Approaches to Assessing Quality of Public Services: Domestic and Foreign Experience

Abstract

Despite growing interest in this field of study, research on improving quality and efficiency of providing public and municipal services in the Russian Federation has not yet been established into a single theory. The paper reveals experience of foreign countries in providing state and municipal services to the population, as well as methods for assessing their quality. Foreign experience in developing a network of institutions — so-called supermarkets of public services — is very interesting and similar to the domestic practice. This is not new for our country, since multifunctional centers in Russia were created based on foreign organizations, but having eliminated the mistakes they had made and in accordance with the Russian culture. The author looked into the legal framework concerning the organizations in question and analyzed service quality standards. The concept of state and municipal services is defined in various official sources such as codes, federal laws, and standards. Public services are defined as activities of executive authorities, extra-budgetary funds and local governments within the limits of their functions and assigned powers. There are currently several approaches to assessing quality and effectiveness of public services: marketing (equating functions of state agencies in terms of providing services with those of the private sector of the economy), functional (assessing performance of all the functions of each participant), and process-like (where providing services is considered as a continuous process that can be constantly improved). The applied methods of assessing quality and effectiveness of public institutions are substantiated as relevant and leading to further improvement of these institutions.