End of Commitment Report – Re-engineering of citizen public service reporting tools in San Pedro Garza García

Name of Evaluator

Ricardo Luevano

Email

ricardo.luevano@inai.org.mx

Member Name

San Pedro Garza García, Mexico

Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... Title

Action plan – San Pedro Garza García, Mexico, 2022 – 2024

CommitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action...

Re-engineering of citizen public service reporting tools in San Pedro Garza García

Title

Re-engineering of citizen public service reporting tools in San Pedro Garza García

Action

The Department of Innovation and Citizen ParticipationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More, through the Department of Citizen Services, in coordination with the Secretariat of Public Services and Environment, will renew the municipal public service reporting systems by integrating real-time monitoring and accountability functionalities as well as the generation of control panels to improve the efficiency of Public Services operations. In the medium term, this system will allow both the municipal reporting tools and Public Services areas to have a punctual follow-up of their operations with operational indicators for decision-making. In addition, citizens will be able to know the status of their reports in real time, as well as the reasons for their compliance or non-compliance. In the long term, this system could be migrated to other municipal areas that need to improve their citizen service processes.

Problem

It is common for the public sector to fail to fulfill expectations when providing public services, which leads to frustration and distrust. Partly, the problem is that governments continue to provide services without focusing on the citizens as users. For that reason, the city of San Pedro Garza García has designed world-class services and has sought to improve the quality of citizen attention. We have provided customer service systems as well as improved the delivery of services and procedures. However, there is room for improvement in the time that it takes to respond to service requests. The system for citizen follow-up on reports is also deficient, which leads to incomplete accountability. These two problems generate a false perception of government noncompliance, which lowers institutional legitimacy and trust.

1.1 What was the overall level of progress in the commitment implementation at the time of this assessment?

complete

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the current work plan, all established milestones were met and the verification methods consulted correspond to what was established.

Provide evidence that supports and justifies your answer:

Evidence services

1.2 Describe the main external or internal factors that impacted implementation of this commitment and how they were addressed (or not).

The commitment was focused on making changes in citizen service, specifically in the area of public services. In this sense, it was identified that in the face of the new “adjustments”, there was resistance on the part of the operational staff to modify their processes due to customs and the digital divide. What the municipality implemented was training for operational staff adapted to the different departments and “field” support for the operations, which proved to be essential for the effective adoption of the new practices.

1.3 Was the commitment implemented as originally planned?

All of the commitment milestones were implemented as planned

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the content of the Implementation Report of the Local Open Government Action Plan 2022-2024 of Nuevo León, a series of modifications were not made to the milestones described in the Local Open Government Action Plan.

Provide evidence for your answer:

Evidence services_1

2.1.1. Did the government disclose more information; improve the quality of the information (new or existing); improve the value of the information; improve the channels to disclose or request information or improve accessibility to information?

Yes

Degree of result:

Outstanding

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

The commitment focused on the citizen service provided by the municipality. In this sense, with this commitment, the indicators that map the results in this area were published and disseminated. The information can be consulted and downloaded in a user-friendly manner.

Provide evidence for your answer:

Evidence services_2

2.1.2. – Did the government create new opportunities to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation inform or influence decisions; improve existing channels or spaces to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation/ inform or influence decisions; create or improve capabilities in the government or the public aimed to improve how the government seeks feedback from citizens/enables participation/ or allows for the public to inform or influence decisions?

Yes

Degree of result:

Outstanding

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

The municipality developed work to modify its processes and thus make citizen attention to reported problems more efficient. In addition, it was proposed to be accountable to the population so that they can view the results obtained. In this sense, this commitment through the public dashboard improves the channel for communicating results, and at the same time, the population is also enabled to provide feedback for more reports.

Provide evidence for your answer:

Evidence services_3

2.1.3 Did the government create or improve channels, opportunities or capabilities to hold officials answerable to their actions?

Yes

Degree of result:

Outstanding

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

In general, the commitment had an impact on the internal processes of citizen service in terms of public services, thus transforming the way of providing service. In this sense, the commitment had an impact on the different areas of the municipality, establishing a continuous improvement through the updating of its manuals.

Provide evidence for your answer:

Evidence services_4

2.1.4 Other Results

Not Applicable

2.2 Did the commitment address the public policy problem that it intended to address as described in the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The original commitment sought to improve the times of attention to citizens and at the same time to be accountable to the population, which, with the development of the milestones, was able to materialize, reflected in an improvement in the attention of the services and making the information of its indicators transparent.

3. Provide at least one lesson or reflection relating to the implementation of this commitment. It can be the identification of key barriers to implementation, an unexpected help/hindrance, recommendations for future commitments, or if the commitment should be taken forward to the next action plan.

The commitment reflects that the innovation and accountability components can prosper to generate a transparent solution. This is clearly reflected in the indicator dashboards and in the improvement that has occurred in the attention to the reports. One element to consider is the identification of the digital gap of the operational teams, so documenting this part generates valuable input to take as an example in different processes that wish to innovate.