THE COUNCIL,
HAVING REGARD to Article 5 b) of the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of 14 December 1960;
HAVING REGARD to the standards developed by the OECD in the areas of public service leadership and capability, digital government strategies, digital identity, digital security, internet policy making, artificial intelligence, regulatory policy and governance, agile regulatory governance, international regulatory co-operation, protection of privacy and transborder flows of personal data, health data governance, open government, access to justice, gender equality, youth empowerment, public policy evaluation, public procurement, regional development and budgetary governance;
RECOGNISING that high-quality public administrative services are essential for governments to achieve socio-economic objectives, including economic growth, inclusion and wellbeing, the green transition, and upholding the rule of law, and that governments rely on well-functioning services to deliver public policies, improve wellbeing, to collect needed revenues and information, to communicate, engage with and empower the public, and to ensure compliance with rules and regulations for the functioning of society, the economy and public administration;
RECOGNISING that users’ needs and expectations have evolved significantly along with the digital transformation, notably through their experience with providers from the private sector, which calls for governments to hasten the transition towards more human-centred services to improve users’ experiences from start to finish as an on-going continual exercise;
RECOGNISING that reliability, responsiveness, accountability, transparency, openness, integrity and fairness are the main public governance drivers of trust in government institutions, and that therefore, ensuring that services, as critical touchpoints with government, are reliable, responsive, equitable, open to public feedback and contributions, and demonstrate value-for-money can contribute to increasing trust in government;
RECOGNISING that improving users’ experiences with services requires a transformative shift, leveraging purpose-driven innovation strategies and approaches in the public sector, whereby consideration for users’ needs, expectations and convenience takes priority over existing government policies, organisational silos, internal procedures or legacy IT systems;
RECOGNISING that all users have the right to access services equitably, regardless of socio-economic status, age, gender, race and ethnicity, Indigeneity, (dis)ability status, or any other characteristic or specific needs, including those impacted by the digital divide, in vulnerable and disadvantaged situations, those living with health conditions or impairments, or those experiencing any form of discrimination or exclusion;
RECOGNISING that the governance, design and delivery of services should be rooted in democratic and ethical values, sustainability, respect for human rights and the rule of law, and the principles of transparency, accountability, human dignity, equity, gender equality, confidentiality, legal certainty and predictability;
RECOGNISING that a larger number of cross-border services supporting international mobility and trade and data co-operation require cross-border co-ordination and co-operation;
RECOGNISING the importance of a supportive, inclusive, attractive, and respectful working environment for those designing and delivering services to effectively carry out their functions;
RECOGNISING that services operate on different scales in terms of user number and time-sensitivity of outputs, and there is no one-size-fits-all model across services or countries, and that different services operate with different resources to achieve the desired objectives;
RECOGNISING that Members and non-Members having adhered to this Recommendation (hereafter the “Adherents”), have differing approaches to service design and delivery, with different roles and contributions from the public, private and non-profit sectors, varying levels of decentralisation for services, different regulatory frameworks, and varying levels of maturity of public digital infrastructure, including at supranational level;
CONSIDERING that the governance, design and delivery of services is a shared responsibility across branches and levels of government, and that accordingly this Recommendation is relevant to all of them, in accordance with their national and institutional frameworks.On the proposal of the Public Governance Committee:
On the proposal of the Public Governance Committee:
I. AGREES that for the purpose of this Recommendation, the following definitions are used:
● User refers to any person accessing and utilising a public administrative service, whether as an individual (a natural person) or on behalf of a corporate, governmental or other organisation (a legal person). This includes individuals representing themselves or persons acting on behalf of another natural or legal person. In contexts involving services across different jurisdictions, a user also encompasses individuals or entities from outside the local jurisdiction. Commonly, users may also be referred to as 'customers' or 'clients' and can include a diverse group comprising individuals, businesses, public sector agencies, civil society groups, and other organisations.
● User experience refers to how a user interacts with a service. It includes a person's perceptions of utility, ease of use and efficiency, recognising that past experiences shape expectations and satisfaction.
● Service provider refers to the entity responsible or co-responsible for designing and delivering public administrative services, regardless of the channel. This usually concerns public sector entities, but at times the responsibility is shared by or outsourced to private sector entities.
● Public administrative services or services refers to administrative processes which members of the public undertake in order to access or use publicly provided goods or services, comply with laws and regulations, and/or assert or use their rights. Examples of public administrative services include, but are not limited to, registering a birth or death, obtaining identity documents, registering to vote, applying for government permits and licences, and requesting benefits. It does not refer to publicly provided services which require additional professional competences, for example classroom teaching, medical treatment, or policing. However, it does encompass the administrative services required to utilise these professional services, such as registering for a primary healthcare provider or enrolling a child in a public school. Public administrative services provided by any level of government, and those provided by private agencies on behalf of the government are included.
● Accessibility refers to the extent to which services can be found and used by people from a population with the widest range of user needs, means, characteristics and capabilities to achieve identified goals in identified contexts, including their affordability, the channels available, the adequacy of the channels, including geographic proximity for in-person services, the clarity of information, etc.
● Omni-channel refers to the approach to managing service delivery channels in an integrated, interoperable way to enable users to access the service they want seamlessly and with consistent quality across channels (such as websites, physical offices, self-service kiosks, video-calls, call centres, etc.), as opposed to a ‘multi-channel’ approach that refers to the ability of the user to access services through different entry points, often operating independently of each other.
● Once-only principle refers to the precept of not requesting users to supply the same information more than once to any service provider at any level or branch of government, enabled by interoperable data-sharing systems and other arrangements (e.g. user’s consent to the re-use of data).
● Civic space refers to the set of legal, policy, institutional and practical conditions non governmental actors need to access information, express themselves, associate, organise and participate in public life.
● Life event refers to a change in the circumstances of a user which creates a need to use a public administrative service or services, and that may require co-ordination and integration between different service providers.
● Digital public infrastructure refers to the common, foundational digital systems that enable the delivery of services in the digital age.
Strategic vision, values and rights
II. RECOMMENDS that Adherents foster and promote a strategic vision and approach to strengthen the design and delivery of services, based on the values and culture of a human-centred approach . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Establish whole-of-government strategic approaches to continuously improve service design and delivery, based on evolving user needs, expectations and experiences, by:
a) developing new or maintaining existing strategies for human-centred service transformation in consultation with the public, based on an analysis of existing practices, policies and procedures and all users’ needs and expectations, including those with specific needs, impacted by the digital divide, and in vulnerable and disadvantaged situations;
b) ensuring alignment between service design and delivery strategy and other strategic documents, in areas such as digital government, procurement, gender mainstreaming or civil service, in order to promote a comprehensive adoption of the human-centred principle;
c) adopting government-wide objectives and targets for making services more human centred;
d) defining the action needed to achieve the objectives and targets, including deploying necessary digital infrastructure, and any changes in legislation, and clearly assigning responsibilities;
e) analysing capacities and needs, and estimating costs to implement changes in service delivery and providing sufficient resources for each action;
f) establishing a transparent and regular monitoring, reporting and evaluation system for this strategy.
2. Foster a culture where public sector entities aspire to design and deliver services that meet users’ needs, expectations and experiences, and recognise public services as the main touchpoint between governments and citizens, by:
a) taking into account the existing administrative culture of service providers;
b) promoting communication with, and the engagement and participation of, citizens, service providers, businesses and civil society organisations in service design and delivery;
c) promoting a human-centred approach as one of the core public service values;
d) providing methodological guidance and support;
e) providing opportunities for innovation, piloting and testing;
f) facilitating learning and exchange;
g) promoting continuous improvement, openness, and accountability;
h) taking actions to foster a culture of dignity, and reciprocal trust and respect between users and service providers, including ensuring that public servants are representative of the public they serve.
III. RECOMMENDS that Adherents uphold the protection of both the public interest, and the rights and legitimate interests of users through the design and delivery of services that offer procedural guarantees and administrative and judicial review . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Provide services in line with principles of the rule of law, including lawful exercise of discretion, legality, legal certainty, equality, impartiality, integrity and proportionality.
2. Safeguard the principles of good administration, including the rights of users to be informed of all administrative actions affecting them, to be heard, to access their files and information, to obtain an explicit and motivated decision, and effective remedy in a timely manner.
3. Protect privacy and ensure digital security as a means to give certainty to users on the transparent, lawful, fair and trustworthy use of personal data by service providers.
4. Provide users with access to an independent, efficient and effective judiciary to challenge the lawfulness of administrative actions, and obtain effective protection of their rights in a timely and non-burdensome manner.
5. Mandate the relevant institution(s) to prevent and correct maladministration in all public sector entities providing services, including by enshrining powers to investigate individual cases and systemic issues, and by taking steps to ensure that there are adequate resources to fulfil this mission.
6. Ensure transparency in decision-making to enhance accountability, build trust and ensure that services are delivered in a fair and consistent manner aligned with the principles of good governance.
Core Foundations
IV. RECOMMENDS that Adherents clearly define roles and responsibilities for enabling human centred service design and delivery . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Clearly assign roles and responsibilities for leadership and coordination of service design and delivery, by:
a) assigning political responsibility;
b) designating a responsible body to lead and co-ordinate service delivery strategy, and provide central oversight, steering, and communication to all service providers on a human‑centred approach in service design and delivery;
c) mandating a relevant body to propose and initiate simplification, streamlining and continuous improvement of services.
2. Facilitate co-ordination between institutions within and between all levels of government and foster collaborative work in service design and delivery, by:
a) enabling co-ordination at the strategic level through the participation of entities in charge of public services in the design and implementation of service delivery strategy;
b) enabling co-ordination at the operational level through information sharing between, and participation of, all relevant institutions in the implementation of the activities included in the strategy, as well as through concrete actions to integrate services which are used together during life events;
c) promoting co-ordination between different levels of government, including local and regional governments, to overcome administrative barriers and enable a seamless user journey regardless of the allocation of competences and jurisdiction.
V. RECOMMENDS that Adherents equip public servants with the skills and competencies, and working environment to design and deliver human-centred services . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Identify and codify the skills required to develop and deliver human-centred services, by:
a) identifying key roles in the service design and delivery chain, including leadership and front-line positions, and defining accountability lines;
b) adapting competency frameworks and/or models for key roles that define the associated skills, competencies, behaviours and mindsets;
c) disseminating these frameworks throughout service providers to promote common standards across the public administration;
d) aligning transparent recruitment processes to attract and assess people with the right skills, competencies, behaviours and mindsets for key roles as set out in the competency frameworks and/or models;
e) empowering public officials with the autonomy, competencies and ongoing training opportunities to adopt innovative approaches and exchange learning;
f) building a system of incentives and rewards that authorises risk-taking and encourages innovation;
g) implementing a robust performance management system that includes clear metrics, goals and feedback mechanisms to assess the effectiveness and competency of service providers.
2. Continuously develop and update the skills, competencies, behaviours and mindsets of public servants involved in service design and delivery, by:
a) providing training and development programmes and opportunities throughout public servants’ careers;
b) providing communities of practice and/or networks to enable peer learning and coaching;
c) providing mobility opportunities within and across public sector entities;
d) including aspects of human-centred service design and delivery in performance and accountability frameworks for relevant public service leaders;
e) recognising the value of their experience and expertise and fostering a culture of mutual respect and care in the workplace.
VI. RECOMMENDS that Adherents ensure the availability of reliable and inclusive digital public infrastructure that supports human-centred service design and delivery . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Develop and deploy digital public infrastructure for human-centred services, by:
a) addressing the needs and expectations of users and service providers;
b) taking steps to ensure that access to essential public services is not restricted by barriers affecting the availability and use of digital public infrastructure;
c) empowering users to oversee and engage in the development and the use of digital public infrastructure and to exert their rights;
d) implementing data governance frameworks that enable data sharing and interoperability between service providers.
2. Take measures to secure scalable and interoperable digital public infrastructure to enable fair service design and delivery at local and national levels, and across borders, by:
a) making digital public infrastructure available within and across levels of government;
b) equipping service providers with common resources, guides, manuals and standards to facilitate the development and deployment of digital public infrastructure in the transformation of services;
c) developing and deploying digital public infrastructure that is scalable, re-usable and adaptable to government capacities, changing conditions, and possible disruptions across different public service delivery channels;
d) procuring digital public infrastructure which is technology and vendor neutral, and observes relevant security requirements;
e) co-operating internationally to better enable cross-border interoperability and mutual recognition of trusted digital public infrastructure solutions;
f) embedding privacy and digital security in the development and deployment of digital public infrastructure, including at cross-border levels.
3. Reinforce the governance of digital public infrastructure to enable human-centred services, by:
a) securing a common long-term vision for needs and benefits around inclusive digital public infrastructure, in alignment with national digital strategies and dedicated policy frameworks for service design and delivery;
b) defining national leadership, institutional arrangements and delivery oversight for digital public infrastructure within the domestic digital government context;
c) fostering inclusive co-ordination and collaboration between relevant stakeholders from the public sector and from the wider ecosystem when taking decisions affecting the development, deployment and use of digital public infrastructure in service design and delivery;
d) developing collaboration arrangements between public and private sector entities to promote healthy and reliable markets for digital public infrastructure, fostering competition, integrity, and different/alternative models of technology;
e) implementing flexible and long-term funding and digital investment frameworks that balance responsiveness to changes in digital technologies and the needs and expectations of users and service providers.
Seamless and accessible services
VII. RECOMMENDS that Adherents adopt human-centred design and delivery approaches to improve users’ experiences and enable users to achieve their desired outcomes and meet their needs . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Organise service design and delivery from the perspective of users, by:
a) prioritising users’ needs and expectations and facilitating users’ meaningful interactions throughout the whole user journey;
b) raising awareness of the existence of services and making them intuitive to understand and use, including through effective and inclusive communication with users which adopts clear and plain language supported by visual aids, simplifies administrative and legal terms, and navigates the challenges of mis/disinformation;
c) building end-to-end journeys to obtain the services required at the first attempt, including by considering equity and accessibility from the start and at every stage of development;
d) promoting equity and inclusion by taking pro-active steps and affirmative measures to reach and support those who may otherwise be disengaged with services, in particular due to vulnerable and disadvantaged situations, living with health conditions or impairments, or experiencing any form of discrimination or exclusion, thus encouraging the uptake of, access to and benefits of services for all potential users;
e) adopting an omni-channel and/or cross-channel approach with consistently high standards of quality, effective outcomes, ensuring user choice and accessibility, and ease of navigation across all channels, regardless of the point of entry, and regardless of the context of access and use (e.g. urban or rural areas);
f) prioritising design and delivery of services on interaction points which are frequent and complex, such as life events (i.e. birth of child or death of a relative), business events (e.g. start or close of a company, payment of taxes), and critical experiences (e.g. pandemic, natural disasters);
g) using thematic clusters to ease users’ experiences, bundling services around specific domains (e.g. household, automobile, work life, tax, resolving a dispute);
h) allowing and incentivising users to provide their insights and feedback at any interaction point of the service journey, using those inputs as opportunities to understand, iterate and improve the design and delivery of services;
i) providing users with support and fall-back options via alternative channels for addressing undesirable or unexpected issues and barriers in the use of services, for the clarification of doubts or questions, and to ensure access to relevant information.
2. Simplify, streamline and improve the experience of accessing and using services, by:
a) designing and delivering services tailored to include all people, adjusting to the needs and expectations of different users, especially of those in vulnerable and disadvantaged situations, living with health conditions or impairments, or experiencing any form of discrimination or exclusion;
b) exploring customisation (services modified based on expressed preferences) and personalisation (services designed around the profiles of users), without undermining the principle of universal and equal access to public services;
c) reviewing and simplifying existing administrative regulations and procedures to ensure they support and promote the human-centred design and delivery of public services;
d) preventing unnecessary administrative burden and complexity while maintaining administrative obligations and compliance requirements which are simple by default (e.g. using the once-only principle);
e) removing unjustified barriers, costs and frictions for users, both tangible (e.g. excessive wait times and financial costs) and intangible (e.g. stigma, exclusion, distrust, and anxiety);
f) promoting proactive services which initiate contact with users and provide support before life events, requests or issues arise, by allowing users to opt into service mechanisms that anticipate their needs, reach out in advance of formal requests, and deliver services automatically.
VIII. RECOMMENDS that Adherents adopt collaborative, inclusive and innovative approaches in the design and delivery of services. To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Embed rights-based principles and collaborative approaches in the design and delivery of services, by:
a) protecting civic space to encourage and harness an inclusive range of people’s standpoints, including from civil society and persons or groups in vulnerable and disadvantaged conditions;
b) empowering users to participate in co-designing and co-creating public services, identifying and eliminating barriers that can limit or hamper people’s engagement throughout the service lifecycle;
c) maximising the opportunity to build on each service interaction to raise public awareness, strengthen trust, promote human rights and democratic principles, and engage users through formal and informal consultative and participatory means;
d) establishing partnerships with a variety of actors, including civil society organisations, academia, and the private sector, to co-design, co-create, co-deliver, co-evaluate and communicate on services;
e) adopting responsibility principles to ensure open, inclusive, and ethical decision making processes for service design and delivery, in line with the values of transparency, respect, equity, equality, including gender equality, and sustainability;
f) valuing and harnessing the role, experience and knowledge of public servants to develop supportive and stimulating working environments for innovation in public services, enhance interactions with users, and foster collaborative processes with stakeholders to improve public services.
2. Adopt innovative and evidence-based approaches to the design and delivery of services, by:
a) adopting innovative methodologies that ensure the proactive adaptation to a fast changing environment and the anticipation of potential opportunities, challenges and risks;
b) ensuring that innovative approaches are embedded and coherently applied across service providers, building cross-sectoral and systemic co-ordination instruments to the design, integration, management and delivery of services;
c) providing public sector entities and public officials with the required resources, capacities and competences to adopt innovative approaches and methods in practice, including through capacity-building, stewarding, rewards and recognition for public officials and managers;
d) using innovation-friendly regulation (including testbeds and sandboxes) and agile public procurement methods and procedures to facilitate knowledge transfer, collaboration with a wide range of suppliers and developers, and the incubation and scaling-up of emerging solutions for services;
e) enabling flexible workforce arrangements to design and deliver end-to-end services that involve multiple public sector entities and cross government sectors, such as multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral taskforces, cross-sector missions and project-based deployments;
f) supporting experimentation, such as prototypes, pilots, and “safe spaces” (e.g. living labs), to test and iterate innovative solutions, using the participation and feedback of users throughout;
g) using evidence-based approaches, including data from user experience, research and experiments, to lever the continuous improvement of the service experience and demonstrate value for both users and service providers;
h) taking advantage of the value-creation potential of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and automation, while developing and using them in a transparent, accountable, responsible, trustworthy, lawful and ethical manner to build trust among the public, with the necessary guardrails in place to ensure human decisions in service design and delivery are protected, supported and augmented with technologies;
i) promoting secure, resilient and sustainable services by strengthening the ability of the public sector to anticipate changes in the local, national and international contexts which may impact the way services are designed and delivered, defining actions to navigate both ongoing and emerging societal shifts and cope with sudden and unanticipated events;
j) supporting strategies and initiatives, including funding mechanisms, public procurement and flexible regulations, that ensure the roll-out, scaling-up and adaptation of innovative approaches and experimental solutions that add value for users and improve the effectiveness of public services;
k) sharing good practices and lessons learned throughout the service lifecycle across the public sector and, where relevant, across borders.
Measurement, engagement, improvement
IX. RECOMMENDS that Adherents measure and report on user experiences with, and perceptions of, service design and delivery, and use this information to identify ways to improve satisfaction with public services . To this effect, Adherents should:
1. Set frameworks to measure user experience and service performance, by:
a) undertaking regular, robust surveys of users and the public to understand needs, expectations, experiences and satisfaction with services, and to examine the aspects of user experience which influence satisfaction;
b) regularly gathering other sources of user feedback, such as complaints and user interviews, to further identify issues affecting satisfaction with services;
c) setting service delivery standards, with inputs from stakeholders, and regularly tracking performance against those standards, using defined and transparent methodologies;
d) regularly assessing administrative burden and complexity of services, improvements achieved, and needs for further simplification and transformation;
e) adopting common survey measurement tools and methodologies across service providers to ensure consistent and comparable findings, and support cross-agency co‑ordination in delivering improvements.
2. Collect and analyse data which provide a holistic and inclusive view of service design and delivery from the perspective of users and the public, recognising the diversity of expectations and experiences of different people, by:
a) collecting and analysing data on user experience and service performance for all services for which it is practical, particularly services linked to life events which require accessing services from multiple service providers;
b) systematically reviewing the experiences and identifying the needs and expectations of groups in vulnerable and disadvantaged conditions, by disaggregating analysis by demographic and other relevant characteristics of users, and looking for issues caused by intersecting characteristics;
c) systematically collecting, and analysing data on the user experience with, and service performance of, different delivery channels, including digital, physical and telephone;
d) analysing the needs, expectations and barriers affecting persons who cannot or do not access the services which are available to them.
3. Engage with stakeholders to improve service performance, by:
a) publishing complete and transparent information on service performance, including where possible both intended and unintended policy impacts, at regular and pre-defined intervals, covering all performance targets, which is open by default to all stakeholders;
b) communicating clearly on how public sector entities will use data on user experience and service performance to improve future performance;
c) implementing mechanisms to allow the public to be involved in service design and improvement, including by making performance data re-usable by the public;
d) providing effective feedback channels from users to the public administrations, in order to better understand and target service delivery problems.
4. Use experience and service performance data as a core input and guide on how to improve services, building an effective feedback loop to improve service design and delivery by:
a) instituting management practices to help ensure user experience and service performance data is used to identify potential improvements in service delivery;
b) incorporating user experience and service performance data into service design and review processes, identifying observed or potential performance issues and examining options to resolve or mitigate them;
c) ensuring that data collection is cost-effective, sustainable, and automated where possible to limit reporting burden and increase frequency.
X. INVITES the Secretary-General to disseminate this Recommendation.
XI. INVITES Adherents to disseminate this Recommendation at all levels of government.
XII. INVITES non-Adherents to take account of and adhere to this Recommendation.
XIII. INSTRUCTS the Public Governance Committee to:
a) support the exchange of information and experience on human centred public administrative services to facilitate the implementation of this Recommendation, through a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary dialogue to continue building the body of global best practices, activities and emerging trends;
b) monitor activities and emerging trends around human-centred public administrative services which may impact the implementation of this Recommendation, through relevant data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results to Adherents;
c) develop guidance and tools to support the implementation of this Recommendation; and
d) report to Council on the implementation, dissemination and continued relevance of this Recommendation no later than five years following its adoption and at least every ten years thereafter.