Public Services Monitoring System - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

Statistics Poland has launched Public Services Monitoring System to provide local government units, entrepreneurs and community with the information necessary for a comprehensive assessment of services provided at the local level. Previously entities responsible for providing these services did not have access to data for supporting decision-making processes, as well as to monitor changes to improve the quality of services at the municipal level.

Innovation Summary

Innovation Overview

The main problem to solve was the lack of the system that would allow anyone interested to have a quick access to comprehensive information on the provision of public services in the country. New indicators have been created for the 4 dimensions of public service provision (quantity, quality, accessibility, efficiency) with methodological explanations.

The innovation is the whole product as the system. The uniqueness of the innovation lies in the way the system were developed and implemented. Methods of preparing 'tailor-made' solutions were used. The main stakeholders - officers and experts of local government offices - were directly involved in the process of developing the system. They had a direct impact on the development of monitoring indicators and the definition of the method and form of data acquisition. They tested the usefulness of the solutions in the management of public services in their 'home' units. As a result, forms of data presentation were simplified as much as possible and adapted to real needs (e.g. service reports were developed). For the first time, user experience test were conducted with citizens from different social and professional groups (students, teachers, pensioners). Their insights made it possible to simplify the access to data, implement solutions to fully meet their needs (e.g. data search engines).

The long-term aim of building the SMUP is to optimize the provision of services that public administration is responsible for delivering, based on integrated, high-quality data.

The beneficiary of the initiative is local government in Poland - citizens, public administration officers, and local entrepreneurs.

Further development of the system are planned. In particular, the areas of monitoring services and volume of indicators will be adjusted to legal and organisational changes.

Innovation Description

What Makes Your Project Innovative?

The Public Services Monitoring System is an innovation in methods and tools because:

It represents the biggest database about public services in Poland;
It simply delivers most important information for managing of the sector worth about USD 80 bn;
It allows to share data on social media;
This initiative has involved - for the first time ever such a close cooperation between public statistics and local government experts;
It is a tool to ensure transparency on decision-making processes and in the relations between officers and citizens, but also a tool for strengthening civil society;
The system enables a comparison of data on the provision of services by different municipalities: benchmarking. It leads users into finding leaders and good practices;
A method for calculating the unit cost of a public service has been developed.

What is the current status of your innovation?

The project has been completed. Since 2021 the interfaces of the system have been available. In 2022-2023 the system was enriched - new tools and a scope of data were published. At that stage the recipients remarks and needs were implemented, and new functionalities were added.

The propagation phase consisted in carrying out training in the use of the system and data analysis methods in over 600 local government units. This stage have been completed by local self-government experts.

Innovation Development

Collaborations & Partnerships

The project team is composed of:

Statistics Poland – responsible for the development and implementation of the data sharing system;
The Ministry of the Interior and Administration - as a facilitator responsible for local administration; coordinating role;
Association of Polish Cities and Association of Polish Counties – involved in the development of the information scope of the system.
Ministries and central offices – in order to obtain new data and to fill information gaps.

Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries

Thanks to the system, citizens receive reliable information on the provision of public services in their municipality. Thanks to that, civil society is strengthened.
Officers can compare the effectiveness of the services they are responsible for. They can more easily identify municipalities that are better at providing services and use their good practices.
Thanks to the data, NGOs can better engage in social campaigns. Using official data, they can prevent the spread of fake news.

Innovation Reflections

Results, Outcomes & Impacts

The system will make it possible to move away from intuitive decision-making by local government officials to evidence-based public policy-making.
Local government organisations estimate that the costs of the public services are around 85% of the funds under the responsibility of local governments. The share of funds spent by local government units are more than 12.0% of Poland's GDP.

Challenges and Failures

The biggest challenge was overcoming resistance to making changes in the organisation of work, allowing the design of processes to which previously only Statistics Poland staff had access. A major challenge was to overcome distrust on both sides - acquiring the ability to understand each other's concerns and expectations and to develop satisfactory solutions.

Conditions for Success

The most important condition that was necessay for the success of the innovation was close cooperation between Statistics Poland and local government experts. The contacts established during the development and implementation of the system, proved to be very solid. They have influenced the working culture of the units on both sides. There is an easier flow of knowledge in both directions, making it simpler to conduct statistical surveys and match it to real needs. It is very important to maintain the model of cooperation with local government organisations and cooperation within the Statistics Poland. During the maintenance phase, it is also important to ensure that solutions are updated and adapted to the current state of the law.

Replication

The model of cooperation with recipients is already being replicated in the work on the modernisation of other information systems in the Statistics Poland. The verified solutions of the individual working groups are being implemented in other activities in the institution.

Lessons Learned

The launch of Public Services Monitoring System is the result of long discussions about the information needs of local government. The initiative required research into the needs of the recipients.
The project required coordinating the work of many experts and and the engagement of the Statistical Information Centre as the developer of the system. The implementation team on the part of Statistics Poland was of 288 people from 25 organisational units. In addition, more than 100 local government experts participated in the development and testing of solutions.
The experience gained from this work has improved the efficiency of the implementation of this type of initiative.

Anything Else?

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, completely new working methods had to be introduced. A major challenge was to move project activities completely into a virtual environment. It was necessary not only to replace face-to-face meetings with video conferencing, but also to enable the sharing of ideas and discussions in a virtual environment. It was therefore decided to introduce elements of the design thinking approach using the tools offered by Teams and Webex. Drawing interfaces was replaced by imaging them in Adobe XD software. Large-scale use was made of Redmine's asset storage and description tools.

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