1.6.2: Channel Ownership

Deliver services where citizens want to receive them, including through private or voluntary sector intermediaries.

Other Information:

Channel ownership: it is important to understand, too, the variety of "channel ownership" options which are available. Traditionally, channels for government services have been branded as belonging to a specific government agency. Increasingly, governments looking to develop a citizen-centric approach have also started to badge these on a government-wide basis: either covering a single channel (such as a national government portal), or multiple channels (such as Service Canada, which spans walk-in offices, contact centres, and the web). However, a citizen-centric approach also involves delivering services where citizens want to receive them - and this may often mean that it is important to deliver services through private or voluntary sector intermediaries. This is particularly important as services become digitised, potentially reducing the marginal costs of delivery to near zero and hence making it easier for third party organisations to bundle public sector services with their own service offerings. This can be challenging for governments, however, since for the first time it means that they are "competing" for customers with other organisations. Establishing clear ground rules for how this sort of mixed economy of service provision should work, on a basis that will encourage private and voluntary sector organisations to become actively involved, is therefore an important task for government in creating the policy framework for citizen service transformation. Often however, there is little pro-active management of this channel mix by governments, resulting in increased costs and decreased user satisfaction. Typical pitfalls include: * Managing new, digital channels as "bolt-ons", with business and technical architectures which are entirely separate from traditional face-to-face or paper-based channels * No common view of citizen service across multiple channels * Operational practices, unit costs and service standards for many channels which fall well below standards set for those channels in the private sector * A reliance on government-owned channels, with insufficient understanding of how to partner with private and voluntary sector organisations who have existing trusted channels to government customers * Unproductive and costly competition among service delivery channels Citizen service transformation programmes seek to avoid these pitfalls, by building a channel management approach centred around the needs and behaviour of the citizen.

Stakeholder(s):

• Private Sector Intermediaries


• Voluntary Sector Intermediaries

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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