Maintaining good quality and governance of public services are critical to the lives of citizens, businesses and investors. There is a well-established connection between a strong, merit-based public service and high rates of economic growth. The effectiveness and efficiency of the public sector are vital to ensuring the success of economic development and business investment activities.

The following forces and challenges underscore renewed focus to re-energising the public delivery service to make a successful transition to higher and sustainable of economic development.

1.Increasing complexity in the global business world and investment fields requires an efficient and quality public service to facilitate both domestic and foreign businesses and investors;

2.The emergence of increasingly affluent and middle-class societies has increased societal expectations on the range and quality of services delivered by the state; and

3.Post COVID-19 presents government with an opportunity to accelerate their transition to the future of work. Public services will be provided differently. Digital ID and digital technology are the new mode of delivery.

Malaysia’s public service performs at a stagnant or declining trend and falls short of high-income comparators and her regional aspirational (Singapore and Korea), which is evident in the implementation of e-government. Thailand is fast catching up.

Despite various efforts having been made to improve the quality of public service delivery, there is a perception that the quality of the public service has remained mediocre – slow, lumbering and outdated for some Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and work processes. Public and businesses generally want public service to be delivered effectively and efficiently, understand public needs better and achieve better outcomes.

We recommend that the following steps are taken:

1.Maintaining public trust.

Public delivery services shape people’s trust in and expectations of government. Treating everyone fairly and with respect. Being professional and responsive and working to make public services accessible and effective.

2.Good governance.

As public services account for a large proportion of public spending, the public should have the right to access information on budgets, contracts, performance and provision. Hence, fulfilling your obligations to customers with the highest standards of honesty and integrity.

3.Facilitate not frustrate.

An efficient delivery system will make it easy and more transparent for the people and businesses to deal with the government. The business community will need efficient, fast and accurate services so that the cost can be lowered and competitive.

4.Public-Private constructive engagement.

Open public service reforms can support citizens, public servants and politicians to engage in a more informed, direct and constructive manner.

5.Good open government reforms.

The Open Government Partnership requires country action plans to be developed through a multi stakeholder process, with the active engagement of citizens and civil society. It has the potential to improve the governance and performance of public services.

6.Facilitate an open environment in the public service.

It is necessary to build an institutional and legal framework that encourages pro-active sharing of information and data across agencies, working with other departments, and developing services to best fit people’s needs in a user-friendly and impactful manner. Open source enables more agile processes and further develop the capabilities of the public sector office while ensuring effective use of our resources.

7.Opening up government and agencies’ data would benefit all segments of society.

A centralised depository of data and information making them accessible to inter-government departmental users and also public with sufficient protection would help both the public and private sectors to make effective public policy to better serve the interest of the rakyat and informed business decisions for the private sector.

8.Simplification of the work flow manual.

Continuous efforts to improve the government delivery system through streamlining the organisation and simplification of the desk file and work procedure manual to reduce cumbersome bureaucracy and layering. Each component of the work manual clearly delineates the organisational chart, functional chart, work flow and job description.

9.Ramping up e-government services.

Allow e-government services providers to handle more services. The current e-government system is probably at 30-40%. Public sector employees must be equipped with ICT knowledge and capability as well as the maturity of experience to undertake e-delivery projects and to understand what the market needs. The government is not fully exploiting the opportunity of using e-government service providers to share citizens’ information while complying with privacy and security obligations. We should leverage on Big Data analytics to allow a swifter and more accurate decision-making process.

10.A more transparent and citizen-centric government.

Government agencies and departments have to coordinate their activities more effectively. When government agencies and departments work in silos, they are unable to engage in the kind of collaboration that is critical to deliver on the government’s commitments.

11.Digitalisation and technology as well as automation pose challenges for the management of the public service and nature of jobs.

The public sector workforce of the future will require adaptability, advanced cognitive, socio-behavioural and interpersonal skills.

-- BERNAMA

Lee Heng Guie is Executive Director of the Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC).