Quality of Life Framework for Public Services in the Regional Hub Participating Countries

A quality of life framework is a new approach to thinking about the ways in which we deliver public services. It draws on work done by the European Union, OECD and academic scholars . The aim of the approach is to focus attention on the results or outcomes that public services intended to achieve. By doing this we move public bodies away from a focus on ‘efficiency’ and ‘process’ towards achieving better outcomes, the primary purpose of their organization and its officials. One way in which to operationalize an outcomes based accountability approach is to use a ‘quality of life’ framework where the ultimate outcome is to improve the quality of people’s lives. To do this requires a shift in the way in which public services are provided towards an outcomes-focussed, multi-agency approach offering better value for public money spent. We do this by asking the question: how do public services impact on the quality of people’s lives? Often this will depend on a range of social, economic and environmental services which collectively go towards improving quality of life. What is important to highlight is that these services will be context specific. The significant change in thinking here on the part of public officials is to recognise that citizens receive service which cut across the traditional boundaries of ministries/departments/local governments and the ultimate goal is to improve the quality of their lives.