I attach my comment to the group, in response to a thread on the first draft UML model, which I sent before reading this TGF thread (naughty me).
My worry is that half-baked and poorly informed contributions will not advance anything at all.
I may be critical of some of the UK’s work but the work on its core conceptual model is exemplary and avoids all
the usual pitfalls that “naïve” modelers fall into.
I hope to have some bandwidth to reply and contribute.
Peter
From: [mailto:]
On Behalf Of John Borras
Sent: Friday, 07 December, 2012 11:29
To: 'Chris Parker'
Cc: 'TGF TC List'
Subject: RE: [tgf] FW: Describing a Public Sector Service
Chris
The “What’s it for” question is answered on
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/core_public_service/description but you may well still ask “so what”….
-)
The model they have started to produce and the one Nig has just highlighted need to be discussed within the group and decisions made on which way they want to go.
It’s early days yet and they don’t
have a clear view on that yet.
As usual these EC working groups are somewhat vague at the outset and it takes a time to settle down but I believe it’s in our interests to be at the table rather than not, so I’ll preserve for the time being at least.
And because
they have to get agreement across all Member States they inevitably end up with things at a high-level otherwise they would be there forever and a day!
The ESD work has already been drawn to their attention and someone from that area is on the working group.
I’ll feed your comments back into the group and we’ll see what they make of them.
John
From:
[ mailto: ]
On Behalf Of Chris Parker
Sent: 07 December 2012 10:13
To: Greenaway Nigel; John Borras; 'TGF TC List'
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam]RE: [tgf] FW: Describing a Public Sector Service
John
I'm struggling a little with this.
The EC model feels massively over-simplified to me (just look at the reductionist, linear view of the relationship between policy, service and legislation).
I could probably list lots which is missing, but it would
be helpful first to have a clearer idea of what the purpose of this model is: who are the intended users of it, and what value is intended to deliver to them?
Does the EC have some sort of statement of objectives for the work?
If we could see that, it would
help in giving more focused comments.
The UK model Nig has circulated will clearly be helpful to the EC in adding detail, but it feels to me that the two things are trying to do something different: the UK document feels like it is providing a menu of
defined concepts which could be brought together to describe any service, whereas the EC work is trying not simply to provide a menu but a generic model of how all the concepts fit together and interrelate for a generic service.
Doing so is clearly going to be a challenge.
Having said that, my initial reactions about major gaps in the EC model include:
·
The customers for the service.
At present these are packaged into a single box called “community”, which the public service “targets”.
Nothing about the need for a service
to understand customer needs and circumstances, and how these vary and sub-segment.
And nothing which recognises the idea of a two way relationship in service design and service delivery, with eg citizen co-creation of service.
Similarly, nothing which recognises
that some customers for some services will be anonymous, but in other cases the service will need to identify safely who the customer is (opening up the whole set of identity management issues).
·
Channels for service delivery.
Nothing on this in the current model except the idea that each service has “a site”.
Does that mean a website?
The implication of the way “public service” is described in the central box (with homepage and url) is that this is
focused solely on e-services.
But even if that is the intention, we still need to recognise the existence of multiple channels, along with the idea that users want not simply to choose between channels, but to move between them on a single service experience
·
Relationships with other services.
Worth recognising somewhere in this that services do not exist in isolation, particularly when viewed from a customer perspective – where
a number of services may need to be integrated in order to meet a single customer need.
And of course the wider service universe encompasses not just public but also private and voluntary sectors.
·
Outcomes of the service.
Like you say, benefit realisation is not here, other than the recognition that a process should generate an output.
We also need to show how outputs
create public value, both directly for the users of a service and indirectly through generation of externalities, and how these benefits impact on the policy outcomes being targeted for the service.
Some of these issues have been addressed in another bit of UK work, focused at local government level, which doesn’t yet seem to have been picked up by the project team working on the EC model See the “local government
business model” at http://standards.esd.org.uk/LGBMDiagram.aspx .
Even this though feels to me like it fails the “so what?” test.
Which brings me back to the question of what all this is for!
Regards,
Chris Parker
Managing Partner
CS Transform Limited
www.cstransform.com
T: +44 7951 754060
F: +44 207 681 3908
Citizen Service Transformation
