Understanding the Advisory Needs of Citizens

Abstract

For several years the public sector has experienced substantial changes. First the widespread use of the Internet and the e-government discussion led to an extended offer of information for each governmental level (federal, state, regional, local) of the public authorities and a broad offer of online applications. The recent discussion of citizen-centred e-government focuses on governmental services and resources tailored to the actual needs of users including citizens, residents, government employees and others. Secondly, New Public Management supported the perception of citizens being customers which resulted in major changes e.g. long opening hours, centralized citizen offices. Despite these improvements citizens still don‟t perceive public services as customer centred and helpful in all aspects of life especially in complex ones like having a baby or moving to another city. Strict division of labour, protection of data privacy and fragmented databases in the public sector encourage this perception. The work described in this article is the first step to a citizen-centred e-government application which combines online and offline components to generate an “all around” service including information, planning and organization. It focuses on the understanding of the need for citizen advisory. To get insight and overview of the field of advisory as well as advisory, as well as advisory in public administration, we started with literature research (see 2.). Based on this, field research followed to gain further experience and knowledge (see 4.). Both steps lead to the results (see 5.) with design requirements for an information system supporting citizens‟ advisory in public administration.