Towards the Realization of City Office Comprehensive Reception Windows

ABSTRACT

In the past, administrative services at government offices have in many cases been provided to citizens at varying reception windows based on the service. With the goal of improving citizen services, and facilitated by the internal digitization and business process reengineering (BPR), recently an increasing number of local governments have been installing a so-called “comprehensive reception window” that can provide various services from the same counter.

The reality, however, is that there are still many local governments that have not introduced the “comprehensive reception window”. In addition, there are a host of issues that come with the installation of such a service. With this in mind, this research study first conducted a survey of government-designated cities, general cities, and special zones (total of 802 local governments) to understand local efforts of the “comprehensive reception window”, and then the issues based on these various circumstances were organized. Next, based on the issues that were made evident by the results of the survey, Saga City, which serves as a leading example, was analyzed and its factors of success were revealed.

Analysis shows that for many of the local governments attempting to go ahead with the “comprehensive reception window”, it is necessary that they 1. clearly define the minimal conditions that the “comprehensive window” should meet, 2. think of residents first concerning the “securing of space”, 3. investigate “budget procurement” based on cost vs. effect, and 4. share information with other local governments.

In addition, along with the establishment of the “comprehensive reception window”, it would be effective to simultaneously promote the digitization of family registers and the installation of automatic family register providing machines, and measures to this end are necessary.