised in order to receive feedback on the quality of the Agency’s work and to agree upon the best ways of
collaboration. Several meetings have been organised so far.
The mix of instruments allow the evaluation of the Agency’s performance from different time perspectives (e.g. annual
surveys and surveys after each training) as well as from different stakeholder perspectives (ministries and project
promoters). In addition, the different forms of customer satisfaction measurement (e.g. e‐mail survey and customer
panels) complement each other:
 E‐mail surveys enable the Agency to reach a large number of project promoters with their enquiry;
 Customer panels enable to discuss particular questions in detail and often to take certain decisions during the
session together with the customers.
Based on the results of the evaluations, appropriate actions are foreseen in order to improve particular areas.
Improvements related to the evaluation of the seminars are for example: changing/coaching the trainers, choosing
more appropriate places for the subsequent venues, improving the quality of the slides. Actions of higher significance
are included in the Agency’s action plan.


2. PROVIDING A GOOD AND OPTIMIZED SERVICE DELIVERY

27

In delivering 21st century public services that meet user expectations, one of the main policy drivers has been
the desire to achieve administrative burden reduction (ABR), usually known as ‘cutting red tape’. OECD, “refer
to regulatory costs in the form of asking for permits, filling out forms, and reporting and notification
requirements for the government.” Regulatory reform generates some administrative simplification by itself
and creates the right climate for more. Regulatory reform has been implemented in Republic of North
Macedonia with intention to abolishing unnecessary laws and regulations and simplifying essential ones as far
as possible – following a process of review and impact assessment. Minimizing the regulatory burden has a
direct impact on service delivery, as it affects both what institutions do and how they do it (including when,
where and in some cases, how much they charge).
Optimizing process flows is a precursor for major advances in front‐end service delivery, such as creating one‐
stop shops and online delivery. In this regard, public administrations can learn from successful practices to
improve process flows in the private sector. Process re‐engineering also entails looking at how the interface
with the administration is experienced from the end‐user’s perspective and tailoring the ‘back office’
processes to make service delivery as efficient as possible.
This standard in order to be understand and fulfilled is going to be based on evaluation on following sub‐
standards as: service creator have a multidisciplinary team, to create service using agile ways of
working, to frequently iterate and improve the existing services, to protect users' privacy and very
important to define what success looks like and publish performance data periodically.
2.1.one
contact ‐
one office
2.6. define
success 2.2. engage
looks and a
publish multidiscipli
performanc nary team
e data
II. Providing
a Good
Service
2.5. protect 2.3. agile
users' ways of
privacy working
2.4. iterate
and improve
frequently

Figure 6. Elements of provision of good services
2.1. ONE CONTACT‐ ONE COUNTER / ONE WEB‐ONE SERVICE

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The principle ONE CONTACT‐ ONE COUNTER or ONE WEB‐ONE SERVICE (for digital services) means that in
the same institution there should be only one contact for delivery of the service and only one web site for
delivery of digital service. When user/ customer is getting the initial information and guidance what are the
steps in the service obtaining, there should be only one counter to
wait in line at. Usually it is a case that the info is obtained in one
office, than the customer is sent to another office in the same
institution for document or stamp and then in the third office to
finalize the service. This is a case in more complexed services as
pension insurance, social aid services etc., where several documents
and proves are needed in order to apply for certain service, especially
if the needed proofs are issued from the same institutions. One of the
most important aspects in the traditional way of delivery services is
treatment of the customer, and time that they are spending to obtain the whole service. In the so‐called
“labyrinth” of many doors to be opened, the users are exhausted and many times lost unnecessary time
traveling from door to door. The same principle applies to the digital services, where ONE WEB‐ONE
SERVICE, should be implemented.
Recommendations related to this standard are:
If the traditional service delivery is requesting the users to wait in line at one counter/ portal/web, you
should consider re‐structuring that service and providing at one point, only at one door all the
contacts, requests, and necessary documents
Back‐office processes to stay in back, as they are internal processes. This means that user is not
“postman” between counters
In the back office, the institution need to arrange all the internal processes, dealing maybe with some
time‐delay in the service, and providing the info or documents with one contact with the customers.

29

If it is web portal that provides eService, the provider should consider all information, and
deliverables to be at the same web. If something in background is needed the service provider should
in background arrange and manage all the works.
2.2. ENGAGE A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM
As standard, this is not visible to the end user but still has critical role in the providing good and high quality
service. A multidisciplinary team made up of people with a diverse mix of skills and expertise can create and
operate the service in a sustainable way. It’s important that people who are involved in decision making are
part of the team, so they’re accountable to the team ‐ and the team as a whole can respond quickly to what
they learn about users and their needs. It is useful to start with assumption that service creators will need a
broad range of roles. A team with diversity of perspectives is more likely to come up with the best solution.
To some extent, the team will be shaped by what they’re doing at that point. For example, a team that is
working on a prototype‐ and has agreed with the assessors that its riskiest assumptions are to do with
interaction design rather than technology ‐ might need less involvement from a technical architect at this
stage.

For this, standard recommendations are:
To include people on the team with expertise in how services are delivered across all the relevant
offline channels, and the back‐end systems the service will need to integrate with
To ensure the team with access to the specialist expertise it needs (for example legal, policy or
industry‐specific analysis ‐ from inside or outside the institution)
if the team is working with contractors and outside suppliers, make sure it’s on a sustainable basis
Example 7: Child benefits without application in Austria
This example can be relevant for several of the standards detailed so far in this study. One is referring to proper
identification of technical tools necessary tp be developed in order to better make use in the process of delivery of public
services. The other is the one referring the actual application of a principle of how services can be better oriented towards
the needs of the citizens by insuring a single point of contact between public institutions and citizen. In this example e‐
government has an important role by showing how rethinking of processes can bring benefits both for the citizens and the
administration:
The project 'Child Benefit without Application' is a 'no‐stop shop' solution based on integration of processes and
interoperability. Before the implementation of this programe, citizens had to make an individual application for child
benefit, either at the tax authority, by post, or online. The case officers would then collect the relevant data and assess the
application.
After the project, the notification for a live birth from the hospital triggers a fully automated process. The system generates
the birth certificate and checks the child benefit entitlement by matching necessary data in relevant databases. Within two
days, on average, the application is processed. An automatic payment is made in more than 60% of cases. In 45% of
remaining cases only the bank details are requested in addition. The time savings to citizens are estimated around 39,000
hours per year. The registered error rate is 2%. By reducing the application workload, the administration can redeploy its
staff to other tasks requiring human involvement.

Source: European semester thematic factsheet ‐ Quality of public administration, For further information look at:
https://www.bmfj.gv.at/familie/finanzielle‐unterstuetzungen/familienbeihilfe0/antrag‐familienbeihilfe.html

30

2.3. AGILE WAYS OF WORKING

This sub‐standard is referring to creation of the service using agile, iterative user‐centred methodologies.
Using agile methods means getting your service in front of
real users as soon as possible. Namely, this method is enabling
inspecting, learning and adapting as the services go.
Observing and generating data on how they use it, and
iterating the service based on what service creators learned.
Agile methods reduce the risk of delivering the wrong thing,
because not everything is specifying in front before starting to
develop the service and understanding of what users need.
Recommendation for this sub‐standard are going to be
following:
Wherever possible use agile ways of working ‐
inspecting, learning and adapting as they go
Have governance arrangements that are
consistent with the agile governance principles
and make sure that the right people know what’s happening with the service, at the right level of
detail (including, for example, the minister or chief executive)
Recommended is to test the service with the minister or relevant senior stakeholder

2.4. IMPROVE FREQUENTLY

Services are never ‘finished’. Using agile methods means getting
real people using service as early as possible. Then making
improvements throughout the lifetime of the service.
The sub‐standard is ensuring that the service provider have the
capacity, resources and technical flexibility to iterate and
improve the service frequently. Work with institution to make
sure that service provider is able to focus on improvements that
have the most value.
In this term, improvement does not mean only doing basic maintenance like fixing bugs in code, deploying
security patches and keeping call centre scripts up to date. When doing so it will be be fixing symptoms rather
than underlying problems, and over time, the service will stop meeting user needs.

For this standard recommendation are:
Continuous improvement to respond to changes in user needs, technology or government policy
throughout the lifetime of the service (the service stays relevant until it’s ready to be retired)
Iteration isn’t just for the early stages of a service’s development, but rather for periodical utilization

31

Running a live service doesn’t have to mean a full team working on the service 100% of the time
during the live phase, but it does mean being able to make substantial improvements throughout the
lifetime of the service.

2.5. PROTECT USERS’ PRIVACY

We are fully aware that the Government services often hold personal and sensitive
information about users during all life‐cycle of the service. Government has a legal
duty to protect this information, and that is regulated with EU act. Failing in that
duty would undermine public trust in government services.
The process of protecting users’ privacy starts with evaluation of what data the
service will be collecting, storing and providing. Also, understand how government classifies the data, the
institution’s legal responsibilities, and security risks associated with the service. The institution need to
consult experts where there is a need to.

Work with business and information risk teams to make sure the service meets security requirements
and regulations without putting delivery at risk
Actively identify security and privacy threats to the service, and have a robust, proportionate
approach to securing information and managing fraud risks
Collect and process users’ personal information in a way that’s secure and respects their privacy
Carry out appropriate vulnerability and penetration testing
Use an approach to identity assurance and authentication that balances the risks in a proportionate
way (for services that need identity assurance or authentication)

32

Have a plan and budget that lets them manage security during the life of the service (for example by
responding to new threats, putting controls in place and applying security patches to software)
Example 8: Privacy & data protection to orient public administration to citizens (Italy)
Public administration offices must ensure that EU directives are implemented, in addition to those concerning privacy,
access, transparency and personal data protection. A special case is that of health care services, even though, nowadays,
technology offers a wide range of tools allowing sensitive data to be handled automatically. In this case, it is important
to connect healthcare databases to ensure effectively the best healthcare assistance.
The Italian public services had to review its internal procedures, which are often disinclined to offer citizens digital
services. The problem was solved by implementing a novel system that ensures that sensitive data is handled, while
guaranteeing the privacy of the citizens. A new model has been developed and a privacy policy has been drafted. A
special office has been instituted for dealing with the critical issues to be solved with regard to processing personal
data. This model allows the following:
 The privacy company quality system to be equipped with a management incentive system linked to the internal
quality control, giving annual targets to ensure privacy which, when not met, affect the subdivision of
remuneration of economic result;
 A network of employees to be created, ensuring that privacy procedures are respected in every section of the
organisation, in conjunction with the Central Privacy Office, by reviewing internal data management processes;
 Increased knowledge among operators, improving their skills and attitudes towards customer care and
protection;
 An innovative communication campaign to be launched requiring customer participation, thus ensuring
maximum results from the measures already adopted, increasing the empowerment and the relationship
between citizens and administration, involving the citizens to give suggestions on how to improve the services
on offer;
 Managing every new data processing project through a preliminary privacy assessment impact, together with
doctors and computer technicians, to ensure the utmost respect of citizens’ data;
 A custom made front desk to be created, both online and on‐site, in order to offer citizens a quick and
dedicated communication channel and solutions to their problems; and
 Measuring periodically the stakeholders’ satisfaction.
The improvement plan involves the entire company and its corporate management executives and operators, and has
clear potential to be used in other complex administrations. Therefore, it shows that, with an integrated and systemic
approach to a complex discipline, it is possible to obtain an improvement in the following matters: quality performance,
participation and acknowledge of operators, fulfilment of customers’ requests and needs and good relations and
cooperation between public administration and customers.

To inform and make users aware for private policy protection
To follow the technical measures for private data protection that the law regulates.
2.6. DEFINE SUCCESS AND COLLECT PERFORMANCE DATA

33

The mean of this sub‐standard is to set up a monitoring and evaluation system that will inform service
providers where they are standing in terms of success. Defining what good looks like and identifying
appropriate metrics means that service providers know whether the service is solving the problem it’s meant
to solve. Iterate and improve the metrics and data collection practices as service providers learn more about
user needs.
Collecting the right performance data means service providers to be alerted to
potential problems with the service, and when they make a change to the
service, service providers would be able to tell whether it had the effect you
expected.
Work out what success looks like for your service and identify metrics which
will tell you what’s working and what can be improved, combined with user research. Collect and use
performance data via all channels, online and traditional way.
Advice is to publishing performance data means that service providers being transparent about the success of
services funded by public money. This will give to the public institution – provider of services a credibility for
good and excellent service delivery and at the same time, it will give internally to the institution right
directions for improvement/ innovations/ changes of the existing ones. The citizens can make comparisons
between different government services.
This standard’s recommendations are following:
Define metrics which will indicate how well the service is solving the problem it’s meant to
solve, and track performance against them
Collect performance data to make decisions about how to fix problems and improve the
service
Publish data as Central government services on the mandatory key performance indicators
(KPIs).
To inform employees for all changes made in service delivery
Use employees as a source for improvement

III. USING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

In the last set of service standards for usage of the right technology, we are going to discuss how to select and
make decision for right technology and tools for service delivery as technical architecture, choice of
programming languages, development toolchain. Follow with how to make decision on new source
code, should it be open or not, and what is advantage of making the decision in favor of open source code.
Open standards (technical specifications developed) help services to work consistently. Using common
components and patterns means problems that have already been solved should not be solved again and
service providers can provide users with a good experience in a cost‐effective way. When citizens are
expecting reliable services that are actually counting on minimize service downtime and maximize uptime and
speed of response for the online part of the service.

34

3.1.
selection
right tools
and
technology
3.4. III. Using 3.2. Make

Establish a
reliable the right new source
code open
service technology
3.3. Apply
open
standards
and
common
components
/patterns

Figure 7. Elements of using right technology
3.1. SELECTION OF TECHNOLOGY AND RIGHT TOOLS

One of the critical moments in development of services is moment of a decision about technology (technical
architecture, choice of programming languages, development toolchain)
used for service delivery. This is a significant investment not only for the
institution as investor of the service but also for the users because they
are also game players that will learn and play according to the technology
advancements or declines. The choices public institution made will have a
huge impact on ability to create, iterate and operate the service in a
sustainable way.
Recommendation is to choose tools and technology smart based
on evidences and analysis because the right technology will create a high‐quality service in a cost‐
effective way and will minimize the cost of changing direction in future.
In this direction, to create and operate a good service in a cost‐effective way (automating the tasks to
extend possible), selection of most optimal technology should be based on some previous analysis
and this decision should be evidence‐base
Analyze toughly and predict total cost of ownership of the technology, with possibility to use open
standards
The service is dependable on legislation, technology and there should be effective approach in
adapting the new legislation into the service.

35

Example 9: Purchasing public certificates online worldwide (Ireland)

This example can be used an illustration of how new technology 9internet0can be used in order to better provide in
terms of quality and increased accessibility of a permit issuing public service in Ireland. It can be also relevant for other
standards as well.
The website www.certificates.ie was developed as a smart way to enable clients to purchase certificates of life events
(i.e. birth, adoption, marriage, death and still‐birth, and more recently civil partnerships) online from any internet
connection in Ireland or abroad. It was a new and innovative way of providing the service, resulting in real savings, both
by using an online solution, and also taking the opportunity to re‐evaluate the current business model, designing and
implementing re‐engineered processes which increase efficiency.
The adopted joined‐up government approach was led by the Civil Registration Service – Eastern Registration Area (CRS‐
ERA), on behalf of the Civil Registration Service (CRS) nationally and the General Register Office (GRO) utilising internal
ICT resources.
The website was launched in November 2009 and by the end of 2010, approximately 5 % of all certificates were issued
from online applications, and turnaround time had reduced to less than 5 working days in 92 % of ‘customer‐not‐
present’ applications (online, by telephone or postal). Previously, to purchase a certificate, a person had to attend in
person, post a detailed description/ completed downloadable application form with a cheque/postal order, or in more
recent times could apply by telephone using a credit/debit card. Prior to the development of this site, the take‐up on
telephone applications demonstrated that clients welcome ‘customer‐not‐present’ approaches for purchasing
certificates.
Going online delivers savings for the state through reduced staff intervention as clients now input details, and reduced
cash‐handling by using a secure financial system that reduces administrative overheads e.g. cash counting/balancing.
With little available external resources, an innovative approach was necessary to keep costs to an absolute minimum
and a partnership approach saw this site being developed locally by an in‐house project team comprising of a
partnership between ICT and staff from the CRS service. For CRS‐ERA, key advantages include:
‐ improved customer experience
‐ empowering the citizen;
‐ enabling customers to order certificates of birth, adoption, marriage death or still‐birth from the comfort of
their own home or any location with web access at any time;
‐ more effective use of staff resources – ability to manage workloads better, diminished need for public space
at some offices, facilitating better customer experiences. This has been a joined‐up partnership approach with
other government agencies to benefit both the state and the citizen through exploiting online technology and
its application.


3.2. MAKE NEW SOURCE CODE OPEN

36

Because ‘Public services are built with public money’ they should be made available for people to reuse and
build on. So unless there’s a good reason not to, the code they’re based should be open.
Main characteristic of the open source code is that can be reused by
developers working in government, avoiding duplication of work and
reducing costs for government as a whole. Means that publishing source
code under an open license it in reducing the risk to get locked in to
working/depending with a single supplier.
Recommendation is to make all new source code open and
reusable, and publish it under appropriate licenses. If this is not possible, provide a convincing
explanation of why this can’t be done for specific subsets of the source code
From the start begin with code in the open, and publish it in an open source
Save ownership of the intellectual property of new source code that’s created as part of the service, and
make it available for reuse under an open license
Exception of this recommendation set are cases of code that relates to a sensitive government policy that
should be announced as such.
3.3. APPLY OPEN STANDARDS AND COMMON COMPONENTS/PATTERNS
Open standards (technical specifications developed) help services to work consistently. They are helping to
spend less time trying to make different service systems “talk” to each other. Using common components and
patterns means problems that have already been solved, should not be solved again. By using a component or
pattern that’s already been extensively tested, service providers can provide users with a good experience in a
cost effective way. If service providers develop own components or patterns, they should share them so that
other service providers in the government as others can benefit from this work.
One of the biggest threats that we are avoiding with this is to be locked into a particular supplier or
technology. With use of open standards when things change, service providers can change their approach.
Main recommendation is to build on open standards and common components and patterns from
inside and outside government. If service providers develop own patterns or components, they
should share them publicly so others can use them.
Utilize open standards, and propose a new
open standard if there isn’t one that already
meets the specific needs
Utilize standard government technology
components where possible, for example as
that on portal uslugi.gov.mk.
Use and create application programming
interfaces (APIs) and, where possible,
authoritative sources of data like registers
Utilize common components and patterns, and share details of any new components or patterns
they create or adapt (for example, by contributing to the uslugi.gov.mk System)
If the services produce data that’s potentially useful to others inside or outside government, they
should publish them in an open format agreed previously in the government and public institutions
Exception of this recommendations is data that contains personal identifiable data, information that’s
sensitive (national security), or where publishing the data would infringe the intellectual property rights
of someone outside government.

37

3.4. ESTABLISH A RELIABLE SERVICE
Users expect to be able to use online services 24 hours a day, 365
days a year. Many users have limited choice over how and when they
access government services. For example, they may be a career who
only has time to apply for benefits in the early hours of the morning.
If a service is unavailable or slow, it can mean those users are not able
to get the help they need.
Main recommendation for this standard is to minimize service
downtime and have a plan to deal with it when it does happen. At the same time the service
provider should maximize uptime and speed of response for the online part of the service
Example 10: Benchmarking e‐Government in Europe
The EU’s e‐Government Report 2014 shows that Governments are increasingly aware of the importance of making their
online services user‐friendly, but the focus is still mostly on making services available, leaving ample room for
improvement in areas such as speed and ease of use. The report contains the first complete measurement of online
public services, according to the new Benchmark Framework 2012‐2015, using ‘mystery shopping’
techniques to recreate the journey through government websites and services for seven life events ‐ five for citizens
(studying, losing & finding a job, moving, owning & driving a car, and starting a small claim procedure), and two for
businesses (starting a business & early trading operations, and regular business operations).
The study found that, on average, 72 % of public services under the life events are available online in the EU, through
either a portal or standalone channels. With regard to the overall user experience, usability features (support, help and
feedback functionalities) are widely present on government websites (78 %), but ease and speed of use come out 20
percentage points lower (58 %). Transparency was also measured, in relation to governments’ openness about their
own responsibilities and performance, the service delivery process, and the personal data involved. Here, the overall
EU score was only 48 %, which is mainly due to insufficient information provided to users during delivery of e‐
Government services, such as whether an application has been received, where it stands in the entire process, or what
are the different steps in the process.
The report shows that there is still a long way to go in giving businesses and citizens seamless access to online public
services when they are away from their home country. Availability of cross‐border public services to nationals of a
different EU country stands at just 42 %, 30 percentage points behind availability of public services for country nationals.
Services involving an electronic transaction between the user and the public administration
are possible only in a very few cases, causing unnecessary burdens for citizens and businesses that want to move, work
or start up in another EU country.
Source: European Commission (2014), “Delivering on the European Advantage? How European Governments can and
should benefit from innovative public services”
Service provider should be able to deploy software changes regularly, without significant downtime
Carry out quality assurance testing regularly and test the service in an environment that’s same as to live
as possible
Have appropriate monitoring in place, sustainable plan to respond to problems identified by monitoring
Fixing any organizational or contractual issues which make it difficult to maximize availability (for
example, by agreeing a common set of languages, tools, and ways of working for technical Helpdesk,
support)

38

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Websites:
https://www.bmfj.gv.at/familie/finanzielle‐unterstuetzungen/familienbeihilfe0/antrag‐familienbeihilfe.html
https://liverpool.gov.uk/council/
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new‐thinking/top‐tasks‐and‐council‐websites
www.linz.at
www.linz.at/wirtschaft

41

https://service.bmf.gv.at/BUDGET/Budgets/2014_2015/beilagen/Better_Regulation_2014_2015.pdf.
www.certificates.ie

42

ANNEX 1. CHECKLIST FOR STANDARDS IN SERVICE DELIVERY
# Name of the service Evaluation of the standard Illustrative questions? Verification
according to the Catalog (tick only one of 4 sources acceptable
of services: categories)
√
(what kind of documents,
significant
Meet fully
Not meet
evidences are acceptable to
Service standard (the questions given are illustration, or can be verify that the standards if
minor
Some
Some
at all
utilized as sub‐standards for evaluation) fulfilled)
description
Legend: (D)‐ digital only service
I. Meeting User
Needs and Expectation
‐ Copy of reports/
1.1. Learning for ‐ Is it any research /feedback
analytics performed so
needs/expectations of users mechanisms done so far to far(Direct contact
understand what are users need? (surveys, panels, and
‐ Do you have transparent box for focus groups;Indirect
compliments and complains on feedback and
the visible place at your front‐ representation;
office? Mystery shopping;‘Life
events’ analysis ;
‐ Is it any testing done on so‐called
Customer journey
prototypes (before the official
mapping;
launch of the service) to see if the Consultation,
real needs and expectations are stakeholder
addressed? (D) participation, other
‐ Do the service provider/creator use statistics obtained)
web analytics and other data that’s
available to enhance their
understanding of the problem? (D)
1.2. Holistic approach ‐ Does the service comply with

in problem solving current legislation (any legislative
constrains evidenced so far)?
‐ Are the service front officers
familiar with last legislation acts/
changes?
‐ Is the service part of any bigger
journey (as birth certificate) or
maybe it is stand alone service?
‐ Does this service involve other
institution than yours in
implementation or it is completely
covered by this institution?
‐ If it is interconnected service with
other institution, do your
institution have any written
agreement/understanding with
partner institution on this?
‐ Has this service designed with
open and collaborative manner
with people outside the
institution?

43

‐ Is principle ‘only once ‘applicable,
and if it is YES, is this principle
applied to the service design?
‐ Is it any alternative considered/
utilized to develop this service
with outside support (PPP, PFI,
outsource etc)?
‐ Photos
1.3. A joined up ‐ Is there any information officers
‐ Reports
experience across all available on the spot or via ‐ Written information
channels communication channel (email, for clients(copy)
call center, Q&A), that can provide ‐ Written information
guidelines for applications? for service officer
‐ Is it easy way to find service details (copy)
of phone, templates, guidance in
digital service?
‐ Are front‐desk‐officers included in
the users ‘researches/ testing and
decision making on different
channels of service delivery?
‐ When problem with service
delivery channel exist, is data from
researches consulted in problem
solving solution?
‐ Have the service teams
empowered to find best way of
solving problems with service
delivery via given channel?
1.4. Simplification of ‐ Is the front desk (where the

consumption of services citizens can submit the
applications/ obtain the
information) clearly and visibly
marked?
‐ Are the service steps, conditions,
documents required visibly and
clearly published near to the front‐
desk?
‐ Is there any information officers
on the spot that can provide
guidelines for applications?
‐ Are there printed templates and
guidelines (in hard copy) for the
service delivery?
‐ Are you periodically do a revision
of the list of services that your
institution is delivery, in order to
find if there are some need for
modification/ retirement or
development of a new service?
1.5. Services available ‐ Is the front desk accessible

to everyone according to the standards for all
citizens including people with

44

disabilities (height, width, contact
point?)
‐ Are the front‐desk‐officers
providing the sufficient guidance
to the users when accepting the
service applications?
‐ Are the front‐desk‐officers well‐
mannered addressing the
users/clients with adequate
respectful behavior?
‐ Is there a system for regulating the
line/queue of clients (numbers for
waiting)?
1.6. Measuring Citizens/ ‐ Do you have developed
users satisfaction instruments for measuring users
satisfaction?
‐ Do you measure periodically the
satisfaction, yearly, monthly or
daily? (Y,M, D)
‐ Do you have any staff to analyze
the collected data?
‐ Do you take any action for
improvement of the services?
‐ Do you publishing users
satisfaction results?
II.Providing a Good and
Optimized Service
Delivery
2.1. One contact‐ one ‐ Do you have in your institutions
office / one web‐one service more than one traditional service
delivery?
‐ Do the customer/ user need to go
only to one office and contact with
one staff to get the service
delivered?
‐ If YES, do you consider to re‐
structure the process and to
combine all in one contacts?
‐ Do you have in your institutions
more than one digital service
delivery?
‐ Do the customer/ user need to visit
more than one web address to get
the service delivered?
‐ If YES, do you consider to re‐
structure the process and to
combine all in one?
2.2. Engage a ‐ Do the team for development of
multidisciplinary team services include multidisciplinary
experts?
‐ Do you have in this team outside
experts, other institution staff?

45

‐ If it is from outside team
members, do you have contract or
agreement for this?
2.3. Agile ways of working ‐ Do you use agile ways of working ‐
inspecting, learning and adapting

as they go?
‐ Is the management team inform
about agile ways of working?
‐ Do you use to test the new service
with the top management staff,
before production starts?
2.4. Iterate and improve ‐ Do the services that exist have
frequently improvements during their
lifetime?
‐ Does the service has iteration in
regular periodic from the
beginning, till retirement?
2.5. Protect users’ privacy ‐Does the service delivery meets
security requirements and

regulations without putting delivery
at risk?
‐ Do you actively identify security
and privacy threats to the service?
‐ Do you have a robust,
proportionate approach to securing
information and managing fraud
risks?
‐ Do you collect and process users’
personal information in a way that’s
secure and respects their privacy?
‐ Do you carry out appropriate
vulnerability and penetration
testing? (D)
‐ Do you use an approach to identity
assurance and authentication?
‐Do you have a plan and budget
that lets them manage security
during the life of the service?
2.6. Define success and ‐ Do you have defined metrics,
publish performance data which will indicate how well the
service is solving the problem, and
track performance against them?
‐ Do you collect performance data
to make decisions about how to fix
problems and improve the service
‐Do you have to publish data as
Central government services on the
mandatory key performance
indicators (KPIs)?

46

III.Using the Right
Technology
3.1. Selection of technology ‐Do you choose technology based
and right tools on evidences and analysis? (D)
‐Do you analyze toughly and
predict total cost of ownership of
the technology, with possibility to
use open standards? (D)
‐ Is the service dependable on
legacy and if so is there an effective
approach in adapting the new
legislation into the service?
3.2. Make new source code ‐ Do you make all new source code
open open and reusable, and publish it
under appropriate licenses? (D)
‐ If this is not a case, provide a
convincing explanation of why this
can’t be done for specific subsets of
the source code? (D)
‐ Do you from the start begin with
code in the open, and publish it in
an open source? (D)
‐ Do you save ownership of the
intellectual property of new source
code that’s created as part of the
service, and make it available for
reuse under an open license? (D)
3.3. Apply open standards ‐Do you utilize open standards that
and common comp‐ exist or propose a new open
onents/patterns standard if there isn’t one that
already meets the specific needs?
‐Do you utilize standard
government technology
components where possible, for
example as that on portal
uslugi.gov.mk.? (D)
‐Do you use and create application
programming interfaces (APIs) and,
where possible, authoritative
sources of data like registers ? (D)
‐ Do you utilize common
components and patterns, and
share details of any new
components or patterns they create
or adapt (for example, by
contributing to the uslugi.gov.mk
System)? (D)
‐If the services produce data that’s
potentially useful to others inside or

47

outside government, they should
publish them in an open format
agreed previously in the
government and public institutions?
(D)
3.4. Establish a reliable ‐ Is there complete information
service about the service on the portal? (D)
‐Is the information up to date and in
accordance with the latest and
current legal acts?
‐Is the information available with up
to 3/4 steps or cliks? (D)
‐ Can information be accessed
through the main menu and several
alternative web routes?
‐Are there any templates to
download and fill out? (D)
‐ Is there any contact person
information (phone and email) to
ask question about the service?
‐Is it service downtime minimized
and do you have a plan to deal with
it when it does happen? (D)
‐ Is it uptime maximize and speed of
response for the online part of the
service? (D)
‐ Are the software changes deploy
regularly, without significant
downtime? (D)
‐ Do you carry out quality assurance
testing regularly and test the service
in an environment that’s as similar
to live as possible? (D)
‐ Do you have appropriate
monitoring in place, sustainable
plan to respond to problems
identified by monitoring ? (D)
‐ Do you have policy for fixing any
organisational or contractual issues,
which make it difficult to maximize
availability of the service? (D)

Principles For Service Delivery

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Rozalija Karchicka Vasilevska M.Sc, August 2019 EU funded project

3.4. III. Using 3.2. Make

1.2. Holistic approach ‐ Does the service comply with

1.4. Simplification of ‐ Is the front desk (where the

1.5. Services available ‐ Is the front desk accessible

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