Crown Prince emphasizes importance of public feedback to improve
His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, today emphasised the importance of all government ministries and public entities incorporating feedback from the general public in their assessment of government services during a visit to the Health Ministry where he launched its new suggestions and complaints e-system.
His Royal Highness stated that he has been briefed on a wide-ranging number of government services available to the public during a series of field visits to various government ministries. Following these briefings His Royal Highness stated that feedback from the general public will be one of the main contributors in the drive to upgrade government services, and that all public services must provide a fast track channel to receive feedback from the general public.
His Royal Highness further emphasised that all feedback must be dealt with promptly and appropriately as a means of improving public services, in support of His Majesty King Hamad’s reform programme, which seeks to continually improve living standards for all Bahrainis. The new feedback system is also in line with the directives of His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, Prime Minister, to provide a unified electronic system for all government ministries to receive feedback from the general public and contribute towards improving public services.
His Royal Highness said the launch of such initiatives reinforce the government’s efforts to increase efficiency and the general performance of government ministries, and provide services that meet the standards of international best practice to the citizens and residents of Bahrain. Identifying and responding to the problems faced by the general public must be a key priority; in order to achieve this the general public must be able to communicate directly with government officials, His Royal Highness said.
His Royal Highness directed all government ministries to implement the unified suggestions and complaints e-system as quickly as possible, in order to begin direct communication with the public and to increase confidence in the system through greater transparency, speed and efficiency in the handling of feedback. The unified electronic suggestions and complaints e-system provides an integrated mechanism for effective communication with the general public; the system enables decision makers to quickly process, analyse and act upon information received.
Furthermore, it provides performance indicators to manage complaints and suggestions, in a manner that reflects the priority the government places on feedback from the general public. To begin with, the new system will be rolled out through the eGovernment Authority and the Health Ministry and will gradually be applied across the government ministries. The easy-to-use system will be available 24 hours a day through the website www.bahrain.bh. All comments posted will be documented, and users will be able to track their comments through an automated reference number provided by SMS or email. The system also provides the option to comment on resolved complaints. The Client Care Unit at the eGovernment Authority will be responsible for forwarding all input directly to the relevant department, allowing government representatives to provide prompt, accurate responses through the system. The Client Care Unit will also be responsible for follow up, whilst Ministers’ offices will be able to monitor the speed, accuracy and effectiveness with which the relevant departments respond to the comments.
