On 25 April 2019, a panel discussion on “Personnel of public service institutions: what should it be like?” took place in Kyiv. In course of the event, experts of U-LEAD with Europe Programme’s support to improved administrative service delivery presented a training programme for the ASC employees, consisting of five thematic modules and a Methodological Guide (DOWNLOAD).

The training course is developed by leading Ukrainian experts in administrative services and includes all key aspects of staff training for work in appropriate highly efficient administrative service centres. 448 ASC employees have already undergone training within the Inception Phase of the Programme and provide quality services to their hromada residents. In course of implementation of the first and second rounds of the Roll-Out Phase, more than 5,000 ASC employees and hromada leaders will be trained under the training programme.

Lev Partskhaladze, Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, said: “Petty corruption is something Ukrainians face almost every day. In the context of decentralisation, ASCs create a new culture of communication with customers, with the mission of providing truly high-quality and comfortable services to people. Over the last year, Ukrainian ASCs provided over 6 million services, and MinRegion, together with the Ministry of Economy, U-LEAD and other projects, are working hard to ensure that new standards of customer service become the norm for all state service institutions.”

The training programme outlines the role of local self-government bodies in providing services to hromada residents; proper organisation of administrative service delivery; procedure of administrative service delivery and quality of services; features of providing certain groups of services, as well as business ethics and interaction with ASC visitors. As part of the module for customer interaction, the topic of gender equality and gender-based principles of work with clients in the ASC is considered in detail.

Tetyana Kovtun, Deputy Secretary of State Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, noted: “It is important to separate the function of service delivery and policy-making. Service functions should not belong to the Ministries, therefore delegation of powers to local self-government bodies is necessary. Due to the reform of the civil service, civil servants and LSG officials now feel much more secure. Quality professional training of personnel, salaries, soft skills training, and experience exchange are very important here. All these factors affect the quality of service provision to citizens.”

Susanna Dellans, Project Manager of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme’s Support to Improved Administrative Service Delivery, outlined: “The quality of service delivery depends, first of all, on the ASC employees. That is why personnel training and skills improvement are extremely important for the establishment of proper centres. would like to draw particular attention to the importance of the module on business ethics, which reveals the basic standards of communication with ASC visitors - a ground for quality service delivery. Due to the skills acquired, employees can arrange a comfortable working atmosphere for both the visitors and the ASC staff.”

The Manual and training modules can be downloaded on the website of U-LEAD with Europe Programme’s support to administrative service delivery: tsnap.ulead.org.ua.

We recall that the last (fourth) round of selection of participants for the Roll-Out Phase (ASC establishment and modernisation) is under way. Within this phase, unlike previous rounds, hromadas of settlements with a population of up to 100,000 and amalgamated hromadas with no population number restrictions from 24 oblasts of Ukraine can take part.