Service Delivery Standards at the Local Level in Ghana: An Innovative Way for Effective Service Delivery?

Public sector productivity remains a major problem of the government of Ghana. Per the Ghana government, the productivity level of public sector institutions is at best about 50 percent of the sector’s capability. Nowhere is... [ view full abstract ]

Public sector productivity remains a major problem of the government of Ghana. Per the Ghana government, the productivity level of public sector institutions is at best about 50 percent of the sector’s capability. Nowhere is this problem so serious than the local government (LG) level. Since 1998 developing effective decentralization system with the basic aim of bringing government closer to the people has been a major preoccupation of the government seen from the various attempts that have been expended at the decentralization idea. In spite of all these, reports continue to paint abysmal performance of LG entities affecting the enthusiasm that greeted the introduction of Ghana’s new LG system. But, the belief in LG by government and stakeholders has not waned. Efforts continue to be made to ensure that the objectives of decentralization are met as exemplified by the current efforts by the government and donor community. Donors in collaboration with government have created a Decentralization Sector Working Group (DSWG) assisting Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the deepening decentralization in Ghana through dialogue with key Development Partners (DPs) to accelerate the process of decentralization and LG reforms. As part of these efforts by government, it enacted LGS Act 656 with the objective “to secure an effective administration and management of local government in the country”. The mission of the LGS is “to support local government to deliver value for money services through the mobilisation and utilisation of qualified human capacity and material resources to promote local and national development”. To meet this objective, the LGS in 2014 developed Service Delivery Standards (SDSs), with the desire to delivering quality service to the citizenry. The Act enjoins the LGS to set performance standards within which the District Assemblies (DAs) and Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs) shall carry out their functions.
The SDSs, similar to what the literature calls Citizen Charter are mechanisms by which transparency, accountability, and mutual trust are ensured between duty bearers and right holding citizenry in service delivery. In order to improve service delivery and minimize potential conflict between the citizenry and public officials mandated to deliver services, it is first required to identify, set, comprehensively document and communicate acceptable and realistic service delivery standards to stakeholders.
The objective of this paper is to examine whether the SDSs is an innovative way for ensuring effective service delivery and increase productivity at the local level in Ghana. To end this, we attempt to answer the following questions: how innovative is the SDS compared to the citizen charter developed some years ago? Can the SDSs help to improve service delivery and promote transparency, accountability, and mutual trust between citizens and public officials at the local level? How can it affect the productivity levels in local government organizations?
To answer these questions and achieve the objective of the paper, we employ the mixed methods approach by administering questionnaire to a number of personnel, as well as randomly selected citizens at DAs and RCCs in the Accra-Tema Metropolitan area.