Based on an in-depth analysis of public services, this paper aims to present the diagnosis of satisfaction with public education and health services in Brazil, as well as to analyze the explanatory factors of satisfaction with such services. Emphasizes the importance of applying satisfaction surveys to the population, as the results of these allow to assess the quality of public management - contributing to the improvement of Public Administration, as well as identifying electoral trends. The work aims to contribute to the political science literature related to the field of political behavior, raising discussions, testing explanations for trends and looking for factors that are associated with the perception of the citizen in relation to public services. For this, it analyzed seven explanatory hypotheses, created from the literature and research carried out by other authors. Empirical tests were carried out, using data from the Barometer of the Americas, in the 2012, 2014 and 2016/17 rounds. The results show that satisfaction with public health and education services varies between the negative and regular levels, with the grades attributed to the educational field being relatively better than those in the health field. In perspective compared with 17 countries in Latin America, Brazil stands out for the worst indexes, occupying the last places in the ranking of satisfaction. Through the tests, it was found that the level of education, perceptions in relation to the economy, satisfaction with life and access to the internet and news are relevant explanatory factors for the analysis of satisfaction with the analyzed public services.

Ao longo das últimas décadas, os termos “design” e “design thinking” popularizaram-se no campo da administração pública, introduzindo novas possibilidades para a projetação da ação governamental. Consequentemente, diversos governos vêm assimilando o design thinking como instrumento para aprimorar o desempenho de políticas e serviços públicos, recorrendo à disciplina de design para a resolução de complexos problemas governamentais. Entretanto, tal assimilação parece delimitar a atividade projetiva a determinadas técnicas para a inovação, produzindo artefatos governamentais orientados à eficiência administrativa. Uma possível explicação para isso baseia-se no legado da disciplina de administração pública, e seu papel no desenvolvimento de uma racionalidade técnica no aparato governamental. Nesse sentido, tal desenvolvimento consolidou não apenas uma forma particular de pensar nas organizações públicas, mas também conceitos como “eficiência”, “desempenho”, e muitos outros que fornecem princípios e orientação estratégica para as atividades de design em nível governamental. Assim sendo, esse trabalho explora as relações entre “design”, “pensamento do design” e “administração pública”, investigando o design como uma abordagem para a projetação da ação governamental. Inicialmente, examina, a partir de método bibliográfico, possíveis interações entre os campos do design, administração de empresas e administração pública, caracterizando tanto opensamento do design no campo da administração pública, quanto as tradiçõessubjacentes a projetação da ação governamental. Para isso, mapeia historicamente conceitos-chave à investigação e resolução de problemas governamentais, identificando princípios e orientações estratégicas que configuram as práticas de design no setor público. Por fim, sugere uma matriz para a intepretação das relações entre design e administração pública, identificando três possíveis abordagens para o design na projetação da ação governamental.

In this edited volume, we take a close look at the provision of those basic services that society vitally needs for its development and economy to function, focusing specifically on the European context and addressing many aspects and understanding of the matter. Referred to nationally used various expressions such as ‘public services’, ‘service public’, ‘Daseinsvorsorge’, and many more, the European Union also introduced a related, but nonetheless stand alone, concept: Services of General Interest.

Digital transformation can become a complex process when workers have insufficient skills, which makes training in the digital field essential. Herein, we intend to relate the digital literacy perceived by workers with their training needs for the Portuguese public sector context. Additionally, based on the Human capital theory, we also investigate which professional/demographic characteristics increase training propensity in digital fields. Through an online questionnaire, a dataset with information on 573 workers was obtained. The data analysis was made by using a probabilistic regression model and additional statistical techniques. The results revealed that workers with higher levels of education and higher professional skills have higher probability of participating in training in the digital field. On average, workers reveal low levels of digital knowledge (2.7 in a 1–5 scale) and low participation in training in the digital fields (72% of the sample had no training over the last two years), but the majority present a willingness to participate in future training sessions, especially in the fields of Dataset management, Cybersecurity and Communication systems. This study provides information on training in the digital field of public workers, which is essential for public organizations to better prepare for digital transformation. Additionally, it contributes to a very recent literature on digital learning, and it can be extended to other contexts.

This paper presents the starting point to adverse event reporting and learning systems designed to describe and prevent unfavorable happenings in Public Services organizations. To achieve this goal, the Eindhoven’s Classification Method was changed to house such incidents. On the other hand, the evolutionary process of the knowledge body of such systems is to be understood as a process of energy devaluation, i.e., their data/information/knowledge will be represented and handled as pure energy transactions, being such procedures and the respective outcomes object of formal proof under a Proof Theoretical approach to Problem Solving.

Wicked problems require collaborative innovation approaches. Understanding the problem from the users’ perspective is essential. The purpose of the current paper is to identify some critical success factors in defining the ‘right problem’ to be addressed. With this purpose, a case study approach was used and extensive data was collected from citizens, politicians, public servants, and other relevant institutional players, by means of interviews and a focus group. As defined by the Central Government, the problem to be addressed by the research team was to identify which justice services should be made available locally to a small- and low-density community. Therefore, the problem was initially formulated using top-down reasoning. In-depth contact with citizens and key local players revealed however that the lack of justice services was not ‘the issue’ for that community. Mobility constraints and the shortage of economic opportunities had a considerable impact on the lack of demand for justice services. Using a bottom-up perspective it was possible to reframe the problem to be addressed and suggest a new concept to be tested at later stages. The approach followed called attention to the importance of listening to citizens and local organisations with a profound knowledge of the territory to effectively identify and circumscribe a local problem in the justice field. The current paper contributes to expanding the voice-of-the-customer principle, typically associated with quality approaches, to the public policies design by showing how listening to ‘local voices’ can lead to a substantially new definition of the problem to be addressed.

Os cidadãos são a razão de ser dos serviços públicos. A pandemia de Covid-19 realçou a sua importância, mas também revelou insuficiências e a necessidade de os reforçar. Este artigo analisa um conjunto de experiências relacionais de trabalhadores vulneráveis com os serviços públicos, em particular com os serviços de emprego e segurança social, saúde, educação e transportes. Com base em 53 entrevistas, realizadas entre 2019 e 2020, e um follow-up de 14 casos seguidos durante o primeiro confinamento da pandemia, o objetivo é compreender como se desenvolveu o processo de interação e formou a perceção sobre estes serviços. Os resultados, embora ambivalentes, no sentido em que revelam tensões entre necessidades e críticas ao seu funcionamento, apontam para uma revalorização dos serviços públicos, nomeadamente num contexto de crise, onde foram chamados a desempenhar um papel crucial e insubstituível.

This study aimed to find out residents' degree of satisfaction with local public services provided by local authorities. It also intended to identify the determinants of citizens' satisfaction. The research adopted a quantitative approach, through the application of a questionnaire survey to residents in the municipalities of Sao Nicolau in Cape Verde. Globally, citizens are satisfied with the municipality where they live. For the variables of Global Satisfaction with the municipality of residence and Global Satisfaction with the financial management of the local authority, there are no differences by the municipality of residence regarding citizens' satisfaction. As both are located on the island of Sao Nicolau, in principle, there should be no discrepancy in their form of action due to characteristics associated with insularity. Citizens' satisfaction is influenced positively by the Image of the Municipality, Quality of Basic Infrastructure and Services and Quality of Life in Leisure, Access to Culture, Environmental Quality and Safety. Quality in Economic Terms, on the other hand, seems to have not influenced the citizen's satisfaction.

As the demographic transition occurs in a global scale, dealing with the consequences of population ageing has emerged as a critical task to modern societies. This has led government entities to pay more and more attention to seniors’ concerns, limitations and needs. A deep understand of old citizens, especially those unfamiliar with Internet and smartphone technologies, is also a challenge in order to enable them to fully benefit of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In the light of this issue, personalization and user-centred approaches involving older adults in all development stages may be the key for higher levels of user engagement with such ICT solutions as the interactive television (iTV) platform reported in this paper (+TV4E). The +TV4E is an on-going research project conducted at University of Aveiro, Portugal, based on a social inclusion approach, aiming to take benefit from the television viewing dynamics of senior viewers, by interweaving short and personalized adverts related to public and social services alongside regular broadcast contents. The platform is being designed with a user-centred approach featuring the integration of assistive technologies and multiple multimedia communication channels. In this paper, a system architecture to deliver the informative contents is stated and a discussion of the potential social impacts of providing such platform is presented.