As part of the ongoing civil service reforms, the Royal Civil Service Commission has introduced a formal feedback platform. Called the Service Evaluation Tool, the platform allows citizens to give feedback on public services including forestry, census, land transaction, and trade licensing among others offered by the civil servants and the public servants. Although it has been more than a year since its launch, the Commission says not many people are aware about it.
The Service Evaluation Tool is a formal platform for citizens to rate the quality of public services.
It is to ensure that services of all kinds are delivered most efficiently and effectively.
According to the RCSC, public raise feedback and opinions regarding public services on social media and other informal platforms. But, the Commission said, these opinions cannot be considered formal or relied upon for decision-making.
Out of the 118 public services available in the country, only 30 are included in the tool for public feedback as of today.
The RCSC plans to include the rest of the services in the tool in the next one to two years.
The Commission says the system will not only promote accountability of the service providers but will allow service users to play a vital role in enhancing public service delivery.
“This is in fact the right forum, the right platform, for you to complain because thereafter it will be analyzed by an independent agency and subsequently the report would be generated to the agency that has been assessed and they will do the corrective measures in order to improve service delivery for all,” said Lhendup Wangchu, RCSC Commissioner.
The Service Evaluation Tool comprises feedback channels where it will send SMS to the citizens that will direct them to the SET website if the user is literate.
For the illiterate ones, the commission reaches out randomly to service users seeking their feedback through telephone interviews. Public can also directly visit the SET website to give feedback.
To use the feedback platform, individuals will have to provide their Citizenship Identity Card Number and Date of Birth. However, the Commission says, their identity will remain confidential.
“Once they provide their credentials then those people or the officers working in the RCSC will or the focal officers for that will also not have access to their identification because that will be at the back end of the IT system. So, we can only see the feedback and the kind of feedback based on the ten questions,” said Krishna Lungeli, Assistant Human Resource Officer of RCSC.
So far, the Commission has created awareness among local leaders in the Dzongkhag Tshogdu of 15 districts.
Since its launch in February last year, over eleven thousand people have used the tool to give their feedback.