New approaches to improving the quality of administrative services in the modernization of public administration in Ukraine

Abstract

The benefit of the study is to highlight the issues of the administrative (municipal) services by Ukrainian public authorities as a priority of the on-going decentralization and administrative reforms in Ukraine. Consequently, provision of the high quality services to the citizens became a main mission of all public authorities (State bodies, regional au-thorities, local self-government bodies) in the framework of the implementation of the new public management and good governance standards on all levels – national, regional and local. It reflects also the main European tendencies in the field of public administra-tion reform which are fixed in the documents of the international organizations (Council of Europe, European Union, OECD/ SIGMA etc.). For example, the European Strategy on Innovation and Good Governance on Local Level which was adopted by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers in 2008 fixed the principle of the ability to provide high quality services to the citizens as one of its twelve main principles of good governance on local level. This study tested the key issues of increasing the quality of the services which are provided to the citizens by the State bodies and the local self-government bodies. Moreover the study pointed out the main tendencies in the realization of the State policy in the field of the improvement of the quality of the administrative (municipal) services (in the context of the on-going large-scaled decentralization reform in Ukraine) as well as the main direction for its further modernization. The questions concerning the quality standards in the activity of the State bodies and LSG bodies are highlighted in order to increase the quality of the services to be provided to the citizens. Besides, the study em-phasized the issues related to ensuring the transparency of the activity of the State bodies as well as the regional and the local authorities, in the field of the provision of the admin-istrative (municipal) services and better information of the citizens on their activities and objectives. The author proposed to set up more valuable and effective cooperation be-tween the citizens and the respective public authorities in the context of provision of the high quality administrative (municipal) services. As a result, the new recommendations which are based on the best national and international practices are prepared to Ukrainian authorities in order to increase the quality of the administrative (municipal) services to be provided to the citizens. In this regard, the study recommended to pay more serious at-tention to the issues on assessment by the citizens of the activity of the respective public authorities in the field of the provision of the administrative (municipal) services.