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Moving towards integrated public governance: improving service delivery through community engagement

Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada

Community engagement for improved citizen-centred service is an important dimension of Integrated Service Delivery (ISD), which is in turn a central component of the movement towards Integrated Public Governance. The experience of such organizations as Centrelink and Service Canada can inform thinking and action on the community engagement activities of ISD organizations in general. Most of these organizations are at an early stage in the use of innovative approaches to community engagement, but many of them are well positioned to use their physical presence in local offices across their jurisdiction to enhance service delivery. This article examines eight ISD organizations in four countries as a basis for discussing such matters as the benefits and challenges of community engagement, the nature of the engagement, and the means by which these organizations have fostered it. For ISD organizations to leverage their community presence, they must collaborate with a wide variety of community stakeholders.

Points for practitioners

Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) organizations can leverage their physical presence in local communities to improve service for individual citizens. This community engagement activity can take the form of partnerships, consultations and contracts. The corporate level can support community engagement through administrative structures and processes and through training opportunities and learning tools. Each local office needs an appropriate measure of discretion and flexibility to adapt its engagement activities to the community's particular challenges and resources. The movement in public management towards Integrated Public Governance and the anticipated increase in the delivery of government services by private and third sector organizations point to the need for collaborative community engagement. There are significant barriers as well as benefits associated with the community engagement activities of ISD organizations.

Key Words: administrative organization and structures • networks • partnerships • public management • public sector reform • service delivery

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Vol. 75, No. 2, 239-254 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0020852309104174


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