Are the new Citizen Shops introduced in Portugal just ‘old wine in new bottles’? How can traditional bureaucracies change to become more customer oriented and accessible? Can service delivery be improved without profoundly changing the institutional framework? This article, from the Department of Management and Public Administration, University of Minho (Portugal), analyses a Portugese case study.
Citizen Shops (CS) (Lojas dos Cidadãos) are a new method of delivering services, inspired by experience in Brazil. Several public services are concentrated in a single building. The Citizen Shops are open outside normal office hours and emphasise service delivery – rather like a shopping centre.
The Citizen Shops represent a political attempt to revitalise stalled public service reform and to introduce a greater degree of entrepreneurship. However, the new structure has a limited ability to challenge the traditional features of the Portuguese administrative system. The Citizen Shops appear to reflect many of the priorities of New Public Management (NPM) – customer service, flat hierarchies and an emphasis on results. But the changes are more style than substance – the fundamental nature of Portuguese public administration remains unchallenged.
- Portuguese public administration – which is based on the French system – is highly centralised. Legalism is the most important source of power and protection within the system. The density of rules limits flexibility.
- Attempts at reform have progressed slowly. The Citizen Shops are the latest effort by a politically- committed government to set up new administrative structures to improve relations between the public sector and citizens.
- Selective recruitment of staff is an important feature of the Citizen Shops, including psychological profiling. Staff receive training in customer service. The physical environment is important with well-designed offices and staff uniforms.
- The Citizen Shops were not accompanied by measures to simplify the administrative processes. The main difference with traditional services is that staff can access central databases and use fax machines – this has made services faster.
- There has been no change in the fundamental nature of Portuguese public administration. The management of the Citizen Shops remains highly centralised and bureaucratic.
- The Citizen Shops represent a huge investment – there has been no cost effectiveness evaluation of the exercise. There have been no true performance- measuring processes introduced.
Public service reforms must address the fundamental nature of public services if they are to be effective. However, with well-entrenched bureaucracies this may prove politically difficult.
- Public services reform needs to change the fundamental processes and internal culture of institutions to have the desired effect.
- True New Public Management reforms involve doing more with less. Increasing resources may result in some superficial improvements, but are no substitute for fundamental reform.
- Reforms carried out by senior civil servants who remain unconvinced of the need for a cultural change are unlikely to succeed.
