Policy recommendations on Public Services for Business

[...] One large set of recommendation is related to the need of providing as much as possible evidence and comparison to show where initiatives have achieved good results. The workshop participants continue to believe that the most effective drivers in adoption of good public services for business is the sharing of lesson and the demonstration “by example” that to engage in innovation of public services, for businesses in particular, is worthwhile. In this set they suggested that it should be given evidence of costs of fragmentation. Having responsibilities spread in different bodies and agencies has a cost. This cost has to be quantified and shown clearly. Essentially it is the cost of “doing nothing” with respect to improvement of public services. This cost should be compared with the cost of innovation initiatives. Similarly, we should be able to provide quantification of benefits per users for government to create leverage in order to improve public services. It means to give evidence for the government to justify investment when improving public services. In particular should be given evidence that the large use of innovative services is the one enabling the highest financial gains for the system as a whole. Another suggestion concerns the capability to give evidence of the monetary justification of stronger integration between agencies (for example in Estonia has been calculated that improved public services brought 1 week of saved time per year per citizen).