I really enjoyed a lot of what was involved in this piece of work. It was great to work with the colleagues in Chile (including Felipe González-Zapata who started the project on the Chilean side and who had become a team mate on the OECD side before we came to finalise the publication) and to have a brilliant peer team of Ignacia Orellana, a service designer from GDS in the UK (but a Chilean herself), Paulo Value from AMA in Portugal, and Pedro Farias from the Inter-American Development Bank.
The experience in Chile gave a fascinating opportunity to get under the skin of what it looks like to think about blending in-person user experiences with a digital-first mindset. The ambition for ChileAtiende to create a seamless experience of government has such familiar echoes of the aspiration associated with GOV.UK but applying it to the built environment, and imagining what ‘government on the High Street’ could look like, is a completely different kettle of fish.
As well as considering the particular needs of Chile, this piece of work has been so helpful in our thinking about a Framework for Service Design and Delivery. The Framework, as described here, went on to become a staple of Digital Government Reviews.
What’s the TL;DR?
This report considers the intersection of Chile’s digital, telephone and physical service channels, and identifies the importance of ensuring the same service experience for all users, in all contexts, through all channels. To make the physical, offline and digital elements of a service work together in meeting user needs, service design is critical. It provides the basis for service delivery and the resulting experience for the public by:
- understanding a user’s journey from their first attempt at solving a problem, through to final resolution (from end to end),
- addressing citizen-facing experiences and back-office processes as a single continuum rather than two separate models (from external to internal, and vice versa), and
- creating consistency of access and experience across and among all channels (omni-channel).
We establish a three part conceptual framework for thinking about service design and delivery that underpins the analysis of Chile and ChileAtiende:
Part 1. The context for service design and delivery: these include a country’s representative and organisational politics, any historic channel strategies, the legacy of technology and infrastructure and finally, society and geography
Part 2. The philosophy of service design: expressed through six critical ways of working covering political, organisational and external leadership and vision; the understanding of whole problems; the design of the end to end service experience; involving the public; combining policy, delivery and operations
to work across organisational boundaries; and taking an agile approach
Part 3. The practical enablers for service design: following from the Digital Government Policy Framework‘s “Government as a Platform” pillar, these enablers include sharing best practices and guidelines; governance, spending and assurance; digital inclusion; common components and tools (such as digital identity, notifications and payments); data governance and its application for public value; and public sector talent and capabilities.
Key policy recommendations
- Define a clear cross-government strategy and coherent action plan for the government of Chile to establish and nurture a design culture that places users at its heart, in order to respond to their needs across all channels and throughout the policy and delivery lifecycle.
- Enable Chilean public sector organisations to understand the needs of the public in order to be proactive in finding solutions to the problems that cause the most pain and the highest costs.
- Ensure a joined-up and simple-to-navigate experience of government with brand clarity for all interactions between government and its stakeholders, whether citizen, business or visitor.
- Commit to an inclusive experience of government services that builds on Chile’s expertise in offline service provision to ensure those services are understood:
- from when someone first attempts to solve a problem through to its resolution (from end to end)
- on a continuum between citizen experience and back-office process (external to internal)
- across any and all of the channels involved (omni-channel).
- Secure cross-government political and administrative support for a holistic service design and delivery agenda ensuring ‘Government as a Platform’ enablers to scale transformation from the most high profile through to the ‘long tail’ of government services, including:
- a clear data strategy
- guiding principles and guidelines
- the necessary human capital
- technical and practical support to common components such as digital identity and payments
- Establish clear organisational responsibilities to provide coherent governance and effective leadership between:
- the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency (Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia, MINSEGPRES) and its Digital Government Division and LabGob (Laboratorio de Gobierno),
- the Ministry of Finance (Ministerio de Hacienda) and its Modernisation Secretariat,
- the Social Security Institute (Instituto de Previsión Social, IPS) and ChileAtiende, and
- the Civil Service.
The Blurb
The e-government era saw efforts to move government services online, automate internal processes and reduce administrative overheads for the public. Often technology led, those efforts sometimes led to the exclusion of some users and created digital-by-default siloes rather than coherent, cross-government, omni-channel services. Now, with the move toward digital government, OECD countries are giving greater priority to how services are designed and delivered, to ensure that digital progress benefits everyone, including those who rely on face-to-face interactions.
This report presents a conceptual model for service design and delivery that challenges governments to develop a design-led culture and ensure access to the enabling tools and resources necessary to deliver services that improve outcomes, efficiency, satisfaction and well-being. This model is used to analyse the situation in Chile and provide recommendations about how the ChileAtiende service delivery network can bring the state closer to citizens through a simpler, more efficient and transparent approach. By considering the intersection of digital, telephone and physical service channels, it recommends digital government approaches that ensure consistently high-quality service experiences for all users, in all contexts, and through all channels.
