copy the linklink copied!4. An analysis of service design and delivery in Chile

Leadership

ChileAtiende is stated as one of the pillars of President Piñera’s strategy for the digital transformation of Chile. The key ambition of this agenda is to bring public services closer to citizens. In order to achieve this it is necessary to simplify interactions between citizen and state, embed service design in the operational activity of the public sector and to maximise digital tools and practices. Building on the visible strategic leadership from the President, making such activity real requires strong, clear, ongoing leadership and a vision for the future across all public sector organisations.

However, the lack of cross-sectoral support for ChileAtiende legislation in the Congress brings the need to work collaboratively in order to demonstrate, and anticipate, the benefits of adopting a service design and delivery approach such as ChileAtiende promises to deliver. More work is required to embed a service design and delivery agenda at the very highest levels of the government in order to support the Congress in moving away from creating laws that specify the establishment of new services, platforms, registers and systems. This also means that alternative approaches to institutionalise ChileAtiende need to be considered beyond the approval of this legislation. For example, by strengthening the institutional role of IPS – and not solely ChileAtiende – in service delivery standards. Additionally, increased coordination, collaboration and integration between key incumbents in digital transformation and service design (such as DGD, LabGob, IPS and Modernisation Secretariat) and public agencies is needed in order to embed cross-sectoral service design and delivery principles in the implementation of the Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]).

ChileAtiende is currently into its third political administration and it is clear that the shifting political context has a bearing on the approach to service design and delivery in the country. Whilst the brand of ChileAtiende is strong and has high levels of awareness amongst the public this reflects a challenge because of how closely identified it is with President Piñera. During the administration of Bachelet this association appears to have resulted in the deprioritisation of cross-government service provision whilst President Piñera’s return to office has clearly seen a greater priority given to it once again.

It is unfortunate for this agenda to have become politicised, as there is value in having a clear and coherent strategy for delivering services in Chile, particularly in the context of several competing channels that are leading to confusion and overheads of time and energy for citizens and operational cost for the government. Nevertheless, there is an excellent opportunity to capitalise on two things. First, the fact that the President has the desire to provide significant political backing. Second, that ChileAtiende appears to be universally endorsed with everybody understanding that it is a good initiative. This should allow for an ambitious agenda of setting standards, showing leadership and creating momentum.

This is particularly true in helping embed the practice and culture of cross-government service delivery and reduce the reliance of this agenda on political will. The ambition to use legislation to set ChileAtiende on a more secure footing is a valid one. However, there is a tendency to look to the law as a solution that will automatically address the issues. Progressing with the legislation to bring ChileAtiende under the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance may well be transformative but there is no guarantee that this will succeed and so different approaches may be needed.

Therefore, creating the conditions to join-up efforts across institutions and create a sense of common contribution to, and ownership of, a common cross-government service agenda will be helpful in depoliticising such an important initiative. This is pivotal for raising awareness and recognition of the relevance of ChileAtiende for the State, not for a single government. There have already been some important steps that have been taken to support the institutionalisation of service design and delivery approaches in developing a platform approach to service design and delivery.

The creation of the Permanent Council for the Modernisation of the State is an important initiative in terms of bringing together key actors to discuss ongoing activities and address some of the continuity issues. It is particularly important that this Council has been created in a way that means it will persist into a subsequent administration and is therefore less susceptible to the shifting priorities of a different political leader. ChileAtiende is seen as an important element in the infrastructure of state to achieve modernisation and continuity of delivery, especially during periods of crisis. It is one of key initiatives under the pillar Better Services for Citizens (Mejores Servicios para las Personas) in the Modernisation Agenda of President Piñera. However, there was less evidence of an ambition for how it might underpin the transformation of the state through a comprehensive and coherent rationalisation of service provision in Chile.

Furthermore, the support to the Council by the Committee for the Modernisation of the State includes important representation from the Presidency, the Ministry of Finance (in terms of financing future development) and the DGD of MINSEGPRES (in terms of delivering the digital transformation agenda). However, this lacks the presence of IPS and the representation of cross-government service delivery at the highest level. It is essential that the service delivery agenda is able to receive the leadership and mandate for challenging some of the existing divergent behaviours.

Under the stewardship of IPS, ChileAtiende has become exceptional in delivering an operationally effective and highly satisfying experience for its users. However, their responsibility has not yet extended to setting the strategy or developing the vision for the future of cross-government service provision or the mandate to define what good looks like. Whether this change is brought about through legislation or not, a capability for leading the cross-government service agenda is necessary. As such, the ChileAtiende and IPS design and delivery leadership should be viewed as integral to the future of a government wide service design agenda. This is demonstrated by the Service Council that meets every month and which defines government services and sets their expectations on what good looks like.

There is certainly a need to increase the frequency, quality and effectiveness of service design and delivery related communication and collaborative decision making between public institutions and the government to support better outcomes and encourage collaboration and integration. This indicates that the multi-disciplinary nature of the team leading the service design agenda needs to include diplomatic influencers as much as those with visionary delivery skills.

In the event that such delivery cannot be centrally mandated, it will become even more important to set a clear and compelling vision for the role that ChileAtiende can play as a platform for service delivery. Collaborating with parts of government building strong networks that are mutually beneficial will become essential if the leadership is lacking to be able to compel the migration of services from bespoke, organisation channels into a genuinely shared single access point to government. In this context the existing roles of the Ministry of Finance in controlling spend and the DGD of MINSEGPRES in establishing the standards for digital delivery become important as levers to shape outcomes for service delivery.

The experience of the Directorate of Labour (Dirección del Trabajo, DT) is perhaps instructive in identifying how service design and delivery leadership can be implemented without resorting to laws and coercion. DT has demonstrated a strong focus on responding to the needs of citizens, not through introducing a new team or set of practices to the organisation but through top-level leadership committing to this agenda. The Ministry of Finance and MINSEGPRES could consider exploring similar approaches to create the momentum throughout the Chilean public sector. A network and culture of digital leadership helps propagate different ways of thinking and working and can draw out the potential of those across government and within an organisation from senior roles to the most junior.

It is imperative that a model is identified that can embed service design and delivery leadership throughout the Chilean public sector in order to avoid the potential for the agenda to be neglected following any change in political leadership. The service design and delivery agenda should not ebb and flow according to politics but maintain a relentless focus on meeting the needs of citizens at all times in pursuit of a more effective and efficient state.

One of the potential mechanisms for supporting this is the innovation leadership displayed by the LabGob (Box 4.1). The potential for joint working between IPS, LabGob and DGD can make an important contribution to leading and shaping the behaviour and delivery of public servants across Chile. It is critical that these two organisations identify ways to work with strategic alignment that contributes to the sustainable, embedded transformation of service design and delivery culture across the government.

Setting a vision for a new omni-channel strategy

The ChileAtiende brand is strong, not only in terms of its name but in its visual identity and the sense of pride expressed by its staff. This is an important factor in supporting the original vision for ChileAtiende: it is valuable for governments to be focused on simplifying the ease with which citizens can access the state and to live up to ever increasing expectations through the agile, iterative development of services that places users at their heart and are driven by their needs. This will deliver not just more efficient government but higher quality services that take advantage of all the opportunities provided by digital government approaches.

The challenge for those interested in the future of ChileAtiende is to refresh that vision and the pitch for 2020 and beyond to focus on achieving an exciting ambition for the future that addresses some of the challenges facing the service design and delivery agenda in Chile, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and given the patchwork of service delivery. Whilst ChileAtiende may be a well-regarded and all-encompassing service delivery brand it is simply one of several brands relating to departmental and public sector organisation delivery with the result that there are a myriad of competing channels meaning duplicated effort for government and a fragmented and disorienting user experience for the public.

Any power in committing to ChileAtiende as the single brand is diminished when it acts as an index of things with signposts off to websites or physical locations owned and branded by others. Other public sector organisations in Chile view cooperation with ChileAtiende as a way of growing their own coverage and achieving their own ambitions rather than as an endorsement of ChileAtiende. The simplicity and minimal additional costs of including their services means that they experience no additional friction in maintaining their duplicate channel and do not view cooperation as a prelude to migrating away from it.

Therefore, at the centre of any future vision for ChileAtiende or services in Chile there must be a commitment to radically rationalise and consolidate existing service delivery channels through greater partnership working and a commitment to collaboration. ChileAtiende should be encouraged by the example of SERNAC and the Ministry of Social Development and Family who have developed effective partnerships with municipal and regional government and shown that there is potential for collocating services alongside multiple providers.

It is important that those with the authority have the vision for ChileAtiende to become the single visual brand under which Chileans complete their interactions with the state. This means that some existing attitudes may need to be revisited and incentives provided for them to change. For example, the government wants to see more services provided under the umbrella of ChileAtiende but at the same time calls on other existing channels to reflect the same level of quality experienced at ChileAtiende; these are confused and contradictory and perhaps reflect a reluctance to prioritise the necessary closure and consolidation of other channels. Instead, as well as securing the necessary capabilities to expand the services provided through ChileAtiende there needs to be budget, incentives and leadership to accelerate the migration from these fragmented channels to a single front door from the perspective of the user.

This is a critical point. ChileAtiende and IPS are at their best when focused on customer service, not in attempting to hold the responsibility for designing and delivering services for every organisation within the Chilean public sector. The delivery of those services in the first place is best handled by the organisations who are responsible for particular users and their needs. The brand of ChileAtiende will be most effectively supported by changing the underlying culture across the Chilean public sector so that the ‘single front door’ provides access to reliable, familiar, quality services that may look like they are delivered by a single entity but which continue to be the responsibility of each organisation. However, there is here an opportunity to bring together IPS (ChileAtiende), DGD and LabGob to define the end to end standards (customer service, strategic use of digital and service design respectively) that equip public agencies in implementing the law as well as to enable the provision of these transactional services through the ChileAtiende network. Bringing the 3 actors together would consolidate institutional understanding of their users needs, awareness of their preferences and the adoption of innovative approaches.

This needs to be approached from both the perspective of the large, self-sufficient organisations such as SII and SRCeI but it should also be considered from the perspective of those smaller organisations that have already shown that such an approach can work such as DT, the Ministry of Social Development and Family or SERNAC. Not every public sector organisation is going to be as receptive to the involvement of the Centre of Government. The bigger agencies will not want to lose the direct relationships with their users whilst the small ones are glad to take advantage of an existing network because it amplifies their work. ChileAtiende has the potential to be a powerful platform for the medium and small volume services that may otherwise be stuck with paper interactions.

Beyond the vision for offering a genuine single service delivery brand the vision for services themselves is similarly in need of a refresh. One of the important characteristics of service design is the idea of establishing an end to end view of the user’s experience and understanding how their journey moves between channels and potentially interacts with multiple organisations. Such an understanding requires a recognition of the importance of back office integration and the possibilities for transforming a service rather than simply digitising a process. At the moment, many organisations are content being part of a single point of access rather than pushing the boundaries of a broader transformation.

Behaviours of service design and delivery

Having established the necessary leadership for service delivery and a vision for the outcome in question, the behaviours and culture of service design and delivery are critical. Service provision by Chilean public sector organisations is currently most often experienced and delivered through a paper-based and siloed model with most interactions between Chileans and the State requiring the exchange of documents and certificates. The pivotal role of paper is in part due to public sector organisations having been mandated by law to create dossiers for providing and processing public services (MINSEGPRES, 2003[8]). However, the Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]) requires public sector organisations to transition to the provision of electronic dossiers and document management systems. Whilst the ambition for no queues and paperless government is to be welcomed, this mandate risks simply digitising existing bureaucracy rather than rethinking whether existing services, practices, procedures and culture meet the needs of users or exploring opportunities to work across government.

The modernisation process is not simply about having services on the internet that better meet the need of citizens and other stakeholders; it is also about transforming the underlying way in which government responds to the needs of citizens. This is well demonstrated by the design of ChileAtiende locations to be as inclusive as possible with sign language interpretation available and special spaces for breastfeeding mothers. The institution of ChileAtiende prides itself on coming as close to the user as possible and this is borne out by the high levels of satisfaction that the face-to-face service receives.

Perhaps the greatest asset that ChileAtiende has is its staff. The men and women who provide the face-to-face care understand how important their role is in triaging the issue somebody is facing, understanding how to support them and providing them with the necessary care. The atmosphere within the ChileAtiende locations is welcoming and friendly which puts people at ease and allows them to engage in a positive fashion, regardless of how upset or agitated they might be. It would be relevant to identify the specific attributes of face-to-face service delivery in order to embed them as foundational values and principles for the entire network.

As a result, there is a priority in Chile for retaining the physical environment for providing services. Around the world, several countries have pursued efficiencies by closing and reducing the face-to-face infrastructure only to find that their attempts to establish a “digital by default” environment has caused distress to their stakeholders and simply created greater demand through other, more expensive channels.

This strong commitment to customer service and the experience of users in the built environment can now provide the basis for Chile to consider transforming the experience across the public sector of what is currently quite a fragmented and disjointed user experience. The ambition for ChileAtiende was to provide a common front door through which to access government services. Whilst the experience of some services through ChileAtiende are seamless, the challenges with digital identity for validating users over the telephone or online limits the extent to which people can get their issues resolved as quickly as they might like. Whilst the fact only 6% of government services can be accessed through ChileAtiende mean it is highly likely that citizens will end up needing to access a service provided elsewhere in government. As a result, the transformation of service delivery in Chile will not occur if data are not valued and a clear and coherent strategy developed (OECD, 2019[3]).

Nevertheless, there are opportunities for ChileAtiende, IPS and the other service delivery organisations in Chile to do more in the context of bringing citizens into the discussions about the design and delivery of services. The conversations held during the research visit to Santiago in January 2019 did not surface many references to participatory forms of need analysis or user research. The first and second principles of the Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies (OECD, 2014[9]) underline the importance of engaging citizens, businesses and civil society through crowdsourcing and collecting their input in the design of digital government strategies and their related policies. The ChileAtiende network provides an excellent resource for hosting user research sessions but also for working with other local providers to develop a cross-government understanding of the experiences citizens have. A partnership between ChileAtiende, and DGD would likely prove valuable in exploring this possibility and help develop cross-government ownership for the needs of the public. In addition to this, ChileAtiende would benefit from exploring similar arrangements for studying customer experience as well as incorporating the work LabGob carries out in public service design.

Whilst the physical network of ChileAtiende locations provides a suitable venue and opportunity for collaboration there are other opportunities that a truly transformed approach to designing and delivery government services might unlock. One of these is the fact every government department has a complaints and suggestion officer; these individuals have insight into where government services are going wrong, and where they’re going well but they do not currently work together to coordinate across channels and understand the interactions between different parts of government.

The human opportunity for joining up professions across government provides the basis for developing service communities of policymakers, service designers, software engineers, and operational staff to break out of organisational siloes and understand how to better meet the needs of users. An interesting example in this direction is “Clase Media Protegida” from the Ministry of Social Development and Family, which comprises several services from different public agencies under the concept of providing security networks to middle class families. This project has required increased coordination between different agencies in order to provide a consistent and coherent user experience and offers a model for what cross-government delivery might look like. However, it has created another network and a further brand around service delivery that perpetuates some of the confusion about channels which will be discussed later. Moreover, there remain technical challenges for Chile in the integration challenges when it comes to existing back office systems.

In the effort to continue improving services one of the most important behaviours of service design and delivery is measuring the impact of what’s delivered and learning from how a service is being used. These efforts to understand performance should move away from simplistic measurements towards a more comprehensive and standardised model for gathering insight. The Modernisation Secretariat (former Modernisation of the Public Sector Programme) has been working since 2016 in defining a cross-sectoral and standardised methodology for measuring citizens’ satisfaction, as described in Box 4.2.

How particular organisations are demonstrating service design and delivery

Different parts of the Chilean public sector are making greater progress in terms of the involvement of the public, the adoption of user-centred design approaches or the iteration of services in response to performance insights. This section of the chapter will conclude with a brief description of the philosophy of service design and delivery in a selection of organisations.

The role of the Digital Government Division

As discussed previously it is important for the government to be clear about its vision for ChileAtiende. If the decision is to pursue a single brand with a clear expectation for creating a consistent user experience then this requires establishing clear assurance mechanisms and the necessary support for teams across government to adopt a new way of working. In taking this agenda forward, the team at ChileAtiende has the right attitude towards delivery that puts citizens at the heart and can spread that enthusiasm for meeting needs. However, in order for ChileAtiende to be successful, it requires the underlying services to go through a similar transformation and in this respect, the DGD of MINSEGPRES becomes increasingly important.

The creation of the DGD within MINSEGPRES was indicative of the higher political standing and additional resources being provided to the digital government agenda following the publication of Digital Government in Chile (OECD, 2016[4]). The influence of DGD has further benefited from the participation of the Head of the DGD in the Committee for the Modernisation of the State ensuring visibility of the development of digital government efforts across Chile. As discussed previously in this chapter, it may prove valuable for IPS and ChileAtiende to be represented in that Committee in order to give the necessary priority and attention to cross-government multi-channel service design and delivery.

DGD has been delivering strongly against the digital government agenda in Chile and has been instrumental in bringing about the three recent pieces of documentation that underpin the digital transformation, and service design and delivery, agendas. The Presidential Instructive on the Digital Transformation of the State Administration (Presidente de la República, 2019[11]), the recently passed Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]) and a renewed Digital Transformation Strategy for the Government (MINSEGPRES, 2019[12]) collectively reinforce the mandate of the DGD. That mandate provides for DGD to set standards for delivery, deliver tools, provide resources, offer consultancy and monitor the progress and compliance of the Digital Transformation Plans throughout government. In addition to those assurance and governance functions, the documents set out the priority for developing the “Zero Queues” (“Cero Filas”) approach for simplifying processes, the “Paperless Policy” (“Cero Papel”) for removing paper, the importance of ClaveÚnica for digital identity and a focus on establishing base registers.

Standards and guidelines

One of the important coordinating roles that the DGD plays is in defining standards and providing guidelines. Indeed, amongst the more ambitious for the service design and delivery agenda public sector organisations in Chile, there was an appetite and desire for DGD to be more exacting in the expectations placed on the quality of delivery and the mandate for particular behaviours to be enforced. With the Digital Transformation of the State Law passed at the Congress this is even more important, as DGD is mandated to define technical standards, guidelines and cross-cutting services which will equip public services to implement the law. The implementation of the law would benefit by embedding cross-sectoral standards for service design and delivery as part of the core principles for public agencies to transform their services.

The centre of government is well suited to the role of setting standards in having a clear view of cross-government priorities. The role of DGD in the Committee for the Modernisation of the State and the ongoing focus on the transformation of the government ensures that any standards are not based on assumptions but rooted in the shared priorities of the government. ChileAtiende is not the right vehicle to police the implementation of standards but alongside other delivery agencies, should form part of the collaborative process in identifying those service design and delivery standards and refining the assurance mechanism for encouraging a sustainable shift in the way that services are designed and delivered.

However, whilst there are currently no common standards or principles for the way in which services are designed and delivered there are several important resources under development by DGD. These include a software development guide for the State, an IT procurement guide, directives related to the use of cloud computing and a cloud technical guide, an open data guide and perhaps critically, the Digital Services Manual.

Moreover, there are some other central guidelines under the proviso of the “Zero Queues” (“Cero Filas”) approach for simplifying processes and the “Paperless Policy” (“Cero Papel”) for removing paper from government services. There are sector specific initiatives such as with the SII who have implemented the standardised documentation of processes in order to identify opportunities for improvement but this is not a service design methodology.

Assurance processes and procurement

Key Recommendation no. 9 of the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies (OECD, 2014[9]) underlines the importance of using business cases to reinforce the digital policy of the public sector, contribute to improved planning, development, management and monitoring of investments in digital technologies. Paired with controls on spending above a particular threshold, these mechanisms can prove useful in coordinating public spending, avoiding duplicated (or wasted) effort and providing scrutiny to increase accountability and trust in government. In Chile, spend is not currently analysed at a national level or within each department and the spend controls process is an advisory exercise that is carried out on request rather than being a strategic and all-seeing exercise in coordinating spend.

Although the Ministry of Finance and DGD have done some analysis of what has been bought and what has been spent in terms of software licences and outsourcing procurement remains an area where there are opportunities to introduce greater scrutiny of digital and service related spending.

Although Chile has developed an online purchasing marketplace, ChileCompra, the vision for transforming procurement as an enabler for designing and delivering services is somewhat limited. Chile could learn from some of the examples discussed in Chapter 2 in terms of how governments have rethought and transformed procurement activities to open up the market to new suppliers, simplify and optimise the contracting process and focus on outcomes rather than on hourly rates whilst making contract data openly available as Open Government Data. With the increasing needs for the implementation of the Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]), which implies redesigning and digitalising public service delivery in the country, developing a healthy supplier base for the agile design and delivery of services is particularly important given some of the skills constraints discussed earlier in this chapter. It is highly unlikely that the Chilean public sector will be able to recruit and train in sufficient quantities to meet demand and so the role of the private sector will be critical in achieving the country’s digital government ambitions.

Currently procurement activity can block service transformation with issues relating to long-term contracts having expensive change control processes and little in the way of a framework model to derive best value for the Chilean taxpayer. Digital Government in Chile - Making the Digital Transformation Sustainable and Long-lasting (OECD, 2019[5]) made several recommendations to the Chilean government in terms of transforming procurement, and particularly the purchase and commissioning of digital and ICT services.

Digital Inclusion

The focus of this report is multi-channel service delivery in the recognition that for significant quantities of the Chilean population the face-to-face channel is preferable. Whilst Chile continues to explore how they might deliver high quality services through face-to-face channels there is nevertheless a desire to simplify, transform and digitise the interactions between citizen and state according to the principles of the digital government approach. The question of digital inclusion is has relevance to this discussion and can take the form of enhanced connectivity, increased digital literacy and questions of accessibility.

The principles of the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies (OECD, 2014[9])highlight the importance of establishing the digital skills and competencies throughout all segments of a population. The provision of government services through multiple channels, including face-to-face, rather than embracing a digital by default approach that could create potential digital divides is therefore an approach for which Chile should be praised.

Chile has relatively low levels of citizens using digital channels to engage with government services. Chile’s National Survey of Socioeconomic Characterisation (Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional, CASEN) found that 30.1% of the population used the internet to complete a government procedure over the last year (MIDESO, 2017[13]). This is despite Chile enjoying above Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and OECD averages in terms of the population share using the internet and having a mobile subscription per 100 people (see Figure 4.1). In the context of Chile’s geography, these figures are quite an achievement and, combined with the data in Figure 4.2, indicate that perhaps Chilean society is skipping the fixed internet connectivity state to move more towards mobile access.

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Figure 4.1. Proportion of internet users and mobile subscriptions in Chile compared with OECD and LAC countries, 2016

Source: World Bank (2016) World Development Indicators, https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/world-development-indicators

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Figure 4.2. OECD fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, by technology, Dec 2017

Notes: Australia: Data reported for December 2018 and onwards is being collected by a new entity using a different methodology. Figures reported from December 2018 comprise a series break and are incomparable with previous data for any broadband measures Australia reports to the OECD. The OECD definition of fibre differs substantially from fibre classifications commonly used in Australian reporting. These figures treat connections known in Australia as 'Fibre-to-the-Node' and 'Fibre-to-the-Curb' as DSL connections, while ‘Fibre-to-the-Premises’ and ‘Fibre-to-the-Basement’ are treated as Fibre connections. Data on technology type prior to Q2-2016 should be treated as indicative until further notice. Canada: Fixed wireless includes Satellite. France: Cable data includes VDSL2 and fixed 4G solutions. Israel: Data are OECD estimates (information on data for Israel: http://oe.cd/israel-disclaimer). Italy: Terrestrial fixed wireless data includes WiMax lines; Other includes vDSL services. Mexico: Access points are reported since operators cannot provide information of subscriptions by technology. Data for Switzerland and United States are preliminary.

Source: OECD, Broadband Portal, www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/oecdbroadbandportal.htm

In terms of explicit digital literacy activities, several of the service delivery networks, as well as ChileAtiende provide assistance to those who choose to access services face-to-face in terms of supporting them to learn and understand how they might use the internet to access government services. Elsewhere, the government has partnered with BancoEstado and Servipag to use the ChileAtiende network for providing financial education. With the physical ChileAtiende locations meeting the needs of the most vulnerable populations there are many possible opportunities to work with policymakers and other agencies to use the face-to-face setting as a valuable element in end to end service transformation in this way.

In 2019 Chile hosted several Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) meetings with one of the action points from that meeting for Chile to carry out a “Gap Assessment on Digital Literacy” to ensure continued progress on addressing the digital divide which prevents women from fully participating in trade. Such research could provide some important insights for how the service design and delivery agenda advances.

Channel strategy

In the context of ChileAtiende, the Government as a Platform ecosystem includes the website, call centre and face-to-face locations with their self-service kiosks. These enablers provide the support to the other relying partners in the Chilean public sector to put their services in front of the public and meet their needs. Currently the different channels under the ChileAtiende brand are not working together to deliver the same service as there are bespoke solutions being developed on a channel by channel basis. The website does not have the same architecture as the information available in the call centre, which in turn is not the same as what agents are using in the face-to-face locations or what is running on the kiosks. One of the priorities for ChileAtiende to have a coherent and unified user experience is that platforms themselves need to be designed according to the same principles as public facing services; the experience of public servants is important in maximising the transformative potential of service design and delivery.

When it comes to new services joining the ChileAtiende platform there should be an investment in time to simplify the onboarding of new services. The ChileAtiende and IPS teams should be committed to understanding the friction experienced by partner organisations choosing to start using the ChileAtiende platform. These teams should be resourced to ask themselves how to make it as simple, and effective, as possible to add a new service and to find ways of avoiding training and integration overheads. If every service that wants to use ChileAtiende channels needs experts at the ChileAtiende side then the model will be unsustainable. Instead, ChileAtiende needs to be developed in such a way that new services are made available without much fanfare and can be iterated and improved as easily as possible.

The value of the single government branding and a single place for content can prove incredibly powerful in transforming internal cultures and coordinating service delivery. Indexing different services that hand off to another website that duplicates some of the infrastructure or the administrative overhead is not as effective as developing a co-publishing model where responsibility for setting priorities, enforcing standards and managing some content is held at the centre but teams of editors are distributed throughout government with ownership of their particular subject area. Currently there are five individuals within ChileAtiende tasked with managing a vast amount of content whilst on the service provider side the people tasked with this activity are doing it on the margins on their job. The pressures on editorial staff are particularly pronounced if content continues to be housed in multiple websites.

Committing to a single service delivery brand also necessitates developing a single government domain to become the front door of content for many services. As a result, it is essential to resource content properly in order to recognise this aspect of the design of services as equally important to the technicalities of how the service works. With the implementation of the Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]), this becomes critical as services should be designed and developed in order to be embedded and offered through ChileAtiende channels, strengthening a single and coherent service delivery policy in Chile. This is particularly true in a society such as Chile where low levels of literacy mean it is critical to find the simplest way of communicating as possible.

Common components and tools

The final area of analysis for the enablers to support service design and delivery in Chile are the technical platforms provided by the DGD for use and re-use by teams throughout the Chilean public sector. There are currently five relevant platforms with the DGD team continually investigating whether they might develop any more. One of the enabling resources that is currently lacking is related to taking payments. ChileAtiende does collect money from users wishing to pay for their FONASA fees but this is not possible over the telephone or for any services accessed via the Mobile ChileAtiende. In the absence of an integrated payment system, ChileAtiende will not be able to offer paid services from other public agencies such as FONASA. It would be relevant to see IPS, DGD and the Ministry of Finance coordinating the adoption of cross-sectoral payment standards to integrate these specific services.

Data-driven public sector

The OECD’s Data-driven public sector model, discussed in Chapter 2, identifies the importance of establishing a coherent and comprehensive data governance model, focusing the application of data for public value, and thinking about the role data can play in building, and damaging, trust in society.

Public sector talent and skills

There is not currently a culture of service design and delivery skills in the Chilean public sector but there are signs of efforts to improve that and encouraging examples on an organisation-by-organisation basis. In addition, as highlighted previously, there is in general a lack of involvement from stakeholders, whether citizens or public agencies with some public servants speaking of the need to “educate users” to ensure they could successfully negotiate a government transaction.

In order to establish a service design and delivery culture it is important to have the necessary skills in both service design and technical delivery roles. However, various organisations in Chile reported that this is not the case. It was encouraging to hear from DT about their plans to not only invest in the skills of the public but to focus on developing internal skills too.

In general, annual employment plans from departments have a focus on the attitude of workers towards users. This approach is echoed by further education providers where the Diploma in Public Management focuses on giving tools to public managers to think of citizens as customers. These are important and valuable customer service activities but they lack the technical dimension of considering the needs for service design and delivery.

Chile faces a significant digital and design skills shortage and efforts are needed to recruit new, and train existing, talent across the public sector. One helpful development is the creation of the Digital Transformation Coordinators network. Under the mandate of DGD, this body congregates institutional delegates for monitoring the implementation of the Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]), and may serve as a fruitful school for digital champions in Chilean public administration as well as a route to engage key stakeholders in what should be understood and owned as a cross-government agenda.

More substantively, the Civil Service and DGD have partnered to increase digital awareness among Chilean civil servants. The Digital Academy (Academia Digital) has been established to provide a general introduction to those who want to understand how new technologies can be adopted and used in public service delivery. However, these efforts are in their infancy with further development of the curriculum and sophistication of its modules required not only to increase awareness but to equip teams with the right digital skills. This is particularly critical given the timeline for implementation of the Digital Transformation of the State Law (MINSEGPRES, 2019[1]) and the expectations to move to a paperless administration in a timeframe of 5 years.