Public service delivery in one-stop-shops: consumer perceptions and institutional constraints

Introduction: the public services delivery system in Russia has undergone a number of institutional innovations that correspond to the ideology of the new public management. Formally, the high indicators of customer satisfaction obtained through the system of surveys on «Your Control» portal encourage the study of the reasons lying behind the improvement as well as a more detailed explanation. Objectives: to identify specific areas in public services delivery for persons with disabilities and develop recommendations for improving this process for this category based on an evaluation of social conditions. Methods: cognitive modeling was used to develop a conception ofpublic services delivery process, sociological survey was conducted in order to identify and assess of individual limitations, as well as factor and cluster analysis. Results: cognitive modeling of public services delivery process based on a survey of consumers in the multi-functional centers (one-stop-shops) in Omsk was carried out. Scenarios for introducing mechanisms to improve this process are presented. Factors of persons with disabilities satisfaction with the quality of delivering public services are identified using factor and cluster analysis. Insufficient efficiency of the “single window” principle for the disabled is shown and recommendations are presented for improving the process of public services delivery for this category of consumers. Conclusions: it is concluded that to raise the quality of delivering public services it is necessary to personalize the process as well as introduce elements of person-oriented approach. “Single-window” principle can be replaced by creating specialized points of service where collecting and submitting documentation will be less time-consuming as a result of no queuing. Persons with disabilities should be provided by individual consultants to ease using the public service; alternatively an assistant can be provided for by the state or by a non-commercial organization specializing in helping the disabled.