Socially Significant Services: Public Monitoring Methodology

Abstract

This article is based on the “Methodological guide for the preparation, organisation, and conduct of public monitoring of socially significant service quality assessment” project, completed by order of the Astana Civil Service Hub and published with its permission. The paper presents a methodology for monitoring the quality of socially significant services provided in Kazakhstan. The methodology was developed by analysing public monitoring experiences from recent decades and considering the specific nature of socially significant services. This methodology is primarily based on surveys of service recipients. During the development process, three main methodological approaches to conducting public monitoring were established: a direct survey of service recipients, an expert survey, and a participatory survey. Their tools include stakeholder surveys, Community Score Cards, Citizen Report Cards, Community-Based Monitoring, Participatory Outputs Tracking, and Social Audits. All these tools utilise both quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection.

Keywords: Public services, Measurement, Socially significant services, Public opinion, Public monitoring, Methodology, Service recipient, Service provider.