peopleaudit

Final Report

On

People’s Audit of Public Service Delivery by Government and Local Government Units in Thailand

Presented to

United Nations Development Programme

By

King Prajadhipok’s Institute

March 31, 2008

CONTENTS

page Principle and rationale 1 Introduction 3 Summary Activity Matrix: 33 Report on the project of original 5 pilot provinces on People’s Audit Service 36 Report on Implementation of People’s Audit in the new five service providing units 58 Advanced People’s Audit module, People’s Audit website and policy engagement 67 People’s Audit Network 73 Lessons Learnt form People’s Audit Awareness Raising, Campaigning, 75 Dissemination Plan and Policy Engagement and Decision 1.The Lessons Learnt from the Awareness Raising, Campaigning 75 and Administration of People’s Audit Project 2. Lessons Learnt from People’s Audit Concept Application 97 3. Lesson Learnt from Policy Engagement and Decisions 101 Recommendations for Follow- on Actions 102 Recommendations on Post-Project Review 104


1

Principle and rationale

The People’s Audit project has been created with the concept of encouraging pluralistic unified participatory democracy that emphasize in promoting citizen politics and working by using the principle of good governance. In Citizen politics, the people must have basic political competency. The People’s Audit Project is intended to promote these skills to the people by allowing the people to take more part in the government working process. This is to establish a super citizen model that is the citizen must obtain a common sense of being citizen. Alexis de Tocqueville (1996) had studied the United States social and admired the participatory level of the American social and community in 19th century for having debate on politics, election campaign, political rally, assemble at city hall, conversation regarding politics which presents the sense in politics. Sydney, Verba, Norman Nie, and Jae-on Kim (1971, 1978) had specified types of politic activities that the people should participate are voting, joining the campaign, having group activity, having group work in the community and direct contact with government official.

Administration for the people’s interest is the administration that aims for the well being and decent life style for the people, the peaceful and safety of the social as a whole including the maximum interest of the country. Applying administration for the people’s interest requires the government to operate by considering the people as a centered who will receive service from the government. There should also be procedures in administration also. The government practice shall be performed with honest, assessable, and intend to create maximum interest to the people both at local and country level. Before rendering public service, they should conduct public service study in every aspect The service procedure should be determined with transparency, and employ examining mechanism in every step. In case that the practice will affect the people, the government must listen to the people’s opinion or elucidate to create understanding in order to allow the people to realize the common interest that will be earned from the practice and it is a duty of the government officials to listen to the opinion and satisfaction of the social and the people who is a service recipient in order to improve the service or provide suggestion to the superior.

The People’s Audit is, therefore, an operation that corresponds to the concept of pluralistic participatory democracy and good governance because it is the approach that gives emphasis to the people. The people will perform evaluation by themselves and the people will observe the service provider work. The People’s Audit will bring about the topic that is closed to the people to attract the people to participate because such topic will create a mutual interest to every party. In this case, the people is not only the service receiver but also a partner in auditing, therefore having a status of a citizen.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has supported King Prajadhipok’s Institute (collaborating with various academic, community, government agencies and civil society) in implementing the “Public service delivery through People’s Audit”, with the objective to provide good quality public service delivery that can meet the people’s needs. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that all group of Thai society, both from the central and local area, can participate in the


2

decision making process so that the policy makers will be able to satisfy their needs accurately. And then, pubic service delivery arranged by the government will be more efficient.

The Research and Development Office of King Prajadhipok’s Institute has launched the project in 5 provinces, including Chiang Rai, Sakon Nakhon, Maha Sarakham, Phetchaburi and Songkhla. Moreover, the document of “Report on Improvement of Public Service Delivery” was published and disseminated to the meeting’s participants and other interested people.

After implementing in mentioned 5 provinces as pilot area, the People’s Audit project has encouraged opportunity for the society, strengthen the community, and create collective needs of society that is contrary to atomistic participation. The project has established social capital that reinforces true democratization because the publics are able to practice political skills and democracy. The project also helps in practicing participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and consensus democracy. In addition, it reinforces good governance and encourages the public participation, which is a new style of citizen politics. This project is a social movement that reinforces effective democratization, facilitate in establishing people based politics and create good governance culture to Thai society.

KPI also believes that the expansion of project implementation and the dissemination of knowledge and experience will result in the development of public service delivery, as well as will play roles in the development of democratization through promoting public participation. This is especially true by utilizing People’s Audit process in problem resolution and in enhancement of local governance in Thailand. Therefore, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Thailand and the King Prajadhipok’s Institute (KPI) have signed standard letter of agreement on the implementation of ‘The People’s Audit of Public Service Delivery: Quality Improvement Through Participatory Approach (Second Phase)’ Project, as part of ‘Participatory Planning and Policy Making Tools’ under the UNDP-Thailand Partnership for Local Empowerment Through Democratic Governance (PLEDGE).


3

Introduction The challenge for every government is to find an innovative way to make the people become a center of administration process and provide opportunity to the minority

people in expressing their opinions

The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien, Speech before the Progressive Governance for the 21st Century Conference,

Berlin, June 2000

The tide of Globalization that emphasize in democratization and establishing

Good Governance has made Thailand to no longer resist the flow. This is because democracy as according to Robert A.Dahl (1971: 3) is a politics regime that the government must answer to the need of the people which is considered equality in politics, an important concept of democracy beside responsibility. The people shall have opportunity to determine their satisfaction that is the government shall guarantee that the people has right in gathering, expressing opinions, voting, having choices of information, freedom and fair election. The politic leaders have right in competing for election and there shall be institutions approved from elections and the people’s representation to execute under the policies. Democratic system allows efficient participatory to occur by establishing mutual understanding and controlling through policies. Democratic system will lead to traitor avoidance, freedom, expressing of own idea, freedom in thinking, development in human resource, protecting of individual interest and equality in politics. The new form of democracy also brings about the search for freedom and development (Robert Dahl 2000: 38-44.). Most important thing is the process of democracy will lead to development in human resource by encouraging growth in the aspects of responsibility and intellectual while also bringing about the most important outline for the people to protect and express their interest (Diamond, 1999:3). Democracy practice is the way to encourage fairness and solicit for increasing or spreading democracy from the already existed level. The socials has accepted and utilizing the process of law to support the guideline in searching for democracy and legally justice in making democratic decision (Thawilwadee Bureekul, 2004). In addition, the tide of Democratization which has been spreading around the world since 1990 has led to democratization in many countries. Some researchers said that, in the end, every country shall all become democratic (Fukuyama, 1992). Nevertheless, Democratic process is like other human activity that is not totally perfect, but its strength is the people being able to make decision for their own lives. The success of democracy can be evaluated from level of the people’s participation, respect to the people’s right and the ability to answer to the need of the people. This article reveals that in Thailand where ruled by democratic system and holding constitution that contemplate on the people’s right and also encouraging the people in participating, the people can participate in the policy set up process, find the way to answer to own need and including having influence over the government work. Additionally, a new style of citizen politics which is a social movement can also encourage the democratization efficiently as well. Nonetheless, democracy is not a final goal but the development process. Therefore, the new style of


4

citizen politics is a signal of the possibility for the social to develop for achieving the goal of democracy (Dalton, 2006:10). Such tide of democratization and good governance has led to adjustment for surviving in the changing situations. Refusing to adjust will create disagreement and future problems to the government, people and private section. The government section that provides public service to the people also has to make adjustment as well. The effort to make an adjustment to the era of new style of administration that emphasize the people as a center and encouraging the social to be a learning organization in order to adjust and improve the service to correlate with the need of the people as a whole. The challenge is the adjustment to the tide of participatory democracy that the people shall take part in the process of setting up policy and making decisions that might affect them. In addition, existence of the ability to answer to the need of the people and responsibility in establishing good governance culture is also an important condition that one must be confronted and adjusted for. The economic development and increasing of social gap between rich and poor people will illustrate the social inequality which will, in turn, cause the people with lesser opportunity to try to claim for the right that they supposed to have but never or hardly existed. Therefore, the government has carried out the administration reformation to correspond to such changing flow otherwise Thailand shall definitely be regarded as falling behind.

Earlier, the administration system had never allowed the people to participate until the major politic reformation that promulgated the constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2540 (1997) that intended to encourage the people’s participation. As a result, the channel for the people to truly participate was initially established. However, the participation channel for the people was still very limited in Thailand either in social or upcountry community. This is because the concept of participation of the people and bureaucrat are different. Nonetheless, the tide of the people’s participatory democracy and good governance had created range of reformations and various work units are advance toward the operation that correspond to this changing tide. Otherwise, they shall have to face with countless problems from outside pressure especially from the people and other civilization countries. The principle of good administration system or Good Governance is a new styles of administration that emphasizing on the principle that is not theoretical but principle of execution. The application of such principle in administration is believed to bring about the best consequence that is fairness, honesty, efficiency and effectiveness (Thawilwadee Bureekul et al., 2002) Good Governance consists of several significant characteristics depending on the objective of each organization that apply the concept. The principle that always being applied by leaders are participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive of every group or multilateral and follow the rule of law. Good Governance is a new style of administration that the government shall never administrate in the form of business organization but hold to the principle of democracy. Many countries in the world are carrying out based on this principle and there is an increasing of acceptance in working method that relies on the principle of democracy. More topics had gain attention such as the public interest, administration


5

process and how to be a citizen under democracy regime. The bureaucrats had learnt and built new skill in developing policy and abiding by policies. There are increasing level of acknowledgement, respect and acceptance of being a citizen (Thawilwadee Bureekul, 2003) Generally, the bureaucrat or the government official will perceive more value of themselves when there is an increasing or extending their service and having more contact to the people. The management will feel that they gain advantage from listening to the people more and from servicing more than controlling alone. The people and officials shall have to work, identify the problem and solution together. Lasting Good Governance requires lasting democracy, and lasting democracy will occur only when the people possess democratic sense and behavior, believe in democracy. The country must have high efficiency in politics, high level of social capital, and high level of political participation and contains participatory politics culture. The leader must be a true representative of the people who came from the people election. The government had noticed the significant of good governance or good administration principle thus issued the Royal Decree on Rule and Procedure for Good Public Administration B.E. 2546 (2003) to be a guideline for government officials. In addition, since the possibility for the people to participate in the process of setting up policy of the government is very difficult due to limited channels, the most possibility approach to allow the people to participate in the government activities and establishing tendency in encouraging the participatory process in other issue is the People’s Audit because this matter is closed to the people and refers to the cooperation among service providers and receivers. That is, the government officials who is a service provider also has to abide by the royal decree that emphasize the people as a center and the people shall be glad to participate because they are direct beneficiary. Therefore, this is an establishment of a win-win concept and the outcome is the satisfaction of every related party. The People’s Audit has therefore been created on the concept of encouraging participatory democracy that emphasize in promoting citizen politics and working by using the principle of good governance.

Why participate? In Citizen politic, the people must have basic political skills. The People’s Audit Project is intended to promote these skills to the people by allowing the people to take more part in the government working process. This is to establish a super citizen model that is the citizen must obtain a common sense of being citizen. Alexis de Tocqueville (1996) had studied the United States social and admired the participatory level of the American social and community in 19th century for having debate on politics, election campaign, and political rally, assemble at city hall, conversation regarding politics which presents the sense in politics. Sydney, Verba, Norman Nie, and Jae-on Kim (1971, 1978) had specified types of politic activities that the people should participate are voting, joining the campaign, having group activity, having group work in the community and direct contact with government official.


6

The participatory democracy allows the people to express their opinions and participate in decision making on topics that will affect their lives. Besides increasing more caution in making decision for the project leader or government and encouraging more correspond to the problem and need of the people, it also controls the transparency of government administration, responsiveness to the people and also accountability. Therefore, it will encourage more complete democratic administration as well. Thus, Public Participation is dissemination of opportunity for the people to participate in politics and administration in making decision including allocation of community and national resources which will affect the life style and way of living of the people. Such approach will be done by providing of information, expressing ideas, providing advise, participating in planning, participating in executing and including direct control by the people. Nonetheless, no specific public participation technique is appropriate and can be applied to every situation. In the participatory process, the true participation requires the people to participate since the project planning and take part in thinking, making decision, executing, looking forward to the outcome, auditing and evaluating.

Figure 1: Participatory Process

1. Participation in planning

2. Participation in executing

3. Participation in benefit allocation

4. Participation in auditing

Participatory Process


7

Participatory Process can be divided into easy steps as follow; 1st Step: Participation in planning Refers to acknowledgement and access to information related to planning and participate in planning activity. 2nd Step: Participation in executing Refers to involvement with the execution of activities and making decision 3rd Step: Participation in benefit allocation

Refers to participation in allocation of benefit or outcome of the activity or decision being made

4th Step: Participation in auditing and evaluation which relate to the effort in evaluating the effectiveness of the project and activities including making decision on the following steps. The people will take part in setting up criteria for project or activity evaluation. The outcome of this evaluation process will become a factor being used in the first step of participatory process which is further planning. People Centered Concept The tide of new style of administration put emphasis on the principle of participatory democracy. The accentuation on the people in new style of administration is an assembly of concepts and practices which is a private and business organization working principle being applied by government section, or administrating government like business but not business organization in other word. Theorists who study in citizenship, community, civil society, organizational anthropology and the new styles of administration is the person who have part in precipitating the debate for new administration principles which may be varied (Denhardt and Denhardt, 2003: 43-43) such as

• The people service oriented is not a controlling approach therefore the

bureaucrat does not only answer to the people’s need but must create good relationship with the people as well.

• The scrutinizing of public interest and need to create mutual attention and responsibility

• Perceiving the people as a citizen instead of entrepreneurs. The bureaucrat shall accept to be an assistant to the social rather than business manager who thinks and act like the nation’s money is their own money.

• Think strategically but practicing democratically. Policies and projects will efficiently answer to the need of public if working in coordinate.

• Realizing that gaining sense of responsiveness is not easy. The bureaucrat should not stressing in working under policies or marketing and own surviving only but should pay attention to the law, constitution, social values, society, political norms, professional standards and public interest as well.

• Administrating rather than controlling. There should be an establishment of mutual values. Allowing the people to participate in


8

the politics process is considered creating relationship and mutual value as well.

• Bear in mind that the people is a person not product. Governments agencies shall succeed in long run if operate by establishing people participation and mutual leadership with the people based on respect of the people.

After considering the new style of administration principle mention earlier, it is noticed that the people is an important factor and the key of this new style of administration. This is because the people are holding citizen status and partnership in operating activity is very important. When becoming a citizen and partner, consulting, revealing information, participating, working with transparency, working according to the principle and working by relying on the principle of law is unavoidable.

As a result, there should be people’s participation in every step of public service in order to identify the problem together and searching for improving approaches that will lead to lasting development. Because the People’s Audit is the process that encouraging the participatory level of various groups of people in the society either service provider, service recipient and volunteer groups in order to stimulate teamwork for public activity. Experience in planning and making decision from public participation will develop the skills and encourage the people to enter into the politics world. Participation in a non-politic group may create stimulation to participate in politic in the end (Putnum, 2000, Verba, Schlozman and Brady, 1995 referred in Dalton, 2006: 51). In 21st century, the government will rely on more non-government section to provide public service while private section and the people will rely on the government about expenses. The dependency will create challenge in honesty of the institution and efficiency in working of every party (Kettl, 2005: 86). Thus, coordination is a new form public service that is also go along with Aristotle’s idea that participation in the government activity is the most important activity for the being a citizen and will derive such politic community forward and improving the citizen’s quality of life (Tanet Chareonmuang, 2548: 5).

The Royal Decree on Rule and Procedure for Good Public Administration B.E. 2546 (2003) is the law that is promulgated for government agencies to emphasize in good administration by considering public participation, transparency in working, effective administration and worthiness, facilitate and answer to the need of the people, containing evaluation process and eliminating some work steps to promote agility for the benefit of the people. Such effort is carrying out by using the people as a center as according to the Rules for Administration of the Kingdom Act (No. 5) B.E. 2545 (2002). The reason to promulgate this royal decree was the reformation in government service to allow the government service operation to correspond with the country development and providing service to the people with higher efficiency. The administration and operation of government service requires good administration in order to administrate the country for the benefit of the people, achieving missions for the government with effectiveness and efficiency in the mission aspect for the


9

government, eliminating unnecessary operational step. The people will be able to receive convenience and response to their need and including regular evaluation. Since section 3/1 of the Rules for Administration of the Kingdom Act B.E. 2534 (1991) which had been amended by the Rules for Administration of the Kingdom Act (No. 5) B.E. 2545 (2002) had legislated rules and procedure in executing the government job and ordering government agencies and officials to carry out the tasks. Important details are prescribe in many sections, the one that related to public participation is section 6 on good administration which is the administration principles to achieve goal as follow,

(1) Working for the people’s interest (2) Accomplish the tasks for the government (3) Effective and worthy practice for the government (4) Eliminating redundant step in working. (5) Improving the government practice to be up to date. (6) Facilitate and response to the people and their need.

(7) Regular evaluation on the task assigned

Administration for the people’s interest is the administration that aims for the well-being and decent life style for the people, he peaceful and safety of the social as a whole including the maximum interest of the country. Applying administration for the people’s interest requires the government to operate by considering the people as a centered who will receive service from the government. There should also be procedures in administration also. The government practice shall be done with honest, assessable, and intend to create maximum interest to the people both at local and country level. Before executing, the government should arrange for the study in pro and con in every aspect, then determining the procedure with transparency, and employ examining mechanism in every step. In case that the practice will affect the people, the government must listen to the people’s opinion or elucidate to create understanding in order to allow the people to realize the common interest that will be earned from the practice and it is a duty of the government officials to listen to the opinion and satisfaction of the social and the people who is a service recipient in order to improve the service or provide suggestion to the superior.

The People’s Audit is, therefore, an operation that corresponds to the concept of participatory democracy and good governance because it is the approach that gives emphasis to the people. The people will perform evaluation by themselves and the people will observe the service provider work. The People’s Audit will bring about the topic that is closed to the people to attract the people to participate because such topic will create a mutual interest to every party. In this case, the people is not only the service receiver but a partner in auditing, therefore having a status of a citizen. Figure 2 is the presentation of the Pyramid of new administration style that the service receiver will play most important role. In this figure, the people will earn importance and participate in the aspect that is more important than just being a service receiver.


10

Figure 2: Pyramid of new administration style to improve service

customers

Frontline Personnel

Supervisors

Managers

Executives

Top Management

• Service receiver will be considered as most important person to defy the organization success and survival.

• Service receiver is the boss. The officials in the organization work for service receiver.

• Service receivers holds highest status, importance and have power.

CUSTOMER-ORIENTED ORGANIZATION

Pyramid of new administration style to improve service

What is Public Service? Public Service is the activity that the government and other institute must responsible for the people in many ways, not only issuing of laws or allocating budget to operate but service to the mass is also an establishment of responsibility to the social and trust to the people. The government section provides services to the people both in personal and community. The central government will provide service to the people in wide area while the local unit will provide service to the people in their area only. The provided services concern health and sanitation, law, welfare, security, controlling industry, education, policy in upholding the culture, environment management, etc. The quality of the services and cost are basic concerns to the government, tax payer and service receiver. The government is also trying to protect the service receiver, or the people in other word, and guarantee the lowest quality of service in certain areas. The quality of the service is highly important, then how can the government guarantee that the people will receive good and satisfactory service? The quality oriented will have more meaning than quantity oriented, what shall be done to make the people access to such services. The study of the people’s need is also necessary along with establishing participatory process will add value to the service because the people will perceived that they are involved with the service not only being a service receiver only.

There are various approaches that can be adopted in order to improve the quality of public service by stressing at service type that quality is shown in the form of investment worthiness. The improvement can be made by emphasizing on the effectiveness of the service and increasing level of public participation. This is also includes providing alternatives for the people who is customer to such public service because public service is the government work in order to create interest to the public and with non-profit oriented. In uplifting the quality of public service, it


11

is essential that the people must participate because they are direct beneficiary and the budget spent came from their tax.

People’s Audit for Thailand (PATH) and experiences from other countries The People’s Audit for Thailand (PATH) is a project that allow the people to participate in improve and develop the public services provided to the people by the government and local administration. The project adopts various types of participatory technologies in order to enhance true participatory process to occur. The people will take part in auditing since the process of information gathering, planning, consulting, executing and evaluating including receiving benefit and co-responsible with the service provider. The projects will also uplifting the quality of service that the service provider intends to obtain customer satisfaction regardless to whom the service receiver is. To perform the auditing process, importing factors from service receiver is essential factors. In other countries, there are numerous operations like this and was called differently such as Social Audit that concerns the evaluation, reporting, work improvement and organization ethic. Social audit helps in reducing gap among concepts, targets and reality. It also decreases the gap between level of effectiveness and efficiency, too. This is a technique that will create understanding together with measure, evaluate and report in order to improve the social process. Social Audit process affect the states and create value to the opinion of people concerned including people with less opportunity who are barely regard. Social Audit is a process that will establish good governance, accountability and transparency in the organization both central and local level. Social Audit put emphasis on the social effected topics that are commonly ignored. This approach has been applied in various countries such as India (Jain, S.P. & Wim Polman, 2003), Pakistan (King Prajadhipok’s Institution, 2004) namely Social Audit. While the approach was called differently in other countries, it also operates under different procedures as well. In India and Philippines, the approach was employed along with the use of Report Card. Many countries in Europe also have various different techniques such as the application of Citizen’s Charter and Partnerships. Additionally, in Philippines also applies other different techniques such as Public Service Excellence Program (PSEP) and Technology of Participation (TOP). The detail of application various forms of People’s Audit are; Social Audit according to CIET is an international non profit organization that was established in 1985. The organization was initiated to gather technologies and distribute information in the community. CIET will use such information in training and evaluate the development of the community that was assigned to rely on themselves. CIET encourages the use of modern approach e.g. GIS technique along with holding on to the principle of participation which is the key in working. So far, it has been almost twenty years that CIET has established the coordination project in auditing the community development and public service. Presently, CIET has been working in Social Audit project in various countries around the world including Thailand that has adopted this approach to a pilot project.


12

Social Audit process according to CIET procedure relies on the fact collected from the people and several organizations within the community. Such information will be used for planning start from analyzing the fact, specific problems and solutions. The working cycle that emphasizes on participatory principle will allow the community to obtain evidence and qualify fact that is an in dept information that describes the background of the community. CIET operates Social Audit projects in many countries through cooperation from the government of each country. Pakistan is one of the countries that the country leader sees that the importance of evaluating public service will lead to effective and efficient improvement to the service. Executing Social Audit Procedure according to CIET

1) Internal Information Gathering Process can be obtained via interviewing the house-holds and representatives of the people. Information can be gathered from other sources such as service receiver, non service receiver and community leader as well.

2) Public Participation by arranging breakdown meeting so the people in the community and the community representatives can debates on the public services provided to them.

3) Establishing Fairness in evaluation of the quality of public service provided to the community by neutral party (Third person).

1) Paying attention to every party concerned The procedure has been set on a win-win strategy that is every party is a winner on this operation. The senior officials in the administrative district will involve in the project by presiding on the meeting and encouraging debate on consequences earned from each project within each work period.

2) No pointing out that who is right or wrong that is the project emphasizes on study the existing system and find the way to develop rather than finding the one who done wrong.

3) Re-Evaluation Evaluation Schedule must be set up and perform accordingly.

4) Bringing conclusion to social process can be performed through the use of medias and administration curriculum, publicize the outcome earned from the project and provide training to the district that wanted to set up this project.

5)The advantages of Social Audit project is enhancing of ability and skill in planning using the evidence obtained from the expedition either by quality or quantity oriented, using media in publicize the result on Social Audit project and neutralism since the evaluation has been done by third party. The disadvantages of Social Audit project is the personnel in this project must have high technical knowledge, the wage for a consultant hired in coordinate the project is rather high, the budget for studying the whole country is very high and it requires long period of time to disperse technology and knowledge required in performing Social Audit. Public Service Excellence Program Public Service Excellence Program (PSEP) is a project that uses the concept of participation in evaluation. This concept comprises of 5 steps as follow.

1. Arrange a workshop on vision and value in providing public service. 2. Arrange an in dept workshop on servicing 3. Arrange a workshop on developing public service 4. Arrange a celebrate party 5. Arrange a training on basic skills in providing service to the customer


13

The first four steps must be done accordingly to be reasonable. The last step is an activity that can be done anytime.

The Public Service Excellence Program can be strengthening by using the participation concept. The department leader and employee who are involved in the project shall realize that they mutually own the outcome that will occur. In working with each target group, it comprises of no more than 25 personals. The executive who will make a decision on executing this project in their organization, the member of the organization who will be working in the project and other related persons who interest in learning the procedures will enhance the organization to provide excellence service in the end.

This method put emphasis on establishing the culture in providing service that is customer or service receiver oriented as according to numerous ideas stated on this concept. Nonetheless, the end result that the project participant will receive is knowledge and experiences obtained from operating the project. The participants realize that they partially own the outcome that occurs from providing service according to such procedure. The advantage of this project is it is an activity that will encourage public service improvement by emphasizing in the organization. Therefore, the government organization can make improvement, scrutinize and evaluate the people’s need and encourage the culture that is customer oriented in every department of the organization. This is an inside-out approach and will the project to be successful because the service provider is willing to improve. The disadvantages from performing Public Service Excellence Program is since this program is a tool for the organization to improve the service and evaluate the need of the people, therefore it requires following up activities to inspect the outcome whether the organization can response to the need of the people or not. Such inspection requires long period of time. In addition, for the Philippines style, the people do not allow to participate in the service planning but will acknowledge and celebrate the success.

Procedure of Operation on Decentralization Policy Progress Evaluation Project

The project operator in Indonesia will gather information by organizing workshops and incessant participatory debate. The technique uses in collecting core information is an in dept debate. The information gathered from conversation in the meeting will be examined and added more detail via interviewing of important person who is involved with the decentralization process, and analyzing of secondary information such as local district budget and common law that was appointed locally.’ Each of the project operators in various areas in Indonesia must prepare a complete report on the information collected by including the secondary information in the report as well. A seminar will be arranged to amalgamate the collected information. By this, the objective of the seminar is to co-analyze the information, every body will share their ideas obtained from empirical observation approach. After that, all of the ideas will be amalgamate in the form of proposal approved by every participant. Then, a national conference will be held to present the result of the evaluation obtained from the


14

project and will draw more attention from the central and national level to ideas and perspective of local districts. Afterward, the conclusion report will be prepared by collecting every detail that obtained during the project. Next is the step in presenting the evaluation of public service in local district. This step will bring back all of the information obtained during the project and analyze the information by specific area. The analysis may reveal new topics to be studied in next project at the same time.

The advantages of Progress Evaluation Project is working according to this evaluation will be an effective and efficient observatory tool. This tool is very necessary because it will allow the public to rapidly access to information and use the information in policy based debate. This project will be a tool to help the public in accessing necessary information from both parts which are the in dept information and simultaneous information. The project operation will reflect the “unprepared” image of the outcome of the operation of projects on decentralization policy on various periods of time. This evaluation project is a project that allows the person from various departments to participate. It also covers ranges of areas and groups of people, too. In addition, while the project is undergoing, the areas and number of people will increase incessantly. Since the procedure of the project will create knowledge and opinions exchange mechanism among important persons who involved in the decentralization process either from central or local level. Therefore, the local executives will earn benefit from learning to implement the decentralization principle. In addition, they can use the information obtained from the process in evaluating the new responsibility that they should bear including searching for appropriate procedure that them in creating relationship with Civil Society Organization, too.

The disadvantage of this project is the project is intended to evaluate level of government service by emphasizing in the horizontal development of the organization that covers numerous related parties. Therefore, it takes a long period of time without certainty that the final outcome will be concrete enough or not. Besides, adopting consulting as an important tool in operating the project refers to the possibility that the collected information will be limited in some field only. Evaluation Method by Report Card at Bangalore The method begins with issuing of questionnaire which the researcher called “Report Card”. The objectives of this report is to make the people recognize the level of public utility service provided by government officials that is lower than standard. The project also aims for the people who receive the service to express their opinion about the public utility service and etc. “Report Card” also evaluates level of satisfaction in government service, too. The questions must reveal the opinion and additional suggestion on quality, effectiveness, level of service accessibility and should reveal whether such department is trustworthy or corrupted and how service receiver was treated. The questions will not cover complex technical operation and service standardization from the person who answered the “Report Card”. Therefore, the form of “Report Card” will remain in a form of general questionnaire to obtain quantity, however it also concerns in the quality of information by try to let the subject to express their opinion and provide suggestion in the “Report Card”.


15

Nevertheless, the researchers believe that this method will create more reliability to the Service Evaluation Project. The “Report Card” is a method that has been using in various cities in India. The use of “Report Card” in Bangalore was initiated in 1993 when the level of public utility service was unsatisfied due to the administration and management power was depended on the executives who responsible in some specific area only and the government officials also worked ineffectively because of the influence from politic and executive power. Though there was an expansion of city area but the service were still the same. From this problem, beside the officials’ lack of conscience and skills in working which were important factors, there were problems from the administration centralization and inefficient planning and resource allocation, too. The survey was accomplished within the same year and was conducted for the following 3 years by the government agency and some private organization who participated in this project. The media played important role in dispersing the result obtained from the “Report Card”. The evaluation part had stimulated the people to recognize the problem that occurred in government agency and there were cooperation with social organization in inspecting the government officials’ work, so the official would in turn provide efficient service to the people. The advantage of this project is it made the people recognized that they have right to acknowledge and inspect the official’s work. In addition, the government officials also had to improve their work to efficiency especially in the operation aspect. Besides, the people had taken more part in organizations related to community. The private sector and media also provided support and helped in magnifying the outcome. The disadvantages are, on this project, some people may required changes in short term period when the project require a period of time to succeed. Moreover, the movement and expressing opinion did not affect much on the development of administration efficiency of the executives. The people had high expectation that this project would help eliminate corruption in the government unit swiftly. Evaluation Service Level from experience in Participatory Budget Allocation at “ Porto Alegre”, Brazil The structure and decision on allocation resources for municipal development is opened for the people to take part in making decision. The key meeting will be held twice each year and in opened characteristic. The first meeting is held to inspect the budget of last year and the second meeting will be held to examine the problems that shall be corrected and developed. The election for 42 representatives (since 1994, each district and each problem in development will have 2 representatives) will also be held on the second meeting. This group of people will be a representative in the municipal council of planning and budget allocation and will be working for 1 year. These representatives will have a meeting on budget allocation at their own district then regularly following up on the activities of the municipal. This also includes urging their representative to vote on the important problem that the municipal


16

council had earlier agreed and inform the representative about the problems in small community as well. All these municipal representatives will responsible in arranging the meeting in their district for consulting problems, be a representative in appealing to the municipal council about the need in their district and work in cooperate with the representative from government section (non-election) in allocating the budget to develop the city. The rules in budget allocation are the general rules that have been approved by related parties. Then, the administration will bring the draft to the legislative assembly for approval. Only this specific municipal budget that will be allocated using public participation principle, generally the government will prepare the detail of most of budget allocation. This budget allocation through public participation does not allow the executives and country leader to interfere with the process. The one who prepares this budget is the people, that is, the people are the one who plan and agree on the detail about the income and revenue. The people will also be the one who plans and decides on the investment to develop the area including the exact place to construct, when the construction will be finish, what basic structure should be construct first and whether there is any plan that require the government to further develop. The people participate in this planning and decision making through the process of debate and consulting. Presently, there are at least 70 cities around Brazil that adopted the process of participatory budget allocation by using the experience from “Porto Alegre” as a model. This is considered very well for decentralization because the people will follow up on the spending of budget that they have planned. The advantage of this participatory budget allocation is it will assure the people that public resource management has been done under democracy principle. It will also make the people to believe that administration with transparency oriented is the only way to protect corruption and fault management of public fund. This budget allocation reveals that the biggest obstacle in the relationship between social and the government is the bureaucracy system. This obstacle can be eliminated when the people share same intention to establish efficient participatory decision making mechanism. Meanwhile, the government must accept to abide by the people’s decision. In conclusion, this participatory budget allocation have created the recognition and exercised the right of the citizen with enthusiasm and the people will help in follow up on the spending of budget. The disadvantage of participatory budget allocation is this is the method that “limits” the government power in administration. Therefore, it should be noticed that this method of budget allocation can only be adopt when the administration put high cooperation and investment to this process. Procedure in establishing Citizen’s Charter The Citizen’s Charter is the way to develop quality of service provided by the government through allowing public participation from gathering of information on


17

the need for service, pledge set up and evaluation in order to achiever better service. The final objective is to obtain the service that achieve the standard, with quality, responsive to the people’s need and earn maximum satisfaction from the people. The period the evaluation is the agreement between the government and the people who are service receiver. The evaluation process is an important step to develop the quality of service and require actual participation from the people in order to consider whether such service is provided according to the agreement or not, or whether there shall be some adjustment to the service. The Citizen’s Charter establishment procedure will follow this cycle to create standard and quality for service in the area or community that the people want. From the study, it found that Citizen’s Charter is usually done along with the Public Service Reform. Citizen’s Charter is considered an external control to create accountability and participation in administration as according to the principle of good governance. The indication from service receiver reveals that the effectiveness of Citizen’s Charter depends on regarding Hearing as the most important factor and attention paid to the context of local district which is different from the Audit System. Nevertheless, the Citizen’s Charter may be called differently depending on the context of the study or the important factor for the researcher such as Customer’s Charter, Service Charter, Client Charter, Trust Charter and Charter Mark. The implication of Citizen’s Charter must consider the appropriate of work unit and the people readiness to participate. The work unit must have an obvious service receiver, certain person who will responsible in follow up and evaluation, exact area of work, exact duty description and performance measurable. In case that the charter is being applied with the local administration organization, the strength and effectiveness of such local administration should be considered as well. The advantage of using Citizen’s Charter is there is no commitment to work together. However, the disadvantage is the changing in politics as the importance of this issue depends on the policy of each government. The form that is mentioned here is only part of the forms being applied all around the world. In Thailand, there are variety forms of People’s Audit but there is no systematic research in collecting this information and no continual step to complete the cycle of service and participation yet. Therefore, in order to enhance the quality of service, the people should participate in the process. The above mentioned forms of participation had been thoroughly studied and analyzed in order to apply for being used in Thailand. The application had been done with integration to the actual context of Thailand. People’s Audit for Thailand (PATH) Recognizing the necessity of public participation in enhancing the public service provided by the government and local administration, this project is conduct by King Prajadhipok’s Institute with network from various departments such as Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and including government agencies, academic institution, non profit organization and Department of Local Administration. Through this project, the people will be able to express their satisfaction level, need or worry in the service. In


18

addition, the people will be able to participate in the operating process of such service, if opportunity arises, this practice will promote partnership in working and create trust. Service provider sector will receive good cooperation, the service receiver that is the people will receive good service as expected. Generally, allowing the people to participate in the service since the beginning will facilitate the service provider because the disagreement problem will be eliminated as the method of servicing is actually come from the people. The project began with the study from experiences of various countries and then the idea was applied to Thailand. Setting up procedures and appointing expert or mentor will support the service provider all through the country. By this, the network of mentor will be set up in every region of Thailand including in 5 areas that volunteer for testing as well. The concept of this project relies on the concept of participatory democracy as according to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2540. The principle of Good Governance or good administration was clearly stated in the law such as the Rules for Administration of the Kingdom Act (No. 5) B.E. 2545 (2002) and the Royal Decree on Rule and Procedure for Good Public Administration B.E. 2546 (2003) that intend for the public interest by regarding the people as a center which an administration reform that emphasize on new style of administration. The objective of the People’s Audit Project is to educate the participated organization or work unit in the process of People’s Audit on Public Service delivery and to study the forms of participation for application in the future. The research team has conduct participatory research and set up a curriculum that can be used as handbook to provide education to the network including advice on effective implication with their unit. The participant must have the required qualification that is being a representative of an organization (Local Administration Organization, Government Agencies and Private Sector Organization) who volunteer to participate in the project, able to attend the class continually all through the course, interest and eager to apply the idea of People’s audit to develop their own work unit. In case of government officer or government employee, the person must be supported and expected from the superior in applying the knowledge learned to work later. The figure below illustrate plan in implementing various types of public participation to enhance the Public Service Delivery and the strategies that should be applied to achieve goal and vision that is prosperity and establishing partnership in enhancing Public Service Delivery to accomplish satisfactory from service receiver and the officials who provide the service. Figure 3: Target and Strategy in enhancing Public Service Delivery with People and Service Receiver Orientation.

The Targets Are People and Service Receivers Visions: Well-being and acceptance of people’s dignity. Participation in

uplifting of the service. Targets: Promote and establish measures to enhance participation in public

service uplifting


19

process. Objectives: - Create new paradigm, which includes positive attitudes, democratic

cultures and good governance. - Empowerment to get people’s participation, which is considered the

“outside in approach”. That is, the initiation is made by the people and for the

people. Meanwhile, the government is responsible as a facilitator, trying to find out the

feeling and needs of the people, so that the service providers can be informed of the people’s

need. - Excellent public service deliveries, which is “inside out approach”.

That is, the people’s information is used to improve the quality of service. The

established vision focuses on the excellent service derived by creating the new service

process, improvement of the service, and success indicators. - Holistic integration for implementation, which refers to the

integration for cooperation, or working in multilateral levels. People’s opinions and

needs are used in planning. Implementation is based on the concept of excellent service.

After implementation, participatory evaluation will be made, in order to

achieve further improvement. Strategies: - Establish network for project participation from all sectors. Support and

promote participation of all sectors in uplifting public service. Create inspiration

in service uplifting. Adjust the paradigm of the administrators. Encourage

inspiration for awareness and willingness to work on the basis of participatory

democracy. Build capacity of service providers for improving the service through

people’s participation process. Establish networks for project participation from all sectors. Develop knowledge on People’s Audit, as well as the prototypes of

participation and various kinds of innovation and skill. Experiment to be conducted in pilot areas. Conclude the lessons, before

improvement and dissemination. Implementation of participation process by ways of People’s Audit in

order to improve the service. Improvement is needed so that service providers can provide good

service by strengthening their capacity, as well as by empowerment and enabling people to participate, so that the people

can have access to service improvement


20

process. This strategy is considered the “outside in approach”. Figure 4: Target and Strategy in enhancing Public Service Delivery with Service Provider Orientation

The Targets Are Service Receivers

Visions: Visions: Create satisfaction for the people and service receivers, as well as service providers. Establish the process to improve public service based on the concept of participatory democracy.

Targets: Promote and establish measures to enhance participation in public service improvement process.

Objectives: Determine the direction and patterns in enhancement of participation in

public service improvement. Promote knowledge, understanding, experiment, as well as participatory evaluation and dissemination of concepts. Enhance the networks for participation and make them the source of knowledge.

Strategies: Support and promote participation of all sectors in improving public

service. Create inspiration in service improvement. Adjust the paradigm of the administrators. Encourage inspiration for awareness and willingness to work on the basis of participatory democracy.

Build capacity of service providers for uplifting the service through

people’s participation process. Establish networks for project participation from all sectors. Develop knowledge on People’s Audit, as well as the prototypes of

participation and various kinds of innovation and skill. Experiment to be conducted in pilot areas. Conclude the lessons, before

improvement and dissemination. Implementation of participation process by ways of People’s Audit in order to improve the service. Empowering and enabling the people to have more opportunity for participation. Development from inside the government sector is necessary (inside out approach).


21

Figure 5: Co-ordination between Service Provider and Receiver Coordination for improvement of services through participatory process

Well-being and acceptance of people’s dignity. Participation in uplifting of the service.

Visions Create satisfaction for the people C Create satisfaction for the people and service recipients, as well as service providers. Establish the process to improve public service based on the concept of participatory democracy. on the concept of participatory democracy.

Promote and establish measures to enhance participation in public service improvement process.

Targets Promote and establish measures to enhance participation in public service improvement process.

Determine the direction and patterns in enhancement of participation in public service improvement. Promote knowledge, understanding, experiment, as well as participatory evaluation and dissemination of concepts. Enhance the networks for participation and make them the source of knowledge.

Objectives Determine the direction and patterns in enhancement of participation in public service improvement. Promote knowledge, understanding, experiment, as well as participatory evaluation and dissemination of concepts. Enhance the networks for participation and make them the source of knowledge.

Establish network for project participation from all sectors. Develop the knowledge on People’s Audit. Build skills. Adjust paradigm. Create awareness. Experiment in the pilot areas. Conclude the lessons. Improve and disseminate. Use the participatory process based on People’s Audit methods so that the people can have an access to the service improvement process. This is considered the “Outside In Approach” of development.

Strategies Support and promote participation of all sectors in improving public service. Build the service providers’ capacity in improvement of public service through people participation. Establish network for project participation from all sectors. Develop the knowledge on People’s Audit. Build skills. Adjust paradigm. Create awareness. Experiment in the pilot areas. Conclude the lessons. Improve and disseminate. Use the participatory process based on People’s Audit methods so that service providers can deliver good services. Empowering and enabling the people to have more opportunity for participation. Development is made from inside the government sector (inside out approach).

Establishing Cognitive in People’s Audit


22

Knowledge is an important factor for the operator to apply in use. Therefore, the method of education is designed to comprise of theoretical part which includes participatory lecture, brain storming and presentation, exercise and case study. The practical part is determines for the participants to exchange experiences, general observation and information with the lecturer and other participants integral with the content of each topic to encourage the learning process that will lead to the appropriate actual practice.

The outline of the course includes background of People’s Audit Project, new

paradigm in Public Service Delivery, Scrutinizing the need for enhancing the public service, Establishing Participation Schemes, Developed Process and Public Service Excellence Program for Thailand, Integration and Implementation of Public Service Delivery Concept and Participatory Evaluation. The curriculum is intended for actual implementation either by inside-out or outside-in approach.

To start the activity, the most important factor is the knowledge to operate,

realization to establish good public service and allow the people and other party to participate then work together and become the learning triangles for operating Public Service Delivery Project. F i g u r e 6 : P r i n c i p l e i d e a s t o s t a r t t h e p r o j e c t

Knowledge

RealizationAction

However, the activities shall never succeed without the coordination from every party, especially the service provider who must determine to establish good service and adjust. In addition, the executives must be willing to help in precipitating and materialize the project. Most important is the people must participate with willingness not by force. The project operation uses both inside-out and outside-in approach. Both approaches will merge together in determination to establish true Public Service Excellence.


23

Outside-in Procedure 1. Scrutinize the public need 2. Positive Approach to the Community 3. Establishing Participation Process

- Discuss the problems - Workshop - Planning

Inside-out Procedure 1. Public Service Excellence Program

Integration of 2 approaches

1. Citizen Partnership 2. Establish Citizen’s Charter 3. Create a prototype in operating 4. Set up operational plan 5. Participatory Evaluation

In conducting this project, there was a test on method of teaching at Pitsanulok Municipal then applied to the process and used in 5 provinces including Chiang Rai, Sakon Nakhon, Maha Sarakham, Phechaburi and Songkhla. The work units that participate in the project include Local Administration Organizations such as Had Yai Municipal, Ban Pru Sub-District Municipal, Sakon Nakhon City Municipal, Sawang Dan Din Sub-District Municipal, Local Administration Organization of Maha Sarakham, Local Administration of Rong Kae Sub-District, Local Administration of Tha Mai Ruaek Sub-District, Mae Chan Sub-District Municipal. There are also central work units that participate in the project which are Mae Chan Police Station, Pa Teong Health Station, Baan Mai Chai Ya Health Station, Na Kaew Sub-District, Pone Na Kaew District, Sakon Nakhon Province and Baan Pone Thong Health Station in Pone Thong Sub-District, Khok Sri Supan District, Sakon Nakhon Province. These work units has applied different forms of People’s Audit but the ultimate target is for the interest of the public. (For more detail, please see the case study on specific topic by field researcher).

Principles for Effective People’s Audit The People’s Audit for Thailand (PATH) was established through the

cooperation of various parties mentioned above. In conducting the People’s Audit program, the operator needs to rely on the principles in order to achieve successful which are,

1. Commit to the job and determine commitment as important policy for the work unit

2. Share mutual understanding, objective, target, participation process and feed back obtained from the evaluation. Most essential is sharing same participation activity and have thorough communication with each other.

3. Practice evenly to ensure that people in different area can also access to this activity as well.


24

4. Mutually Respect in ensure that every body shares part of responsibility and willing to listen to other person opinion.

5. Be responsible to ensure that the related officials and public will share responsible and to ensure that this project will achieve the target because the allocated resources and enough time provided.

6. Be accountable in ensure that the information earned from the evaluation is actually collected from the period that participation has been transmitted to all of the participants and to show that the result of this study has been introduced to the policy setting process.

7. Be cooperative in ensure that various departments will be involved and practice the project and agree to collaborate.

8. Be confident in each other to ensure communication and establish relationship.

9. Be integrative, think as a whole and bilateral working to ensure wide span of participation that covers every group of people interested and might be effected from decision making of the government and local administration.

10. Start from positive thinking will create good impression to each other and encourage collaboration. If the project is started with negative thinking, deficiency or contradiction then it will cause obstacle to the operation.

Enhancing Public Service Delivery Process

The above mentioned principles will lead to power in operating the project to meet both the service receiver and provider satisfaction. The project is a continuous learning process that begins with crating inspiration which will lead to innovation and implementation to improve or enhance the Service Delivery. After that, it will return to the process of creating inspiration for better operation. All of this cycle will occur with effectiveness and efficiency when there is internalization and willingness to collaborate or Internationalization as illustrated in figure 7.


25

Figure 7: People’s Audit Cycle

In each process, there will be more minor activities but this depends on the plan and decision under approval from every party, recognizing the context of the area and work unit that will provide the service will lead to a true uplifting of Service Delivery. Designing People’s Audit requires an assembly of service providers and receivers to collaborate in finding way to improve the service. The techniques that were taught will be applied by each group.

Example of implementing the obtained knowledge in Public Service Delivery At the beginning of the project, the invitations to participate in the project were sent to various parties. The work units would send the leader of each group such as service receiver and providers for training and practice. Then the representatives would participate in designing the procedure and planning. The figure illustrated below is only an example of the model that had been applied. The figure shows an integrate scheme to establish participation from every party. There is an application of feed back to improve the service and working in dynamism and using of appropriate participatory tools in various forms starting from scrutinizing problems and public need, examining satisfactory level, choosing example through techniques that was taught such as questionnaire, meeting, interviewing and scrutinizing via medias. Then the result will be present to the public and executives. Various parties have come together to plan on how to response to the public need, what is an urgent issue, what can be done or can not be done, how to raise budget and who will be the operator. Then, the plan will be improved using appropriate method. The evaluation will be done

เกิดแรงบนัดาลใจinspiration

สรางนวตกรรมในการมีสวนรวมinnovation

นําไปปฏิบติัimplementation

เกิดการปรับปรุงทีดี่ขึ้นimprovement

จิตสํานึกinternalization

immunity


26

regularly and result will be presented to every party. The most important issue is continual improvement. Some work unit had arranged a meeting in civil society to scrutinize need and establish Citizen’s Charter and implementation according to the statement in the Charter. Then, the project will be evaluated with participation before further development.

Figure 8: Simple illustration of integrate scheme of People’s Audit Program

Operation procedures

Finding problems and people’s needs.

Prepare the reports.

Report the findings to all parties. Report the findings to the people.

Present the reports to service providers.

Planning for cooperation in problem solving. Adjustment of services. Participatory evaluation Conclusion of service. Implement the plan.

Establish the plan and budget for future operation. Sample of work units that apply the concept of People’s Audit are Had Yai Municipal. The team was divided into 3 groups consist of the municipal officials, members of municipal council and the people. Each group will select type of public services that will be enhanced such as mobile municipal service, greeting at the municipal and public toilet service (which always receive complain). After meeting for discussion, the plan will be set up by selecting the work method. Some team began with scrutinizing the public need and satisfaction. Then the information will be analyzed and discussed for improvement in part that earned less attention from the public. After that, there was an evaluation before further improvement. The Sakon Nakhon Municipal conduct the project vigorously by setting up a team and trainings to study the Public Service Excellence Program especially the greeting that satisfy every party, and set up a standard that was mutually approved, too. In addition to the above, there are several other Local Administration Organizations that apply Public Service Excellence program such as Sawang Dan Din Sub-District Municipal in Sakon Nakhon province, Mae Chan Sub-District Municipal, Tha Mai


27

Rueak Local Administration. After conducting the project for while, the evaluation process will be perform every once in a while.

Figure 9: Illustrate of dynamism of People’s Audit Process being used at Sakon Nakhon Municipal and Sawang Dan Din Sub-District Municipal


28

Working Procedure at 2 Municipals

Order to appoint the team

Sakon Nakhon Municipal

Sawang Dan Din Municipal

Lecturer / Coordinator

Travel by themselves

Work

Brain Storm from Public Sector

Workshop

Thai - PSEP

Vision + Share Value

Consistent Opinion

Must provide indoor service

Outdoor Service Inter-department

Service

Services of Municipal sub

units

Small Beginning

Ready and have high inspiration

Citizen Registration

Analyzing work standard

Have tools that correspond with

Vision

Good Excellence Cheerful

Behavioral Approach

Standard is procedure for

official

Friendly greeting Public

reconsider the standard

Work Standard

Provide manual in Service Delivery

Work Adjustment

Practice every step

Follow the standard

Training to practice

Service Skill

Speak; Smile e.g. “Good morning”

instead of “Hi”

Based on Remembering

Changes Order for

Report Meeting

Inspection

Found standard in ID. Card Task 15 min. finished 6-8 min.

Readjust the

Standard

Progress Evaluation

Alert

Support by Executives

Satisfy

Better

Complain

Slower

Progression Report

Stat

Lecture Know ledge Base

People School Principal

Do not follow the structure

Leader of each community is a

committee Meeting to

discuss about the project

Gain knowledge

Source of

Knowledge

Internal Service

Thai – PSEP create Value and Share Vision


29

Another example is the Knowledge for Safety Driving Project that was provided by the police officer at Mae Chan Police Station, Chiang Rai province. After discovered the need through group meeting that the minority people who live on mountain do not have nationality and can not do driving license, hence can not drive vehicle to work in city. Besides, these group of people are poor and make a living by trespassing the forest or selling drug. Therefore, the police officer had arrange a training for Safety Driving and certify the person who passed the training to drive a vehicle to work, usually down at the plain area and will go back to live on mountain, but the person is not allowed to go beyond the identify area. The project was conduct to eliminate poverty, lack of opportunity to work and establish trust from the people on the officer’s work. In addition, the participation concept was applied to protect the village security by providing “Community Police” training as well.

Another example is when the people at Pa Teong Sub-district, Mae Chan District collaborate with Sub-District Public Health Station had set up a Citizen’s Charter to look after their health. The Public Health Station will provide service according to the agreement stated on the Citizen’s Charter while the public will follow the Charter as well. This is an example of implementing form of participation learned.


30

Figure 10: Illustrate of dynamism system of People’s Audit Process conduct at Kae Dum Local Administration, Maha Sarakham Province

Joint working process between

P.M and Permanent Secretary

Wang Saeng Local Adm. , Kae Dum District

Research Team

Co-Planning

Maha Sarakham Local Adm.

Block by various problems

Election Politics

Keep on working Change Executive

W o r k P l a n Support Budget

Operation

Get rid of garbage in community

Work Out

Obtain enhancing plan Satisfy

Re – Train Implementation

Re-Plan

Enhancement

Lecturer

Apply

Gain Knowledge

Conclude Lesson

C o m p e t i t i o n


31

Figure 11: Illustration of dynamism system of People’s Audit Process conducting at Rong Kae Local Adm., Phechaburi Province PEOPLE’S AUDIT, Phechaburi

Rong Kae Local Adm.

Brain Storming

Got main idea

Take note / make appointment

General meeting appointment

Appointment for meeting

Provide knowledge in PATH

Result

Mobile stage

Provide Information

Tell how Local Adm. perform

Talk to person in area

Set up question

More brave

Listen more

Meeting

Must help each other

Must learn the duty and role structure of

Law

Listen to problem

Appeal from officials to Sheriff and

Governor

Want to establish

Participation

Lecturer’s advise

Willingness

Sub-district development

Scrutinizing satisfaction / general need

Civil Stage

Inviting

Development Have problem

Publicize

Watch together

Develop water-sided / Clean

the canals

Need improvement plan

Meeting attendee


32

Conclusion of Basic Lesson from this project

This project has been conduct since year 2000. The work period covers quite long period of time. There has been an application of knowledge in various work units in various countries either to direct enhance the Service Delivery or the create participation process or both. Either way, the projects are conduct to promote participatory democracy. After implementing form of People’s Audit for a while, there are inspections and can be basically conclude as follow ).


33

Summary Activity Matrix:

Activity Jun. 2007 Jul.2007 Aug. 2007 Sep. 2007 Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Dec. 2007 Jan. 2008 Feb. 2008 . Mar. 2008

Activity 1:Monitoring the provincial projects that have been implemented 1.1 Progressive meeting in the original province

9 Nov.07 - Progressive report and the expansion of the result in the original province at Trang Hotel, Bangkok

12 Mar. 2008 - Researcher in the area presenting the progress on PA (Sakon Nakon, Mahasarakham, Chaing Rai, Songkha, and Phetchburi )

Activity 2: Expansion of implementation (5 areas) 2.1 Implementation of the project in the area and report on the activities and expansion of the result in the new area

16 Jun. 07 - Report on the expansion of the project for creating participation of the community's leader for developing the local administrative organization at Ngao in Chiang Rai 1st Report ร 17 Jun. 07 - Report on the expansion of People's Audit in Thakanom, Surat Thani

11 Oct. 07 - Report on the result from the 1st practical meeting on the lifting of the forest conservatory in Chiang 16 Oct. 07 - Report on the expandsion of the result from participation of the community's leader project for developing the local administrative organization of Ngao in Chiang Rai, 2nd report

9 Nov. 07 - Progressive meeting on the project in the new areas at Trang Hotel, Bangkok 15 Nov. 07 - Completion of the establishment of the radio station of local administration of Ngao

12 Mar. 2008 - Resercher in the area presenting PA and practicing after the training ไปใชภายหลังการไดรับการอบรม (Forest, Police office in Ngao, Nakon Sri Thammarat and Surat Thani)


34

Activity Jun. 2007 Jul.2007 Aug. 2007 Sep. 2007 Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Dec. 2007 Jan. 2008 Feb. 2008 . Mar. 2008 Activity 3: Knowledge management for People's Audit project through publishing of document and producing CD-ROM on " The report on uplifting of public service delivery through People's Audit", both in Thai and English language 3.1 Developing the database and producing video presentation

Developing the database information and collect the info for VDO presentation

15 Aug 07 - Delivery the database information

Update the database and producing the VDO presentation project 11 Mar. 08 - Submit the original version of the VDO presentation of the project

Activity 4: Preparation of advanced model for enhancement of People's Audit in improvement of public governance to enhance Advanced People's Audit. 4.1 Progressive meeting on the advance People's Audit module

11 Sep. 07 - 1st Progressive meeting for the advance module

9 Nov. 07 - 2nd progressive meeting for the advance module

11 Dec. 07 - 3rd progressive meeting on the preparation and advance module

11-12 Feb. 08 - Meeting of the researchers to assign the module for the public participation and public service delivery (Advanced Module) 25-29 Feb. 08 - Training on the pilot project on the participation and public services delivery at Chonla pheuk Resort in Nakon Nayok


35

Activity Jun. 2007 Jul.2007 Aug. 2007 Sep. 2007 Oct. 2007 Nov. 2007 Dec. 2007 Jan. 2008 Feb. 2008 . Mar. 2008 Activity 5: Workshop for knowledge exchange and dissemination to other local government organization.

5.1 Meeting for the date and preparation for the forum

9 Nov. 07 - Meeting on the date and preparation for the project announcement at Trang Hotel, Bangkok

11 Mar. 08 - Meeting to announce the progress on the participation and public services delivery at The Grand Hotel Ayutthaya in Bangkok 12 Mar. 08 - Progressive meeting on the project and the path on the expansion of the result at The Grand Ayatthaya Hotel, Bangkok


36

Report on the project of original 5 pilot provinces on People’s Audit Service Pre-testing of People’s Audit for Thailand in Phisanulok Prior to implementing the PATH curriculum in the five pilot provinces (Phetchaburi, Sakon Nakhon, Maha Sarakham, Songkhla, and Chaing Rai), the research team conduct the pre-test site in Phisanulok province. The results and lessons learnt from this workshop would be revised and developed in order to enhance the quality of this curriculum for the future workshops. Overview of the Training Workshop in Phisanulok Phisanulok Municipality is located in the center of lower northern region of Thailand along the Nan River. The province is approximately 400 km from Bangkok and 300 km. from Chiang Mai. Phisanulok has about 90,300 of population in 18.27 km2 of administrative area. Its economy is primarily based on services, trade, and tourism. The province is also considered as the academic and administrative center of the lower northern region. Experiencing the rapid economic growth and urbanization, Phisanulok Municipality improve and prepare the local governmental staff to be ready to solve any local problems such as garbage collection, and drainage, as well as to provide and improve the quality of any public services for local people. The PATH workshop thus would help the local government officers to enhance their capacity on planning, implementing, and monitoring the policy for service development. More importantly, the PATH curriculum also emphasizes the concept of public participation which is parallel to the participatory democracy stated in the 1997 Constitution. The PATH workshop was organized on December 20-24, 2004. There were 45 participants attending this workshop. These participants included 25 participants from state officials of the Phisanulok Municipality, 3 from council members, 3 from civil society and NGOs, and 14 local people. The female-male ration is 2.75:1 and the average age of participants is 39.82. The 38 participants completed the curriculum and received the certificate. Training Workshop The workshop is consisted of six different training chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction of the mandates of 1997 Thai Constitution, Good Governance Act, and Bureaucratic Reform. Chapter 2: Ideas and opinion exchanges on public services and good governance. Chapter 3: Methodologies and data collection procedure. Chapter 4: Introduction of Citizen’s Charter Partnership AND Technology of Participation (ToP) Chapter 5: Introduction of Public Service Excellence Program (PESP). Chapter 6: Ownership and Adaptation. Chapter 7: Evaluation.


37

As mentioned earlier, this workshop was organized in five days. The first chapter was implemented on the first day of the workshop. The facilitators addressed the elements of good governance-transparency, efficiency, public participation, and accountability in order to provide an overview of the workshop and the training curriculum for participants. After the facilitators’ review on the basic responsibility of government officers, participants, according to chapter two of the workshop, were requested to list the unsuccessful responsibilities of government services that are needed to be improved in the near future. This activity allowed the participants to understand the inter-related between the good governance and public service delivery which they can apply to their actual work. In addition, this first day workshop also allowed a closer relationship between the facilitators and participants before starting the following activities. On the second day, participants learned how to conduct the research methods to obtain data and information for policy making. These research methods include how to conduct surveys, focus groups, and interviews. After learning on how to apply these research methods to collect data, participants also learned how to interpret their data. Facilitators encouraged participants to present their finding group by group during the workshop. The introduction of Citizen’s Charter and Partnership from chapter 4 was also discussed during on this second day workshop. The ideas of Citizen’s Charter and Partnerships is to reach an agreement between public service provider and service recipients on what public services are needed and how to budget it. To successfully do so, both sides should share the ownership of good quality public service and neither side could decline the responsibility of achieving it. However, according to the observers’ evaluation, the participants were ambiguous on how to apply these research methods to collect and interpret data for policy formation. On the third day, organizers and facilitators introduced the Technology of Participation (ToP). ToP contains three methods: the ORID method, workshop method, and action planning method. These three methods aim to enhance the quality of data collection and interpretation. The Public Service Excellence Program (PSEP), a training program aimed to improve the capability of government officers, was also introduced during the third day’s workshop. PSEP aims to promote a customer-oriented service culture in the governmental section. During the workshop, the main ideas of PSEP were addressed. Then, the facilitators encouraged participants to exchange ideas and opinions in order to compare and contrast the actual situations and the conceptually ideal-type of PSEP. However, at the end of the workshop, participants were confused by the ToP criteria. Top consists of many details which were difficult for participants to follow its contents in a short period. On the fourth day of program, the facilitators attempted to encourage and help the participants to develop their own ideas and projects by applying particular research methods and concepts that they had learnt from the earlier period of the workshop. Their developed projects may become the baseline idea and information for their future policy formation. The workshop evaluation was conducted on the last day of the workshop. The evaluation contains two different forms. The first form focuses on the lesson-learning method. This form seeks to gain participants’ opinions on the workshop programs and


38

trainings. The second evaluation form focuses on the workshop method of ToP. The participants were required to rank the number from the most to the least important points of the workshop that should be improved in the future trainings. After the workshop, the overall results show that the participants were satisfied with the workshop procedure. They were also willing to apply these research methods that they had learnt, such as surveys and interviews, to their works and policy formation in the future. However, participants suggested the organizers to shorter the length of programs and activities. They expressed that the long period of workshop discouraged participants to attend similar activities in the future. In short, according to the results of evaluation procedure, around 20-30% of participants strongly satisfied with the PATH curriculum as well as its workshop and activities. More than 50% of participants satisfied; and less than 20% expresses their less satisfaction with the content of the PATH curriculum and its activities. In addition, the evaluation procedure also asked the participants to evaluate the capacity and training skills of the facilitators. The result shows that participants were either very satisfied or satisfied with the teaching skills of facilitators. The training team also continued the evaluation work after the workshop. The evaluation form was mailed to participants asking them to assess the overall workshop. The result shows that participants were satisfied with the training course and the knowledge they learned. However, they had difficult time to understand contents of the workshop. Ownership and Adaptation The participants in the training workshop range from officials from the Municipality of Phisanulok, other government agencies, students, academics, politicians, and ordinary people who do not hold any public positions. The training paid more attention on the participants’ capability to apply of the knowledge obtained from the workshop to the actual works. Most participants believed that the applicability from this workshop was very high and high to their work (around 90% of participants were very satisfied and satisfied with the workshop). This result can be assumed that the knowledge that the participants learned from the workshop was helpful to their work and may be applied effectively to their future works. Recommendation The most important change in this workshop is knowledge change and attitude change. Participants learned new research techniques that can enhance the degree of people participation in policy making process. These research criteria improve the participants’ capacity to collect data and information from people which they can apply to develop the policy for governmental services effectively. This workshop also led to attitude change. The organizers found that officials in Phisanulok Municipality were very enthusiastic to change their organizational culture in order to improve their services for people in the region. The results of the workshop can be categorized as success as most participants were either very satisfied or satisfied with the workshop overall. However, there are


39

recommendations that should be considered before applying these workshop models to other pilot provinces First, the content should be adjusted in order to shorten the workshop period and activities. The workshop was first scheduled to finish by 9 pm. However, many participants expressed the worry that few people would stay after dinner. Thus, to make the workshop more effectively, the organizers changed the programs in order to encourage participation. Second, facilitators may use the simple language that can be understood by ordinary people from every field. This simple language would also help participants to clearly understand the concepts and contents of the workshop and program. The misunderstanding among participants may result in the miscommunication and misinterpretation when they want to apply their knowledge to their actual works. Finally, the individual interview may need to be conducted in order to examine the motivation of participants and their capacity to apply their knowledge from the workshop to their actual responsibilities at work. According to the personal information of participants, some participants attended the similar workshop earlier. Thus, the organizers may need to understand why participants attended this workshop and what they expected to gain from this workshop and what did they really gain from this workshop. The findings from this question may assist the organizers to develop the workshop program to conduct in other areas. Training Workshop on People’s Audit for Thailand in Five Pilot Provinces The PATH curriculum was tested in Phisanulok province. Several weak points from this first workshop have been addressed and developed to be suitable for the future training programs. Based on the evaluation from the first workshop in Phisanulok, the PATH curriculum was revised to be easier to read. More importantly, the period of workshop was shorten from five days to four days in order to avoid boredom among participants. The new curriculum and training schedule was implemented in the five pilot provinces: Phechaburi, Sakon Nakhon, Maha Sarakham, Songkhla, and Chiang Rai. 1. Phechaburi Training Workshop on PATH Phechaburi is located in 123 km. southern of Bangkok. The province has 6,225 square kilometers of administration area. Its population is 435,400. The province is divided into eight districts and the majority of population lives in rural area. Around 36.6% of population lives in municipality area. People mainly are in agricultural sector and the average year of education in this province is seven years (see the National Statistical Office of Thailand, www.nso.go.th). Overview of the Workshop There were 42 participants attending the workshop. Most participants came from Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO) of Ta Mai Ruak and Rong Keh. Participants are also from different occupational background: 5 state officials, 33 council members, 2 from civil society, and 2 local people. The average age of


40

participants is 40.03 years and the male-female ration of participation is 9.5: 1. This ratio illustrates that male officers are involved in policy making process in this provinces more than female officers. By applying participatory approach, facilitators explained the contents of chapter 1 and 2 in order to provide theoretical background about the project to all participants on the first day of the workshop. However, unlike in Phisanulokm, the new subject CEO-governance was added, according to the suggestion from the Secretary-General of the Office of Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), to enhance the quality of the workshop. Like in Phisanulok, the first day workshop was not interested by the participants. Participants rarely participated during the introduction of chapter 1 and 2. This was perhaps due to the lecture style of these first two chapters and the absence of participants’ experiences to be involved in any public participation. Although the facilitators attempted to stimulate audiences’ involvement and interaction, participants were not responding promptly as the facilitators expected. On the second day, participants were more familiar with the training program. They were also interested more in activities and assignments from chapter 3-6. During the second day, the participants conducted surveys on different topics, for example, personal safety, tourism promotion, and traffic problem. It was the first time for most of participants to conduct the field research on surveys and interviews. Thus, they paid more attention to these assignments in order to get concrete results. At the end of the day, participants were required to present the outcomes of their field research. On the last two days of trainings, the participants were gradually getting used to discuss as a group and develop spirit of teamwork. In the Action Planning section, two themes were chosen to formulate working plan-garbage collection and building irrigation canals. The participants were grouped into two teams and presented the results. The facilitators made comments and suggestions on the action plans and discussions were exchanged among participants. In the last section, participations were required to evaluate the workshop. Five important evaluation questions were raised. What did you learn from the workshop? What do you like about the workshop? What do you dislike about the workshop? What techniques and concepts do you plan to apply at work? What occasion do you plan to apply the knowledge? Participants also addressed that the loose connection between chapters in the workshop program caused the confusion among them. Participants did not clearly understand the purposes of the previous chapters and how these chapters are connected to the following chapters. Thus, to solve this problem, facilitators agreed to provide the conclusion for each chapter before implementing the next one. The team of facilitators also agreed that to strengthen the quality of this workshop, activities from different chapters should be able to aggregate during the workshop. The aggregation of workshop’s activities and assignments would enhance the quality of the policy making process.


41

Training Results: knowledge and attitude changes According to the evaluation, participants were interested more on the activity part (chapters 3, 4, 5 and 7), rather the content parts (chapters 1 and 2). Moreover, participants did not enjoy long hours of trainings, unclear instructions, unwilling participation, and bad conference amenity. The average satisfaction of the over chapters is 4.18 out of 5 point scale (Accounted by 5 point scale, 5=very satisfied, 4=satisfied, 3=moderate, 2=less satisfied, and 1= not satisfied). Chapter 1 and 2 based on lecture gained a lower degree of participation. Participants did not pay a strong attention during this first two chapters. According to the evaluation, chapter 1and 2’s level of satisfaction is only 4.11 and 3.90 which is lower than the overall average. These two chapters focus on the theoretical contents of the workshop. Thus, participants who were not familiar with academic field may ignore to participate. To enhance the participation level on chapter 1 and 2, therefore, facilitators may need to adjust their teaching tactics. A better teaching strategies and the simply language used in these two chapters may boost the interaction between the trainees and facilitators. The simple language would assist the participants to understand the main ideas and contents of the chapters easier. On the other hand, participants showed high satisfactory on the technique parts (chapter 3, 5, 6, and 7). This illustrates that participants preferred to pursue the actual activities rather than learning solely from theoretical frameworks. Moreover, the evaluation results also indicate that participants were more impressed of the technique methods that can be utilized at work on distinctive occasions, such as meetings, fieldworks, and public forum. From this evaluation, the organizers expected that knowledge change on technique among participants would result in attitude change among participants in the future, as well. Regarding the contents of the workshop, the participant expressed lower satisfaction compared to the participants in Phisanulok province. This is perhaps due to the lower lever of education of the participants in Phechaburi and the insufficiency timing of workshop. Unlike participants from Phisanulok, participants in Phechaburi have little opportunity and experience in civic training. Thus, they were not familiar with the principles of good governance. Moreover, the environment they live in has different setting compared to urban population and thus rural residents might not understand examples that can be easily perceived by urban people. Moreover, since the program was shortened to four days, some contents could not be explained clearly. Facilitators might attempt to present all contents in relative short period. However, this may affect the quality of their presentation. Thus, facilitators may consider adjusting their teaching methods and strategies in order to improve their teaching capacities and cope with the time limitation problem for the future trainings. Knowledge Adaptation The element that determines whether the training is successful is the participants will use the knowledge in the future. Therefore, the applicability of the knowledge


42

concerns much to us on the success of the training. When we look at the applicability, the average mean is 3.99 compared with 4.30 in Phisanulok workshop. Chapter 1 and chapter 2 again suffered the low point compared with other technique chapters. In technique chapters, we see applicability is very high in chapter 7 and chapter 4 (ToP). This illustrates that participants convinced that techniques in these two chapters are workable. We can envision the application of techniques in Phechaburi in the time to come. Conclusion The training result obtained in Phechaburi is moderate since many factors have influenced the result. The participants generally appreciated the new technique but they also expressed the difficulty of comprehending the themes. It shows that the training in Phisanulok got relatively satisfactory result compared with Phechaburi workshop. This difference implies that the teaching method, including the language, examples, and the medium are better accepted and understood in an urban environment. Therefore, the teaching strategies might have to be revised and adjusted to parallel to the environment and situation. Concerning the following workshops, the facilitators should revise their teaching strategies to fit to the rural context. 1.1 Progressive Report on People’s Audit Service in Phechaburi The knowledge and experience learnt from the workshop were applied to improve the public services and the capacity of local staff to deliver those services in the TAO of Tha Mai Ruk, Tha Yang. In order to measure the quality of public services in Tha Mai Ruk, the service delivery approach on the evaluation has been implemented through the people participatory. The final results show the high satisfaction to the public services among people in the area. The first evaluation focused on the environmental concerns and garbage collections in the provincial community. Local people who received services participated in this evaluation by answering the survey and participating in the interview. People were able to provide their clear opinions regarding the quality of public services. Their opinions may later be developed to improve the public services in this province. 2. Sakon Nakhon Training Workshop on PATH Sakon Nakhon is located in the upper northern region about 647 kilometers from Bangkok. The province has 9,605 square kilometers of administration area. Its population is1,040,8000. The province is divided into 18 districts. More than 80% of the population works in agricultural sector and only 14% lives in the municipal area. The average year of education in this province is 6.4 years (see www.nso.go.th and population and household census 2000). Overview of the Workshop In the workshop, two governmental units, Sakon Nakhon Muang Municipality and the Banmai Chaiya Health Center in Pontnakaew district, committed to launch the public service delivery projects. The former implemented the PATH curriculum in order to


43

change the institutional culture and enhance the official service minded for the local customers. The latter applied the PATH curriculum with an aim to improve public service delivery standard. Participants recruited for the workshop were primarily from the Municipality of Sakon Nakhon and Municipality of Sawang Dang Ding. There were 48 participants attending the workshop and 42 participants completed the program and were granted a certificate. Participants are from various occupations: 31 state officials, 7 council members, 10 local people. The gender ratio is 1:1 and the average age of participants is 41.12 year old. During the workshop, the provincial mayor encouraged people from different social strata and governmental officers from various positions to join the program. This agglomeration of participants is a preferable setting of the program since the spirit of public participation is the involvement of people from different social classes. The consensus building among participants would lead to the sustainable development within the community in the near future, as well. However, the facilitators agreed that it was difficult during the beginning part of the workshop to encourage the interaction among participants. The high-ranking government officials refused to participate in the activities that consumed a great deal of energy. Fortunately, this problem was ultimately solved during the workshop period when those participants were accustomed to the training criteria and felt more comfortable to pursue the assigned activities. Training Workshop The workshop was organized following the Phisanulok workshop’s format. However, according to the experiences learnt from the previous workshops, many new training tactics were applied and developed to fit into the new social environment and cultural context in Sakhon Nakhorn. For example, before starting a new chapter, the moderator explained the purpose and how this individual chapter is connected to the previous. These preliminary explanations lessen the confusion and provide the overview of the training for the participants. This new training criteria clearly assists the participants to understand the contents, procedures and goals of the workshop. Thus, the facilitators agreed to pursue these preliminary explanations on the workshop in the following workshops. In addition, unlike the workshop in Phisanulok, the facilitators agreed to develop the workshop criterion by utilizing the survey’s results in order to conduct the Action Plan activity. The criterion aims to show an importance of the surveys’ results as meaningful data rather than just information. More importantly, this new criterion also demonstrates how to interpret and utilize data collected from field research into actual actions and policy formation. This activity allows the participants to practice their knowledge and research skills before starting the real projects at work. Like in Phisanulok workshop, participants in Sakhon Nakorn were happy with the technique chapters, but paid less attention to the concept chapters (chapter 1 and 2) during the training period. The lack of strong participation on the concept chapters made the facilitators, observers, and organizers reconsider to add more activities during the workshop into the first two chapters in order to boost the level of participation. Thus, activities were included in the first two chapters in the following provinces’ workshops.


44

After the workshop, the facilitators requested participants to complete the evaluation form. Five important evaluation questions were raised. What did you learn from the workshop? What do you like about the workshop? What do you dislike about the workshop? What techniques and concepts do you plan to apply at work? What occasion do you plan to apply the knowledge? Training Results: knowledge and attitude changes Based on the experiences learnt from the Phechaburi workshop, facilitators realized that their previous teaching methods were not suitable to the rural areas like Sakhon Nakorn. Thus, the facilitators decided to adapt the chapters’ content and their teaching strategies in order to make lectures more concise, intriguing, suitable, and acceptable among the rural participants. After the evaluation procedure, the results show that participants in Sakhon Nakorn province have higher satisfactory level than that of in Phetchaburi in the overall workshop. According to the evaluation, with the exception of chapter 1 which gains 3.86 on level of satisfaction, other training chapters gain a level of satisfaction above 4.0 out of 5.0 scale. These scores are higher than those of in Phechaburi. Hence, we can assume that participants in Sakon Nakhon had better understanding of the contents and higher level of satisfaction on the workshop. Their higher comprehension of the workshop may later result in their attitudes change, as well. In addition, like in Phechaburi, participants in Sakhon Nakorn were happy with the technique chapters and had less interest in the concept chapters (chapter 1 and 2). The higher level understanding and satisfaction among participants in Sakon Nakhon are due to several reasons. First is the high capacity of the facilitators to clearly explain the details and activities in each chapter. However, comparing to other chapters, the participants still had a difficult time to clearly understand the content of chapter 6. The reason might be the complex of Action Plan activity. Chapter 6 consists of seven important steps to complete the Action Plan section. With the limited time of explanation, the facilitators, therefore, could not provide clear concepts and details of each step. Although participants could successfully complete all activities, in the evaluation, it shows that their level of comprehension, particularly on chapter 6, is quite low (3.97 out of 5.00). It seems that the participants in Sakon Nakhon were appreciated with the overall workshop. But, they may need more time to complete the assignments. To enhance the level of comprehension among participants, facilitators may need to prepare themselves before their lecture and presentation. Also, facilitators may need to provide greater assistant to the participants during the activity period. Moreover, to make the PATH curriculum apply effectively in local administrations, organizers and trainers may note in the workshop manual that the users (or facilitators) may instruct each activity in this training course separately so that participants may have more time to learn and clearly understand each chapter and its activities.


45

Conclusion The overall results from this training workshop are quite successful in Sakon Nakhon province. According to the evaluation, facilitators and trainers are well prepared. The teaching methods and criteria were revised and developed effectively to suit with the social and cultural environment of Sakon Nakhon as well as the time limitation of the workshop. Moreover, the moderator organized the course effectively by attempting to explain clearly how each chapter is connected to the other. This clearly connection between chapters assists participants to understand the overall of this training procedure. 2.1 People’s Audit Service Expansion in Sakon Nakhon 1. On November 20, 2006, Assistant Professor Tossapon Sompong was invited to give a lecture on People’s Audit. He introduced the concept and principle on THAI_PSEP for 60 participants from the Health Canter of the Public Health Department at Sakhon Nakhon and Human Resource Development of the Public Health Office. The objective was to present the innovative methods to develop the quality of services in the Health Care Centers. 2. In December, 2006, Assistant Professor Tossapon Sompong acted as an advisor for three distinctive health centers in Tambon Rao Pone Kar, Ban Hway Heep Health Center at Tambon Tong Khob and Nong Khae Health Center at Tambon Mad Na Tum. These three centers are located in Khok Sricupan district, Sakon Nakhon. After learning the concept and principle of the PSEP, the officers in these three health centers were interested in the People’s Audit program. Thus, Ban Mai Chaiya and Ban Pone Health Centers sent their representatives to observe the working environment at the pilot health center on the People’s Audit Service Project. These two health centers developed the THAI_PSEP MODEL to their institution which finally became the model for the other health centers in the area. 3. In November, 2006, Assistant Professor Tossapon Sompong gave a presentation regarding his knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit project and the implementation of THAI_PSEP program in Sakon Nakhon province to approximately 120 students in Master in public administration program who major in the local government. His lecture was a special course supported by the office of higher education committee. 4. During February-May, 2007, the operational process of ORID workshop and Action Plan was pursued in the Christian Children Fund (CCF) in Sakon Nakhon and Mukdaharn. 5. During March-May, 2006, Assistant Professor Tossapon Sompong acted as an advisor and lecturer on how to implement the lessons learnt from the People’s Audit project in the individual organizations. The activities organized by 21 institutions in Sakon Nakhon were supported by the Office of Budgetary of Health Promotion.


46

2.2 Progressive Report on People’s Audit Service in Sakon Nakhon The People’s Audit project was applied in the department of the house registration. According to the surveys, the service quality of this department was low prior to the implementation of this project in this organization. However, after joining the program, local staff was encouraged to improve his/her services. Staff, for example, learned how to improve their service mind by presenting their friendly relationship with the customers. Other projects such as the collaboration project to create family’s spirit were also introduced in the area. This project is the cooperation among several public institutions such as the department of house registration, office of social welfare, office of public work, and office of public health. For example, the office of public health sent its staff to visit mothers and their new babies after their report of the new born baby. This visit paved the way to a closer relationship between local people and public officers. The establishment of one-stop services is also a result of the People’s Audit program. The service aims to become the center for local customers who want to contact the governmental offices. Customers do not need to travel around but only stop at this service center to do their businesses. For example, the department o public health and environment join this one-stop service by offering the license service at this center. The department of mechanical engineering also welcomes to receive complains on electricity, road construction, and transportation at this service center. Thus, to improve its service, the one-stop service center provides the queue card machine for faster service delivery. Moreover, the center also provides snacks, beverages, newspaper and magazines for customers while they wait for the services. 3. Maha Sarakham Training Workshop on PATH Maha Sarakham is located in the northeast of Thailand, approximately 470 kilometers east of Bangkok. The province has 5,291 square kilometers of administrative area and 947,300 of population. Maha Sarakham composes of 13 districts. More than 84% of its population works in agricultural fields and approximately 12.2% of its population resides in municipal area. Although the province became the academic center of the northeastern part, its average education years is only 6.5 (statistics obtained from the National Statistic Office of Thailand, www.nso.go.th, population and household census 2000). Overview of the Workshop By using participatory approach, two services providing units commit to lunch public service delivery projects. There were Maha Sarakham Provincial Administration Organization and Wangsang Tambon Administration Organization. The former pursued the PATH curriculum with an aim to lessen the conflict by delivering centrifugal pump service and to improve health service and solid waste management. There were 53 participants attending the workshop. The participants are from the Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) of Maha Sarakham and Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO) of Wang Sang. These participants can be


47

categorized as 22 state officials, 20 council members, 5 civil society, 2 local people, and 3 outsiders. The male-female ration is 3:1 and the average of participants is 43.24 years old. Experiencing from the previous workshops in other provinces, facilitators developed their training skills and included other interesting tactics such as survey’s counting tactics and templates to the course in Maha Sarakham. In order to enhance participants’ interaction during the concept chapters (chapter 1 and 2), facilitators created activities for participants to exercise during the lecture session. This strategy lessens the boredom among participants and stimulates their attention to the facilitators’ lecture. Participants were very pleased with the contents and the capacity of facilitators. However, they did not like a few difficult techniques, the limited time, fast speaking of the facilitators, and the conference amenities. During the evaluation session, the following questionnaires were asked in order to examine the value and result of the training workshop. What did you learn from the workshop? What do you like about the workshop? What do you dislike about the workshop? What techniques and concepts do you plan to apply at work? What occasion do you plan to apply the knowledge? Training Results: knowledge and attitude changes Based on the evaluation results, participants in Maha Sarakham were satisfied in workshop contents much more than those of in the Sakon Nakhon province. The means of satisfaction on each chapter and overall workshop content are 4.0 and 4.49 out of 5.0, respectively. The satistisfaction of participants’ knoweldge gained is 4.48 compared to 4.28 in Sakon Nakhon province. More importantly, the satisfactory level of both concept and technique chapters is quite similar. This result illustrates that the activities created for the concept chapters encourage participants to be involved in the program. K n o w l e d g e A d a p t a t i o n According to the evaluation, it shows that the mean of workshop applicability is 4.29. Chapters 4, 5, and 7 show a higher mean of applicability. This can be assumed that the using of Top (Technology of Participation) method in particular chapters stimulate the degree of people participation during the workshop period. The high satisfaction of the training contents illustrates the plausibility to apply the PATH curriculum in this province in the near future. This high satisfaction level in Maha Sarakham also represents the success of project team and facilitators to adapt the workshop contents and activities to fit into the change of cultural environment. C o n c l u s i o n Learning from previous workshops, the facilitators improved their training skills and knowledge and applied their experiences to the following workshops effectively. Moreover, the adaptation of the workshop procedure and the initiation of activities during the session of concept chapters elevated a level of participation among


48

trainees. Thus, the expereinces learnt from the worshop in Maha Sarakham would improve the qulity of the following workshops in the future. 3.1 Progressive Report on People’s Audit Service in Maha Sarakham The People’s Audit project was applied in the TAO Wongsang. The director of TAO Wongsang invited 17 local staff from the organization to join the training workshop. During the training, the participants from TAO Wongsang distributed surveys to people in order to learn about public problems in the community. After data collection process, the action plan was conducted in order to create concrete outcomes for further final actual plan. One of the public problems which require the urgent development is the construction of public road to the office of TAO Wongsang. This road construction project faces many barriers ranking from the limitation of the budget to the difficulty to find the company to invest in this project. Participants were stimulated to cooperate and brainstorm to find the solutions for this problem. The committee was set up and assigned their work and the local people were persuaded to be involved in the solution building. The team effectively applied the techniques and knowledge from the PATH curriculum which finally resulted in their achievement and received the award from the King Prajadhipok’s Institute. The expansion of the People’s Audit project in five provinces leads to many important accomplishments. The team in Sakon Nakhon summarized advantages and disadvantages that they have learnt from the project as follow: Successful results created through the People’s Audit project are as follows: Good attitude toward the public services delivered to people Problem solving project for people Strong participation among local people in community Good feedbacks received from participants and local people Strategies for the implementation of the successful results are as follows: Good support from many public and private sectors. Skillful leaders with great confidence Academic and technical knowledge for creating the project with others Most important factors for the successful results are as follows: Participatory building between local public staff and people The leadership capacity of the project’s leaders. 4. Songkhla Training Workshop on PATH Songkhla has 7,393 square kilometers of administrative area. Its population is 1,255,700. The province is divided into 16 districts. Around 46.7% of its population works in agricultural section and around 32.4% live in municipality area. The average year of education in this province is 7.5 years. The training workshop was conducted in Hat Yai district. This district is the center of southern commerce. Training Workshop By applying the participatory approach, four services providing services committee to launch public service delivery. This includes the Hatyai City Municipality and Ban Pru Muang Municipality.


49

During the workshop, there were 51 participants attended the workshop: 35 state officials, 9 council members, and 7 local people. However, only 44 participants completed the training process. All participants came from either Hat Yai Municipality or Baan Pru Municipality. The male and female ratio is 1: 1.42 and the average age of participants is 43.94. Representatives from the Hatyai City Municipality utilized the PATH curriculum in order to enhance the quality of its various public services such as the front-desk information service and the public toilets. Moreover, the city also planned to create the outreach networks in order to provide a public space for discussions concerning local issues. The outcomes from this discussion group would become as baseline information for the municipality executives members in making future developmental plans. Like in Hatyai, the Baan Pru Muang Municipality also imported the PATH curriculum in order to improve the child care services. The facilitators continued to apply their experiences from the Maha Sarakhaom workshop to the workshop in this province. Pariticants from Songkhla were highly interested in the program and strongly participated during the workshop period. Training Results: knowledge and attitude changes According to the evaluation, the average mean of satisfaction in each chapter is 4.40. Again, technique chapters gained higher satisfactory from the participants. Concerning knowledge gained among participants and the applicability of knowledge learnt the means are 4.46 and 4.40 out of 5.0, respectively. These results imply that participants highly understand the content of the workshop and there was a high potential for participants to apply their knowledge from the workshop to their actual works in the future. Knowledge Adaptation Participants in Sonkhla workshop were inclined to apply the tactics learnt from the workshop to their work in the future. Techniques such as survey, ToP, Thai PSEP, Action Plan, and participatory evaluation have very high possibility to be applied in Songkhla. With the behavior change, for example using ToP on organizing participatory events, the attitude and value change will follow. Therefore, we anticipated that government officials in Songkhla will become more customer-centered when delivering public service in the near future. Conclusion The accomplishment of workshop in Songkhla province has a potential to apply the similar training strategies in other provinces. This success would enhance the level of participations among trainees in other pilot provinces, as well as enhance the overall quality of the training program in the future. Progressive Report on People’s Audit Service in Songkhla


50

By applying the PATH curriculum in Songkhla, three public services successfully improved their public performance: the hospitality training, toilets, and the office of identification card. To improve the quality of public toilets, the participants visited and conducted the surveys at the Suan Nau Dum Park, the Petroleum 3 star gas station, the Suan Sombuth Temple, and Snag Thong School. The public toilets in these four places are clean, organized, and contained a good air circulation system. Public Toilets: The lessons learnt from the abovementioned models were applied to develop the public toilets in five pioneer schools. The head of teachers and janitors from these selected schools were invited to attend the meeting focusing on toilet’s development plans. After the meeting, the pilot project on toilet development was conducted in one of these schools participated in the meeting. The selected school was successfully implemented the program to improve its public toilets and received the award from the provincial health care center. The achievement of this toilet improvement project led to the expansion plans in other Hatyai’s schools. The next plans aim to change the sanitary habits of students in the area, as well as to develop the public toilets in the provincial public parks. Ta Supparod Project: The Ta Supparod project was initiated by the Municipality of Hat Yai in order to reduce the insecurity and enhance the peacefulness in Hat Yai area. This project stared after the second bombing incident in Hat Yai district. The goals of this project are, first, to prepare the readiness among local staff who work in the risk areas such as in tourist business, restaurants, public schools, hotel, transportation, and entertainment services. Second, this project intends to create the leaders of the Ta Supparod Project to respond to the local organizations such as the representatives of the community and group leaders of the businesses and to be in charge in the urgent situations that might occur in the area. In addition, the project also intended to improve other important areas related to thread prevention process. In response to this method, the security materials such as bomb detecting devices and closed-circuit video camera need to be routinely checked and upgraded. Moreover, the cooperation between state officers and local people should be established in order to strengthen the working networks. In successfully doing the abovementioned methods, the PATH curriculum will be applied to enhance the capacity of state officers on security building. The participants in this training program are soldiers, policemen, and bureaucracies. The trainers provide information and knowledge on how to create and strengthen social networks. These networks would allow the state officers to gain information from the local people. This information would assist the officers to prepare themselves and ready to face any threads. Recently, the Ta Supparod project has proved its effectiveness by reducing the bombing violence in the areas outside the city and by assisting officers to arrest the criminal suspects with their weapons. The training workshop was quite successful. Local people, businessmen, and state officers had paid their great interest to participate, especially in the meeting of leader


51

in the community. Moreover, the increasing numbers of tourists in the area are also the crucial evidence for the success of this project. 5. Chiang Rai Training Workshop on PATH Chiang rai has 11,678 square kilometers of administration area and its population is 1,129,700. People in this province mainly work in agricultural section and only 17.7% of its population resides in urban areas. The average year of education in Chinag Rai is 5.3 years. Training Workshop By implementing the participatory approach, four public service units will lunch the public service delivery projects. Mae Chan Police Station: the police station applied the technology of Participation (ToP) to create an action plan for setting up the community security and public consultation center. The latter project aims to solve the problem of the ethnic minority around Chian Rai area. After collecting information regarding the needs and demands of the hill tribe people, the police station in Mae Chan district conducted the motorcycle training program. This program tended to train the hill tribe people on how to use and drive motorcycle so that they can drive motorcycle to work in the down town Mae Chan area. The training program is expected to be resulting in the decreasing of road accidents, the drug dealer problem, as well as lessens the poverty problem. The Pa-Tueng Health Center: Citizen’s Charter in Health Promotion was created by the people participatory. Mae Chan Watershed Management Unit, Pa-Tueng sub-district: The ToP was applied by this organization in order to promote the people participation concerning watershed development and reservation in this area. Ban Sar Forest Reservation Organization: ToP was organized by this public units in order to promote the natural resource preservation in this region. There were 53 prticipants: 23 state officials, 4 council members, 7 civil society and NGOs, and 19 local people. Participants were from Mae Chan Municipality and TAO Pateung. However, only 47 particpants completed the program and received a certificate. The male and female ratio is 7.94: 1 and the average age of participants is 39.78 years old. During the workshop, facilitators maintained the similar teaching strategies applied in the previous workshops. Participants strongly participate during the workshop period. Training Results: knowledge and attitude changes In Chiang Rai workshop, the satisfaction mean with the content of each chapter is 4.39. Unlike, the workshops in other provinces, the concept chapters (chapter 1 and 2) gained higher score in this province. Concerning the knowledge gained by the participants, the mean is 4.47. This result illustrates that participants in Chiang Rai workshop were appreciated with the research tactics and clearly understood with the contents. The applicability of knowledge in Chiang Rai is 4.28 which is lower than


52

that of in Songkhla province. Among chapters, Thai PSEP, Action Plan, and participatory evaluation gain higher possibility of knowledge to be applied soon in Chiang Rai. Knowledge Adaptation Unlike other provinces, although participants in Chiang Rai were highly appreciated with the workshop content and activities, the potential to implement lessons learnt from the workshop is quite low. This was perhaps due to the absences of clear understanding on the contents among participants. The time limitation of the workshop lessened the capability of facilitators to clearly explain the contents and activities of the training programs. Conclusion With the strong support of executive of local government units in Chiang Rai, the project team is convinced that the concepts and techniques of the PATH curriculum would be applied in this province soon. Experiencing the training workshop gradually, the project team has more confident that the PATH curriculum and its advantages would pave the way to the development of public service in particular provinces. The PATH curriculum’s training course would not only develop the knowledge about how to provide good public services among participants, but the knowledge gained by participants would also leader closer relationships between state officers and local people. Mae Jan mission and how it flourished in the north? 1. Meeting on health care development: The meeting aims to improve the communication among the leader of foreign labors. The meeting was hosted by Chiang Mai University on July 24, 2005. 2. Meeting on the connection of love: The Ministry of Public Health organized the meeting on the connection of love within the family in Tambon Gan, Ampur Mae Tang, Chiang Mai on June 5-7, 2006. 106 representatives from ten health care unites were invited to attend the meeting. The meetings attempted to apply the training methods from ToP such as ORID and workshop. 3. The meeting on “Reviving the Life Path, Culture of Lumpoon”: The meeting was organized in five districts in Lumppon province. The meetings in these five provinces were organized during April-Jun, 2006 and the meeting applied the ToP methods in order to create action plans for reviving the life path in Lumpoon. Five participants were nominated from each participated Tumbon for the total of 25 participants. 4. During July 27-28, 2006, the meeting was organized by the committee managing the direction of the Thai Dental Personnel to promote health. 45 participants attended the meeting and the meeting implemented two different methods: ToP and participation evaluation during the meeting. 5. September 10, 2006, Chiang Mai University organized the meeting on the topic of “Challenge on the Culture of the Young People in the World with no Boundary,” or investigate the wisdom and culture of young people, their root, movement and changes. The meeting was head at the National Museum Haripoonchai, Lampoon. 6. On January 12-17, 2006, the meeting on the topic of the Development Plan of the Organization: Christian Children Funds of northern Region (CCF) was organized. 50


53

participants from the foundation and 12 participants fro the community’s committee attended the meeting. The meeting applied the ToP—ORID, workshop, strategic planning—and participatory evaluation in order to teach participants on how to create the action plans to improve the services of their organization. 7. On December 2, 2006, the Chiang Mai’s national park with the collaboration with the Chiang Mai lover organization hosted the meeting on the topic of “Wattana Sawana: in the appreciation of Doi Suthep.” The ToP methods were implemented during the seven hours training. 8. On May-August, 2005, four practical meetings were organized in Chian Mai and Chiang Rai. In these training programs, the ToP methods were implemented 5.1 Progressive Report on People’s Audit Service in Chaing Rai - Health Network in Pa-Tueng district In order to create the plan for health network, the outcomes from the activities of the People’s Audit project were utilized during the meeting. These outcomes helped guiding the participants such as community’s leaders, local people, and young generation to brainstorm the ideas in order to develop the action plans for health care policies. By successfully doing so, the meeting was organized by the following steps. Participants studied the previous policies and health regulations that can be applied and continued to use in present health care policy formation. The training team conducted activities in order to measure the level of personal health status. Based on the knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit project, officers from public health care helped to search for any techniques that can used to provide services for local people. With the support of the public health department, the training staff initiated activities such as problem solving in community. Maj Jan Municipality Based on knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit, the local staff applied this knowledge to develop the participatory process. The success of this process would lead to enhance people’s participation and to encourage people’s brainstorming in order to come up with their needs. The outcomes of local needs would be adjusted for the service delivery process. To measure the accomplishment of the program, the municipality set up the committee to follow up and evaluate the program. This committee is responsible to create the instrument of measurement on the progress and interactive of the project. Conclusion The PATH curriculum was slowly developed by the training team. The first workshop in Phechaburi did not satisfy the facilitators and organizational team. However, after the facilitators adjusts the contents and training procedures in individual provinces, the quality of the workshop contents became better and shown a better results as seen from the evaluation process. In Phechaburi, participants had less experience in civic training compared to those of in Phisanlok and other provinces. This results in their difficult time to clearly understand the contents and activities of the PATH curriculum. From this experience, the facilitators reconsidered to adapt their language used during the training workshop. The simple language used by the facilitators would help the participants to understand the contents and activities easier.


54

Since the long period of training was the most important barrier to people participations, the facilitators decided to decrease the number of training days. This shorter period of training requires the facilitators to adjust their training strategies and methods to fit the limited number of training days. However, the limited number of days did not affect the quality of training workshop. After the facilitators adapted their training methods and more activities were included during the workshop, participants tended to gain more interest to be involved during the workshop. This may also result in the applicability of the knowledge gained from the workshop to be applied in the pilot provinces in the near future. Recent Expansion and Development of People’s Audit in the Five Pilot Provinces The Expansion of People’s Audit in Phechaburi Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO) of Ta Mai Ruak The second group of training on People’s Audit was successful. Participants, mostly from the government sectors, learned how to improve the public services in their community. The process to improve public services is based on the people participatory tactic. Local customers who used public services were encouraged to complete the surveys and participate in an interview. The results from surveys and interviews became a crucial information baseline for local officers to improve the public services in TAO Ta Mai Ruak. More importantly, in order to enhance the quality of public services, the TAO Ta Mai Ruak also evaluated the capacity and service mind of local officers as well as the quality and environment of the offices where public services are provided. The evaluation process was conducted by using the surveys and inviting other government organizations who have greater experiences in public service, for example the office of city manager of TAO Ta Mai Ruak, to measure the level of people’s satisfaction in public services. The results of this evaluation would not only show the quality of public services in the area, but also illustrate the managing and organizing capacities of the TAO executive committees. The evaluation process was divided to examine individual services as follows: Treasury Office: The evaluation focused on the quality of tax collection process and knowledge distributions on income. The evaluation process attempts to measure the satisfaction level of local customers who used the public services from the organization. The office of public work: The evaluation process focuses on how much local people learn about construction information as well as fundamental construction Education, Religion and Culture: The evaluation process aims to measure the satisfaction level of people who sent their children to the day care center. Environment: The evaluation process aims to measure the level of participation to protect the Phet River. The TAO initiated the program to protect the Phet River such as encouraging local people to participate in any activities concerning environmental protection. Moreover, the TAO also attempted to stimulate local people to be involved in natural resource protection program.


55

The Expansion of People’s Audit in Sakon Nakhon House Registration at the Sakon Nakhon Municipality The office of house registration was the first public section in Sakon Nakhon that participated in the People’s Audit project. As mentioned earlier, after the People’s Audit training program was applied to improve the service quality in the office of house registration, the staff in this office has improved his/her service mind. The development of its services attracts a greater number of people to visit the office. Local people prefer to visit the house registration office at the municipality for services rather than visiting the similar office located somewhere else. Moreover, the staff from the Sakon Nakhon Municipality also initiated the family relationship project. This project is the cooperation of the house registration, the office of social welfare, and the office of health care. The members of the project will pay a visit to the family that the mother recently gave birth. This project aims to learn on the family environment, the knowledge of mothers on how to raise their child, and other necessary information regarding the new family’s problems. The data and information collected from the new family led to the creation of family training course. This course is conducted in order to improve the knowledge for new mothers on how to raise their children. The child who grows in the warm and good family will become a good person in the future society. As a result of the People’s Audit project, the municipality established the one stop service center. Customers can access any public services at this one stop service center. In order to provide more convenience for customers, the center also set up a coffee corner, the service-steps board, and a queue machine. The service-steps board provides basic information regarding the service steps that customers are required to go through for each task. Thus, the knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit project helps the local staff and the Sakon Nakhon municipality to improve their public services effectively. Local customers show their high satisfaction to access these public services. Moreover, a great numbers of local people from outside the municipality also visit the office. The greater number of visitors illustrates the success of service improvement of the Sakon Nakhon Municipality. The Expansion of People’s Audit in Maha Sarakham The TAO Wang Sang After the TAO Wang Sang adopted the people’s Audit program to improve its public services for years, the program effectively stimulates people participation in improving public services. However, this project could not be accomplished without the role of leadership. The strong leadership and teamwork pave the way to the progress of the training project and make the project become possible in action. One of the successful projects based on knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit is the road construction in front of the TAO office. The TAO Wang Sang received a limited budget to improve the quality of the road in from of its office. Consequently, the TAO organized the public meeting in order to gain opinions and information from local people on how to build this road with the limited financial resources. The strong


56

local participation in the meeting ultimately led to the creation of an action plan on road construction. The action plan does not only help the community to successfully build its local road with the limited budget, but also stimulated the sense of local cooperation among people in the area. The TAO Wang Sang also won the KPI prize for its achievement on how to import knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit project to improve its community. The Expansion of People’s Audit in Songkhla The People’s Audit project primarily focused on three important developments. The improvement of state officers and people meeting project: the success of this project led to the initiation to organize any public services on Saturday in order to facilitate local people to access the services easily. The development of friendly front-desk information: this project provides information received from local people on how to improve the public services such as the parking space should be improved; the offices should be cleaner, and etc. The toilet development project: this project provided information on people concern about public toilets, for example, the improvement of sanitary instrument in the toilets. These three activities were successfully implemented. Local customers expressed their high to moderate satisfaction. The lessons learnt from these three activities would be developed to improve public services in other areas. The Hat Yai Municipality imported the knowledge and experiences learnt from the aforesaid activities to the new public service project so called “The Ta Supparod Project.” As mentioned earlier, the Ta Sapparod Project primarily aims to enhance the security within Songkhla and Hat Yai district. Presently, based on the concept of Ta Supparod Project, fifteen trainings were organized and approximately 3,757 participants joined the training program; and three security demonstrations were presented for approximately 200 participants. The training workshops resulted in the emergence of people cooperation on local security. The Ta Supparod’s volunteer group was supported and the Ta Suppaord networks were set up by the municipality. Ta sapparod’s networks present three important missions in order to strengthen its group: establishing, utilizing the networks, and reporting local emergency to local community. To strengthen the networks, the group also set up the bottom-up networks from the Ta Supparod volunteers in local street (Soi) to community (Chumchon). These bottom-up networks would allow all volunteers to work systematically in order report and respond to any emergencies. Moreover, the Ta Sapparod team also divided the level of emergency warning into four levels: preparation, initial emergency warning, emergency warning, and after emergency announcement. The preparation level aims to indicate the warning center in emergency area. Initial emergency warning provides information for people on what happen. The emergency warning aims to report local people of the current situation. The after emergency warning aims to analyze the post emergency situation and attempted to bring the lessons learnt from the situation to develop the capacity of the emergency warning team. The Ta Sapparod project is quite accomplished in this area. Its success also led to the increasing numbers of tourists in this province.


57

In Songkhla, the office of public work also imported strategies from the People’s Audit project to improve its services. This office is primarily in charge in issuing the various kinds of licenses. Thus, the office initiated the one-day license process. Customers submit the license application on Monday and can expect to receive the approval by Tuesday. However, this process is provided only for the small buildings (buildings with one-two story) because the small building does not require complicated process to check its construction process. 5. The Expansion of People’s Audit in Chiang Rai The knowledge learnt from the People’s Audit project was also applied to improve the quality of other public services in Chiang Rai. Recent developments of the People’s Audit project are as the following: The meeting on health policy formation in Pa-Tueng sub-district, Chiang Rai: This meeting aimed to encourage the people’s brainstorming concerning the health care policy formation for people in Pa-Tueng sub-district. Participants attended the meeting were the leaders or representatives of each village within Pa-Tueng sub-district. The meeting coordinators collected information regarding the health care problem from individual villages. This data gained from local people would act as baseline information for policy building. The policy outcomes will be circulated among local people. After people’s acknowledgement, the policies will be announced and implemented in all villages within Pa-Tueng sub-district. The establishment of public health center in Pa-Tueng sub-district, Chinag Rai The Tambon Administration Organization (TAO) plans to train the volunteers from public health center in each village. This training aims to educate the trainees on the public health services. After the training course, these trainees should have a capacity to organize and manage this new public health center in Pa-Tueng district. The TAO will not intervene in the internal affairs of this center. But, the TAO will continue to provide financial support for the survival of the new health center. Presently, the TAO recruits 12 people from the heads of health center in each village to train in the workshop and to be nominated as the health center’ committee. Mae Jan Sub-District The public service devilment project in Mae Jan has been implemented fro two years. However, the municipality did not know received any evidence to prove the development of public service in this area. Although local people expresses the positive feedbacks in the improvement of government services in Mae Jan, it is important to receive the actual evidence for the organization’s future references. Thus, the TAO Mae Jan would set up the evaluation committee. This committee will create the evaluation tool in order to gain concrete data and information from the local customer who received the services from the municipality. The results gained from the evaluation process would pave the way to the future development of the municipality’s public services. The good services will also enhance a closer relationship between local people and the government officers.


58

Report on Implementation of People’s Audit in the new five service providing units People’s Audit implementation must be done in five new service-providing units. They are (1) Kumpgangsao, Thasak, Mamungsongton Tambon Administrative Organization in Nakhon Sri Thammarat Province, (2) Pum-Duang River Basin Network in Surat Thani Province, (3) The Police Station of Mae Chan District, (4) Forest Service Division in Chiang San District and (5) Ngao Tambon Administrative Organization in Tueng District, Chiang Rai Province. 1 Nakhon Sri Thammarat Province Kumpgangsao, Thasak and Mamungsongton Tambon Administrative Organizations had initiated the project on “Improvement of Public Service Delivery by Government and Local Government Units Through the People’s Audit Process”. This would result in basic information that could be used to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the service, and to create people’s satisfaction from their being able to participate in the process. Being aware of the importance of policy establishment and public service delivery by listening to the opinions of the people in all parties concerned as well as creating knowledge on various methods in measuring public service delivery of the government and local government agencies through People’s Audit for various relevant parties, the activities had been done as follows 1.1 People’s Audit Training Course KPI organized People’s Audit training course on 24 – 28 July 2006 at Nakhon Sri Thammarat Provincial Administration Organization. There were 36 participants from 9 service providing units and 1 people communities. Among these, 2 service providing units were municipalities namely Pak Pa-nung Mung Municipality and Larn Ska Tumbon Municipality while the nine were local administrative organization namely Nakhon Sri Thammarat Provincial Administrative Organizations, Pak-Nakhon, Kumpgangsao, Thasak, Mamungsongton, Chaimontri (in Muang District) and Larn Ska (in Larn Ska District) Tumbon Administrative Organizations. The chairman from Wat Saingum Community and people from Tumbon Kumpgangsao, Tumbon Pak-Nakhon and Tumbon Mamungsongton also got this opportunity to participate the course. 1.2 Evaluation Result At the end of the course, 18 participants who attended more than 80% of the course received the certificates. In addition, we evaluated the course succession in 2 categories. The first one was the overall qualitative evaluation while the other was the participatory evaluation on empowerment of the learning teams’ impact. 1.2.1 The overall qualitative evaluation Using six questions to express the participant feelings by writing down on the cards, it was found that 1)They learned and got more experiences in the topic of participatory planning, team working and workshop meeting, which could be applied in their own works.


59

2)Not only impressive feeling and open up their minds in service but they also had good opportunities to earn more knowledge and experiences. This was enjoyable and communicable course. 3)The favorite parts were entertaining and interesting speakers, doing workshop, field survey to find people needs and teaching approach together with materials. In addition, the favorite topics were citizen’s charter and participation process. 4)The schedule of the course was too tight. Staring lecture and workshop from 8:00 AM to 17.00 PM, the participants complained that it was too long period everyday. The schedule should be extended more than 4 days including more entertaining activities, more actual or workable public service examples. Even though some participants could not attend the whole course, they intended to participate as much as they could. Due to their responsibility of works, they should receive certificates as well. 5)In term of benefit, all TOP could be applied in participants’ work especially team working, workshop, brainstorm participatory technique, citizen charter and questionnaire design technique. 6)In the future, the participants will review the knowledge and lesson learns first. After that they will expand the People’s Audit concept by transferring knowledge and experience to their colleagues as well as reforming service procedure in order to improve public service quality to satisfy people’s need. 1.2.2 The participatory evaluation on empowerment of the learning teams’ impact In the final session of the training course, the participants were asked to recall their memories on what and how they learnt with teams during community survey, workshop and participatory action planning. The ORID and TOP had been applied. There were some team dialogue and the self-assessment had been conducted. By writing down and ranking the score what six significant reflective valuable impacts are on the cards, it is found that 1)The most valuable impact of 4.75 scores (on average) is getting opportunity. 2)The second valuable impact of 4.25 scores (on average) is friendship. 3)The third valuable impact of 3.75 scores (on average) is unity. 4)The forth and the fifth valuable impacts have equal scores of 3.63 (on average) are conflict and energy integration. 5)The last valuable impact of 3.50 scores (on average) is love and understanding each other. In conclusion, it was found that Nakhon Sri Thammarat partners were wonderful. Having systematic thinking in participatory approach, they were willing to present their public service delivery quality improvement project to their bosses. If the project was approved, a field survey was started to find people’s need. Later, action plan would be prepared in order to launch the project. Finally, monitoring and evaluation stage was done to measure people satisfaction. Finding valuable impacts in term of positive thinking push their energies and synergies significantly. Starting from opportunity and friendship to work together, they might have some conflicts in discussion before get the conclusion. The participation process brought working integration made the participants to keep good impression in minds.


60

1.3 Action Plan In order to implement the People’s Audit project, the action plan has been submitted to KPI already.

P r o g r e s s o n N a k o n S r i T h a m m a r a t After the training at the Office of Provincial Administration Organization of Nakon Sri Thammarat, during November 25-28, 2006, the team of lecturers had worked on the People’s Audit Project in the area of Nakon Sri Thammarat. Most of the trainees had formed as several working groups and continually conducted meeting to expand the implementation of People’s Audit in other 2 pilot areas of Nakon Sri Thammarat as followed: 1. Tumbon Municipality of Kumpangsoa Amphur Muang, Nakon Sri Thammarat 2. Youth Development Center, Municipality of Pa Panang, Nakon Sri Thammarat Tumbon Administration Organization of Kumpangsoa had formed several teamwork to study the basic resources to build group of professions for the areas of People’s Audit Project. Thus, these groups of professions will randomly select some of the group members to discuss on the needs of each particular group. The results collected from the discussion will be evaluated and analyzed continually. Then, these results will be synthesized into citizen charter and agreement to build participation of the citizen and government. The process of making the citizen charter is required actual participation from the citizen, an understanding on community’s way of living, and adjustments on the consistency of the context. These requirements were the main parts that leaded to the excellence on the administrative organization of the government in the future. When the citizen charter had objectively progressed into the practical process on the context of Nakon Sri Thammarat, then the citizen in the local area were able to share comments and decisions. Now, the progress on implementation of Tumbon Administrative Organization at Kumpangsao had extended the results of the project through the meeting of the administrative committees to interpret the participatory work plan, to build the mechanism on personnel managing techniques and to find estimated budget (November 25, 2007). Subsequently, the committees had appointed several groups of staffs to separate the citizen according to the professions to work in many small meeting groups on the area (December 1, 2006). After the selecting of the working groups, the meeting had been conducted to discuss about the activities and assigned the time frame for the meetings in the areas (January 18, 2007). Now, the 3 events on the citizen meeting platform has been arranged in January 27, February 22 and March 15 2007. The meeting on the summary and interpretation of the lesson learnt about the needs of the people in the areas has been arranged on January 12 and March 13, 2007. While People’s Audit Services had been used in the first year and gradually expanded to other organizations or to the public outside. Currently, the meeting of the teacher committees has been conducted to build understanding and good work performance of the teachers. The timeframe on the activities has been arrange on January 18, 2007,


61

while the practical meeting for the teacher is on February 5, 2007 and the summary and the interpretation on the lesson learnt about the needs of the people is on March 13, 2007. Surat Thani Province Pum-Duang River Basin Network has initiated the project on “Improvement of Public Service Delivery by Government and Local Government Units Through the People’s Audit Process”. The objectives of the project are being aware of the importance of policy establishment and public service delivery by listening to the opinions of the people in all parties concerned as well as creating knowledge on various methods in measuring public service delivery of the government and local government agencies through People’s Audit for various relevant parties. The activities have been done as follows. 2.1 People’s Audit Training Course KPI has prepared the training course on 20 – 25 November 2006 at Khee-ree-rat-nikhom District. 2.2 Action Plan In order to implement the People’s Audit project, the action plan has been submitted to KPI already. P r o g r e s s o f S u r a t T h a n i After the training at the Office of Provincial Administration Organization of Surat Thani at Tumbon Tha Kanon, Amphur Kererat Nikom (November 21-24, 2006), groups of the trainees had worked in the objective areas to develop Tumbon Tha Kanon to follow the work in the local units and to apply the concept of People’s Audit Services to the work of the area. On February 14, 2007, these groups had worked with the Tumbon Administration Organization of Tha Kanon, and conducted a meeting to find the drive force on the direction by Khun Suthida Sangphetch, researcher at KPI. Lessons learnt from the meeting was to build strong networks and participation of communities at Tumbon Tha Kanon to reflect the problem and integration of development plan on the Tumbon’s participation from several strong professions. The next progress on implementation of Tumbon Tha Kanon, Surat Thani is the process of collecting the information on the needs of the 2 to 3 pilot community villages. The information had been evaluated to create working plan, implementation process and inspection on the results. 3 Chiang Rai Province 3.1 Service Providing Units There are 3 services providing units committed to implement People’s Audit projects. 3.1.1 The Police Station of Mae Chan District Being participated in People’s Audit training course, Mae Chan Police Station has to determine the guideline in searching for the needs and appropriate problem solving


62

approaches, as well as to study and transfer them into the appropriate operational guidelines to bring peace to the local people. Therefore, Uplifting of public service in security of life and property project is proposed for 3 objectives. They are (1) to emphasize on improving the quality and enhancing efficiency in public service delivery of police station in order to create the “security of life and property for local people as well as the passers-by of Mae Chan District, (2) to obtain the real needs/ problem solving approaches, which are suitable for people in different areas and (3) to establish the measures/ standards of good service delivery to local people and passers-by of Mae Chan District. 3.1.2 Forest Service Division in Chiang San District During the month of June 2005, a pilot project on the People’s Audit of the Public Service Delivery by Government and Local Government Units to satisfy the people’s needs is implemented in Chiang Rai Province. The project provided opportunities for government officers in regional government units, local government, and people’s organizations, to participate. For example, Mae Chan Tumbon Municipality, Pa-Tueng Tambon Administrative Organization, Mae Chan Police Station, Forest Conservation Agency, Mae Chan and Pa-Tueng Health Stations, as well as the civil sector of Mae Chan Sub-district, implemented the multilateral participatory process and techniques in Mae Chan District. Afterwards, the concepts and processes of such project were brought into discussion between the District Forestry Unit and the people sector. Finally, the executive committee agrees to expand a project in the following year into Chiang San District, Chiang Rai Province as well. Therefore, to improve the quality and enhance efficiency in public service delivery of forest conservation and community development by creating the “New Concept Forest Village in managing the forest and community through people participation, cooperation is needed in managing the environment and nature in compliance with the needs of local people and the government policies. Another essential factor is the discussion between the forestry officials and local multilateral parties, which include the village advisory committee, leaders of the new concept forestry village as well as Tambol Administrative Organizations. This collaborative group agreed to apply such concept and approach in uplifting People’s Audit on the forest conservation project in order to return the forest to nature and land in a sustainable fashion. 3.1.3 Ngao Tambon Administrative Organization in Tueng District Emphasizing the participation of local people, Ngao Tambon Administrative Organization has established the guidelines for development and efficiency improvement of public delivery service by allowing people to participate in TAO administration. In doing so, the focus is made on participatory learning, starting from joining one another in thinking, making decision, and implementing the service, the benefits are receiving. From such guidelines, people are able to learn about their rights, duties, and liberties in the context of community, resulting in effective administration that response to the needs and to solve problems of local people at the same time. In addition, to expand the development guidelines, Ngao Tambon Administrative Organization has initiated the project on “Improvement of Public Service Delivery by the Government and Local Government Units through the People’s Audit Process by Using the Community Radio” to enhance skill and attitude in participation of local people. The objectives of the project are (1) to allow all parties involved to be aware of the importance of policy establishment and public service delivery by providing community dialogue, (2) to improve the quality and


63

enhance efficiency TAO public service delivery, (3) to allow local people to receive the most recent information and news, exchange ideas, promote local wisdom and directly audit TAO operation and (4) to promote the excellence decentralization policy for public participation in learning network establishment in order to disseminate efficiently democracy system among local people. 3.2 Collaborative meeting The meeting among collaborative partners had taken place on August 22, 2006 at Waingin Hotel Chiang Rai Province in the total of 13 persons. Dr. Thawilwadee and Khun Wisit met the coordinators and the leaders of agencies that would participate PATH in phase II and discussed about the action plan their proposals, and planned to set up the People’s Audit website and prepared to disseminate the People’s Audit information in the VCD. Giving the project idea, implement process and the work plan in details, they have to conduct action plan submitted to KPI and sign the contracts later. 3.3 Action Plan 3.3.1 The Police Station of Mae Chan District According to the political crisis, the Council for Democratic Reform announced to ban on meetings and other political activities by political parties. Therefore, the submission of action plan has been postponed. At present, it is on preparation stage. 3.3.2 Forest Service Division in Chiang San District In order to implement the People’s Audit project, the action plan has been submitted to KPI already. 3.3.3 Ngao Tambon Administrative Organization in Tueng District According to the political crisis, the Council for Democratic Reform announced to ban on meetings and other political activities by political parties. Therefore, the submission of action plan has been postponed. At present, it is on preparation stage. 3.4 Progress Activity Tumbon Ngao, Chiang Rai After the training of Tumbon Administrative Organization of Ngao at multi-purpose building (January 16-19, 2007), the meeting has been conducted for the citizen to participate on the development plan to find the successful results. Recently, the expansion on the developments of Tumbon Ngao had previously started the development project from the needs of the citizen (March 13, 2007). About 40 elected officials such as the head of every villages, member of the Tumbon Administrative Organization of Ngao, representative of the feminine development group had been invited to assign the development projects for Tumbon Ngao. Theses projects were Sufficiency Economy Project, Fundamental evelopment Project, Promoting Security, Social welfare Project and Communication Development Project. In March 29, 2007, Tumbon Administrative Organization of Ngao has continued to work on the original concept by conducting the second practical seminar with activities, and 100 people had been invited to collect information and to set the plan such as the headman of a village, government officers, priests, volunteers from the


64

village, members of Tumbon Administrative Organization of Ngao, representative of the feminine development group, youth, elderly and other citizens. By communicating through the community radio, the community radio network had been established including economic network, educational network, public health network, agricultural network, and promoting the learnt profession network. For the next progress on the expansion of the results is to established the community radio in the Tumbon Administrative Organization of Ngao as the main center of communication between the local organizations and citizen. Amphur Chiang San, Chiang San In May 16-19, 2005, the team of researchers had worked in the area on the training of People’s Audit Project at the Nathipol Resort, Amphur Mae Jun, Chaing Rai. Also, Forest Conservatory Unit of Amphur Chiang San has sent the representatives to work on the training to create participation to manage the forest area with the citizen all around. The idea and process on People’s Audit has been applied to manage the forest and the citizen including the new plan on forest network of the village, which helped create participate for the community forest and learning of the forest conservatory techniques. Between November 18-19,2006, the practical meeting on the process of implementation has been conducted for 60 people from different units such as the member of advisory committee, the leaders of communities from 7 villages, the government staffs, and administration of local organization. During the meeting, the participation of the works had been reviewed through other recent projects to analyzed the current situation and set the vision on the forest conservatory techniques Including the policy and development plan of the villages. There were 56 people attending the meeting in December 15-17, 2006 including the advisor teams, representatives from the villages, main leaders of the villages to plan and assign the goal for conserving the forest. On the progress on implementation, the expansion of the results is to observe the actual site in the areas to find history of the communities, properties, communities forces, the needs including the development concept of the communities. Also, the survey report and analysis on the needs of the citizen had been created to present the results to the local citizen and government officers. These processes helped lead to the multi-lateral concept of working (governments, local organizations, communities organizations and other citizen) to increase the effectiveness and potential of the new plan for the villages such as managing the forest and communities, improving the profession in the forest areas under the agreement of the citizen charter. Finally, these process will lead to the evaluation on the service improvement and public improvement to agree with the needs of the citizen and the multi-lateral process. Local Police Station of Amphur Mae Jun, Chiang Rai In May 16-19, 2005, the team of researchers had worked in the area on the training of People’s Audit Project at the Nathipol Resort, Amphur Mae Jun, Chaing Rai. The representatives of Police Station at Amphur Mae Jun had participated in the training and applied the ideas and the process of People’s Audit Service to secure life and


65

properties in Amphur Mae Jun by building the awareness on the government officers to serve the justice for creating safety on the life and properties of the citizen. Most of the citizen recognized the actual need to build citizen charter in the area toward the satisfaction of the citizen on the police duties at Mae Jun Police Station. In March 7-9, 2007, the training had been conducted to provide knowledge for the police officers and other 50 general citizens. The trainees learnt the adjustment on the new vision of People’s Audit, the search on the needs, participatory paths and others lessons of the training including the search for the demands of the particular area of People’s Audit on Police Station. And for the next expansion process on the project’s result was to interpret the lesson learnt to present to the citizen and other involving units. Under the constitutional law agreement, the problems can be solved for a better security on life and properties in the form of multi-lateral concept, which agree toward the needs of the citizen. At last, there were several evaluations on the results of People’s audit services through the practical works with the citizen in the areas that helped organize the work plan and budgets for developing the process in the future under participation with multi-lateral concept. 4 The progressive meeting in Bangkok The collaborative partners meeting in PATH was organized on November 4, 2006 at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University providing opportunity for them to exchange knowledge and experiences gained from implementation of PATH in their own communities or organizations. There were coordinators and People’s Audit project partners from Phetchaburi, Songkhla, Chiang Rai, Sakon Nakhon, Phitsanulok, Nakhon Sri Thammarat and Surat Thani. The results from this meeting were 4.1 PATH gaining Writing down on a card to express what they earn from the PATH performed technology of participation. It was found that most of the participants received positive attitude. Not only they perceive the progress of PATH projects in particular areas and improving service providing units but also they have got chances to get new information, exchange their experiences and learn more interesting approach from each other. These will be benefit to apply in the service delivery improvement especially initiating new ideas can be inspired and motivated the participants to continue their own works. In addition, preceding partners who had implemented PATH project were eager to present their successes in this meeting. 4.2 Appreciative Inquiry Introducing participants to recall their memories and writing down some “best practice” in their areas again has performed technology of participation. Moreover, intention of officers to improve their service qualities including cooperation from all parties were issued that they could create participants willingness to change culture of work. Finally, participants gave their impressions to pay some gratitude to KPI and it’s team for providing facilities and opportunities for them to conduct People’s Audit project processes to solve the problems as well as excellence communication between KPI teamwork and the participants.


66

4.3 Future work After brainstorming on their anticipation in People’s Audit project, it was surprising that participants had systematic thinking in flow of work. Starting from being aware of need for more planning, the local officers should put an attempt in community strength rather than community weakness. Let all parties understood the benefit of PATH first, then applied the PATH knowledge to the community. Participants also expressed that a level of visit and meeting must be done continuously to share information, knowledge and experiences among the partners. The most important things that they would do in the future were to create and integrate PATH networks. Some thought to extend the part of the project that had not done yet, to reduce problems and obstacles, initiate new activities, launch new projects and improve higher quality of services. They thought that launching PATH project successfully was not only received the award but also gained pride to them. It was revealed that participants were proud of themselves in working with community people. They realized that the People’s Audit project could enhance pluralistic democracy and they became a part of it.


67

Advanced People’s Audit module, People’s Audit website and policy engagement In phase I, KPI had conducted People’s Audit module used in training coordinators and partners in the original five pilot provinces. However, to disseminate the manual and training materials nationwide, knowledge management should be developed. Either advanced People’s Audit module or People’s Audit website are submitted in phase II. Progress on development of advanced People’s Audit module In phase II, KPI invited the coordinators who proposed People’s Audit Module I to join a meeting on planning for advanced PATH module on July 26, 2006 in Nakhon Sri Thammarat when KPI implemented the training course for the partners. From that meeting, those coordinators agreed to have the advanced technology of participation in Module II, such as After Action Review (AAR), Appreciate Influence Control (AIC), Focus Group Conservation, Citizen Dialogue and How to draw lessons learned from activities. In addition, the second meeting was organized on November 23, 2006 in Surat Thani. The coordinators discussed about the objectives, criteria and topics for Module II. The objectives were to strengthening public participation in improvement of public service deliveries by providing more knowledge in technology of public participation. The criteria of this Module were that the participants should pass or had experience in People’s Audit. Those who did not have experience in People’s Audit but would like to join needed to attend the intensive training before entering Module II training. The tentative topics for Module II were as follows. Advanced Module of PATH Course 1.PATH Introduction & Review. Lesson Learned from Implementation of People’s Audit in Thailand 2 Strategy of People’s audit building 3. Tool of Participation Identify tools / techniques that fit for objectives Assess the resources required to implement a particular tool Citizen Dialogue for People’s Audit Future Search Conference for People’s Audit Appreciate Inquiry for People’s Audit - Participation: techniques and strategies 4. Planning for public participation 5. Adoption to Innovation 6. Policy Process for People’s Audit 7. Awakening Executive Practitioners -Awakening Executive Practitioners -Knowledge Management (After Action Review) 8. How to Get Ready (prepare all resource persons, staff, venue, document, stationeries, audio visuals, food, break, entertainment and Participants)


68

KPI had training about Advance curriculum at chonlapuk resort Nakornnayok on 25-29 February 2008. With 27 trainees who past people’s audit phase I course. The Objective of the Advance People’s Audit Curriculum 1. Review the knowledge on the curriculum from the practical training and exchanging the experiences 2. Be knowledgeable on the planning process and selecting process of the suitable techniques for participation from the citizen 3. Understand the innovative concepts and ideas for spreading the knowledge to change the community 4. Recognize the tools to build the participation from the citizen and be able to apply it appropriately 5.Be able to assign the policy for participation and to control the policy for the success 6.Become a leader on the management process of the people’s audit project 7.Be able to organize the meeting, seminar and training with participation, quality and interest Objectives 1: Review The knowledge on the curriculum Contents Review the lesson Supportive strategies Experiences Pathway (its active subject) Strategies on changing the method on the participation process Best practice Objective 2: Planning ability Contents Strategies on the participation of the planning Planning and capacity building Objective 3: Understanding the innovative ideas and spread the innovation Contents Adjusting and spreading the innovation Adoption to innovation Objective 4: Recognize the Tools to build the participation and be able to apply it suitably Contents 4.1 Introduction to Public Participation for Path 4.2 Classification of tools, Best practice Type of the Tools Empower, Self-evaluation, Collaborate, Participate On evaluation, Involve, Planning Process, Consult Discuss, The issue Inform, Provide information. Classification by tools tool objective method advantages disadvantages


69

4.3 Tools for path - Community asset base - Appreciate inquiry visioning - Citizen dialogue - AIC - Future search -Other techniques on the meeting with participation Focus group, Public hearing, Referendum, Samoan cycle, Open house, Town meeting, Interview, Observing Objective 5: Ability to assign the participating of the policy Contents Policy, strategy and useful process Assign the participating policy and the duties of every Group Change the policy into practice The mechanism for controlling the participating policy Evaluation on the results by the participating policy The effects of the results by the participating policy The positive and negative effects of the results Case on the garbage and communities Objective 6: Leader on the knowledge management Of the institution Contents -Awakening executive process Knowledge management Objective 7: Ability to manage the meeting, training and seminar Contents 7.1 Preparation before the process of training 7.2 Game Result on Advanced People’s Audit curriculum training At Nakorn Nayok- 25 February-29 February 2008 Background: People’s Audit Course

The People’s Audit curriculum was developed as a joint project between the United Nations Development program and the King Prajadhipok’s Institute’s Research and Development office. UNDP provided program funding and guidance and KPI researched, developed, and organized the coursework, training materials, and seminar logistics.

The goal of the People’s Audit Course is to empower people, civil societies, and government officials by giving training and knowledge in public participation—to promote government to pay heed to the people’s needs and to bring the people into the problem solving process. The initial pilot program consisted of ten seminars in various provinces from all parts of the country.


70

Advanced People’s Audit Development As the program has experienced much success, KPI with the aid of UNDP

have begun developing the “Advanced People’s Audit Curriculum,” an extension of the basic material. The Advance People’s Audit Curriculum has been in development since 2005. The major difference between the second-stage Advanced People’s Audit (APA) course and the first-stage People’s Audit (PA) courses is that the basic course constitutes the “tools” of public participation while the advanced course is intended to help administrators know how to use the tools. In other words, the advanced curriculum is tailored to assist government administrators plan and implement policies that respond to the people’s needs. As written in a UNDP report, the project aims to ensure the incorporation of an “inside-out” and “outside-in” process. Implementing Advanced People’s Audit The program launched for the first time 25 February-29 February 2008 at the Cholophruek Resort in Nakorn Nayok. The APA team picked students for the course from former participants of the original People’s Audit course. As it was the pilot program, the APA team needed people who could give honest, constructive feedback. One group of the participants affectionately dubbed themselves the “People’s Audit Guinea Pigs.” Twenty-seven (27) students participated in the initial run of Advanced People’s Audit. Participants came from 15 different provinces in Thailand, 12 of which are outside of the greater Bangkok area. Chiang Rai province represented the largest group with eight (8) participants. Three participants came from Songkhla in southern Thailand. There were several mayors, rural district presidents, and other elected officials represented. Other participants came from various government and civic organizations.

The five lecturers were Dr. Wirat Pansila from Mahasarakham University, Dr. Thawilwadee Burekul from KPI, Dr. Utaiwan Kanjanakamol from Chiang Rai province, Assistant Professor Todsaphol Somphong from Sakornakorn University, and Khun Suthida Saengpetch. Expenses: People’s Audit Content:

The outline of the seminar is as follows: 1. Basic Information about Raising the Standard of Public Service Through

Public Participation 2. Strategies in Creating Participation 3. Tools of Creating Participation and Application 4. Planning for Participation 5. Adapting and Spreading Innovation 6. Administrators and Policy in Improving Public Services 7. Empowering the Administrator and Excellence in Knowledge

Management 8. Preparing the Process and Creating Atmosphere The first portion of the program introduced several additional public

participation tools not included in the first PA training. Participants were taught the fundamentals of Citizen’s Dialogue, Appreciative Inquiry, Future Search Conference, the Samoan circle and others. The second portion of the training focused on how these techniques could be applied.

Speakers led the groups through real life case studies, inviting them to think through the process of having all sides come to the table. They used the example of a


71

community that has a need to build a new landfill. Another example involved the expansion of a hydroelectric dam and its effect on fish population, rice farmers, flooding, and other issues. The groups practiced planning solutions and policies using public participation as a significant means to that end. Feedback/Evaluation:

The five day seminar ended with a feed back session wherein all of the participants were given the chance to offer suggestions and point out which portions they felt were effective. Participants indicated that they were pleased with the training. Almost all of the participants indicated that they wanted to be able to apply the knowledge they had received. In terms of constructive criticism, the participants indicated that time spent training was very long—8 a.m. to 10 p.m. one day and should be shorter. Others indicated that they felt that they understood concepts presented but did not feel they understood pros and cons of the process well enough. It was also expressed that it wasn’t clear the final objective of the program was: 2. Progress on update and maintenance of the People’s Audit website Learning People’s Audit process will be efficiently supported by People’s Audit website. KPI will sign contract with Mr. Chaiwa Sitkuongtang who has experience with People’s Audit from Chiang Rai to design People’s Audit website and prepare CD-ROM for PATH database because he has knowledge and experience in preparation of website and database in CD-ROM. The contract will be signed in early December 2006. It is expected to finish in April 2007. Specification of website are (1) register the domain and hosting (2) design the web page including web board (3) monthly update information and (4) maintain and manage website for 1 year. The People’s Audit activities and documentation will be arranged for being learning database. CD-ROM will be used for this purpose. Project on the construction of People’s Audit Project Website The researchers at KPI are currently working on the New website of People’s Audit Project. For replace old website because some problem with server and for update maintenance this is old one http://202.29.76.83/people_audit/introduc_en.asp and this is new domain name of the website has been changed to http://www.peoplaudit-kpi.com. The website is expected to be complete in the near future under the management of 2 technicians. These are the details on the front page of the website Structure and main frame of the website -Background information on People’s Audit Project -How Project on People’s Audit Origin started? -What is People’s Audit Project? -The calendar on the activities? -Activities on each area -Outstanding activities on each area -Web link -Web board -Comments


72

P r o g r e s s o n p o l i c y e n g a g e m e n t Starting from grass root level, People’s Audit concept will be effectively implemented if it is accepted and endorsed by top-level policy makers. KPI visited Khun Watana, Department of Local Administration (DLA) to discuss about policy engagement and plan to visit the new Director General of DLA, Khun Somporn Chaibangyang who had already learned about PATH from Songkhla when he was the govenor of Songkhla. Then on December 20, 2006 represent of King Prajadhipok’s and UNDP have meeting on People’s Audit Service at Department of Local Government with Khun Somporn Chaibangyang The Director General of Department of Local Government Promotion suggested that the department of local Government Promotion supported the project in the local government areas. Therefore, King Prajadhipok’s Institutes had organized the project with UNDP and designed the curriculum suitable for Department of Local Government Promotion. Initially, all the participants commented that there should be a specific curriculum for 4 to 6 days using the materials created by the KPI. There should be about 60 people on the training. The Department of Local Government Promotion can select 3 representatives such as the executive members with at least 2 years of experiences. The representatives should manage the budgets from the local government organization to spend on the training and the Department of Local Government Promotion may also help with the additional funding. Now Kpi send formal letter and curriculum detail to Director General of Department of Local Government Promotion already. In addition, People’s Audit concept is accepted by Dr. Thossaporn Sirisamphan, the Director General of OPDC and applied to Open House activity on November 27, 2006. The Open House activities at OPDC office include public consultation on administrative reform. TOP technique was applied in this event. This activity is OPDC’s pilot event for public consultation. Around 100 people participated in this activity. The future challenges has been concluded from this activity and accepted by OPDC office’s executives. Therefore, not only applying PATH at local level but also at national level.


73

People’s Audit Network Figure 1 depicts project implementation, starting from the inner circle where King Prajadhipok's Institute is at the core. The responsible persons include Dr. Thawilwadee Bureekul, Director of the Office of Research and Development; and Mr. Wiisit Chatchawanthipakorn and Mr. Watchara Thitinan, the Institute’s staffs who worked in the implementation team. The network which is instrumental in the implementation of this project includes academic institutions that permitted their personnel to participate, for example, Assoc. Prof. Thossapon Songpong from Sakon Nakhon Ratchapat University, Assoc. Prof. Wirat Pansila from Maha Sarakham University, and Dentist Uthaiwan Kanchanakamon from Community Empowerment Institute in Chiang Mai. This project was conducted in collaboration with the Office of Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC) and Department of Local Administration Promotion, which has supported this project from the beginning, and also UN Development Programme (UNDP). Additionally, there were also network organizations which applied the People's Audit’s concept under support of advisory teams. The service units that practiced this concept included local administrative organizations (Mae Chan sub-district municipality, Sakon Nakhon Muang district municipality, Hat Yai Muang district municipality, Wang Saeng TAO (Maha Sarakham), Wang Khe TAO, Ta Mairuak TAO (Phetburi)); service units (Mae Chan Downstream Management Unit, Chiang Saen District Forestry, Mae Chan police station). Moreover, civil sector and civil society networks also applied this concept in their operations in the interest of general public. After three years of implementation (commenced in 2003), the project extended its coverage to encompass Ngao TAO in Chiang Rai province and other service units, such as in Surat Thani and Nakon Si Thammarat province. In 2006, KPI established the curriculum at achievement certificate level for those who are interested in People’s Audit to have opportunity to learn this techniques. So far there have been 5 batches with over 200 trainees. These trainees are from various sectors such as local government, government organizations in both central and regional area, private sectors as well as civil society. Many of them applied the concept of People ‘s Audit to their works. According to the responses to KPI’s survey, they reported that People’s Audit is new paradigm of the administration So the change agents of People’s Audit must be the policy maker or the decision makers so that this concept can be widespread all over Thailand. The OPDC has accepted this idea and allowed KPI to train the government officers in 75 provinces so that they can apply this concept to their works. The project on Open System of Public Administration has launched in 2007 with some budget allocated to those 75 provinces to test the models of participation. This project is approved by the Ministry of Interior. For the local government, the individual local government that see the advertisement or heard about the project applied to be trained and also contact KPI to help. Some local government participated in the program won Good Governance awards from


74

Department of Local Administration promotion and KPI. This help promote people’s Audit Concept. The trainers and trainees trained by KPI also become change agents in their region. More local government participate into the network. The project of this magnitude requires certain capabilities and experiences in order to manage this project effectively so as to enhance public participation. Figure 1: Project implementation Network

Government service unit

KPI

People

Sponsors

Academic institute

NGO, civil society


Civil society

LG

People

Academic institution


OPDC

Local Government LG

Implementation network UNDP


75

Lessons Learnt form People’s Audit Awareness Raising, Campaigning, Dissemination Plan and Policy Engagement and Decision 1. The Lessons Learnt from the Awareness Raising, Campaigning and Administration of People’s Audit Project

The globalization trend is heading towards participatory democracy, pluralistic democracy, and later reconciliatory democracy to create social equity, bestow rights and liberties to people, and encourage public participation in formulation of the state’s policy and implementation.

Thailand has endured several decades of tumultuous democratization and comprehension about public participation has been so diverse that it might eventually lead to conflict. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2540 and the succeeding 2007 Constitution have expanded opportunities for people to participate in state administration, policy formulation, and stipulation of rules and regulations from the stage of initiation, giving ideas, consultation, implementation, monitoring and auditing to reaping benefits. But the problem is how we can make this a reality. The Improvement of Public Service Delivery through Public Participation Project (People’s Audit) was conducted to propose approaches for enhancement of public participation process and notably in order to open up opportunities for people, irrespective of what sector, to partake in implementation of various activities, thus leading to collaboration in joint monitoring and auditing by those being audited. In this regard, auditors do not feel that both sides are antagonists but instead they endeavor to collectively determine their goal.

This project constitutes a four-year operational research that has been graciously supported by UN Development Programme, King Prajadhipok's Institute, and network organizations. We feel obliged to express our gratitude to these organizations.

However, after the project has made some progress, we discerned that it is necessary to compile various lessons learned from this project in the interest of other similar projects.

The lessons learned from project management which operated on the foundation of a rather successful network will be presented here.


76

Introduction

The People’s Audit represents a concept and operating principle which is based on participation where people or concerned entities jointly engage in an activity at an early stage of development. By doing so, performance monitoring will be automatic and friendly and there will be no cause for conflict. Eventually, this will lead to creation of an effective learning process and accumulation of social capital towards the path of participatory democracy.

Accordingly, the People's Audit constitutes collaborative efforts to think, act, monitor, and evaluate on continual basis. Work improvement will be undertaken collectively. There will be no finger-pointing by people but people will participate by contributing ideas. Therefore, this scheme can be applied to various activities, irrespective of whether it belongs to the state sector, private sector, locality, or family. Aside from that, participation at an early stage will contribute to mitigation of potential conflict and lead to hospitable initiation of participation by concerned parties.

The assimilation of participatory democracy in the process to improve public services provided by the state and local government (People's Audit) whereby people engage in various steps, from planning process, implementation, to monitoring and auditing. Participatory schemes have been developed for application in the process whose aim is to provide satisfactory public services and create public satisfaction. Such service delivery is based on collective inspiration of various sectors and creation of innovation for participation in service improvement in a variety of ways, which will eventually lead to implementation and ensuing improvement, that is, dynamism. Nonetheless, what is inherent in the process is developments that will inspire concerned entities to Knowledge Management Based on Experiences of the Improvement of Public Service Delivery through Public Participation Project collectively raise the level of service delivery through public participation on continual basis. All these are based on genuine willingness to pursue such mission together (internalization) with sensible methods and participation. Initiation comes from both service unit (inside-out approach) and external parties, that is, the civil sector (outside-in approach). In addition, integration of these two approaches is also possible. Participation methods presented in this paper include identifying public needs and positive access to general public through application of various forms of technology of participation (TOP), which comprise participatory dialogue, participation workshop, and participatory planning as well as creation of citizen partnership and citizen’s charter. In addition, other methods are also available, such as the Public Service Excellence Program (PSEP) and participatory evaluation, which constitutes initiation from service provider that desires to improve service delivery (inside-out approach), and presentation of public needs to service provider (outside-in approach). Supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), King Prajadhipok's Institute took initiative to introduce this concept in Thailand. At the outset, the Institute kicked off the project by studying domestic and overseas body of knowledge and developed a tailored-made curriculum which is suitable with Thai context. Later, the curriculum was piloted in various service units. The first pilot program was conducted in Phitsanulok city municipality. Subsequently, the curriculum was modified and training programs were rolled out in five provinces in all regions, including Chiang


77

Rai, Maha Sarakham, Sakon Nakhon, Songkhla, and Phetburi. Several service units, including local administrative organizations and state agencies, engaged in the project. In this project, public officials and people who are patrons of service units attended training programs. Later, participating service units had to apply the knowledge to suit their own context. To ensure that this project was implemented efficiently and effectively, advisors were employed to give recommendation. At certain stage, lessons were compiled and the project further expanded its scope to cover other provinces such as Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, and also in Chiang Rai. Subsequently, these principles and this concept were refined to make them more suitable. It was learned that many people broadly applied these participatory knowledge and techniques, contributing to enhancement of participatory democracy.

Furthermore, after the findings of the People's Audit project were practiced for a certain period, we have learned about key factors which contributed to success and failure in improvement of public service delivery through public participation. These factors are, for example, having a body of knowledge for implementation; understanding, willingness, and cooperation from all concerned parties; leadership in service unit; especially willingness to accept meaningful public participation; partnership in improvement of service delivery; having a core team to promote and implement activities; having academic advisors to advise implementation; technical assistance; and offering incentives. What is project management? Improvement of public service delivery through public participation (People's Audit) was conducted by King Prajadhipok's Institute and network organizations to utilize participation techniques to enhance public participation process and build trust. This is possible because all participants collectively develop ideas and have mutual admiration and respect for each other’s dignity, thus leading to better development. During project implementation which began with research studies to attain results which could be put into practice, there was a discovery of some aspects which can be used to explain various aspects of collaborative efforts and happenings as follows: The implementation of this project was not easy because we need to understand the context of project management first and the level of difficulty of administration of various programs varied, depending on several factors such as number of participants, budget, time, objective, expectation of participants, potential capacity of managers and staff, and so forth. This service delivery improvement project did not have much budget but encompassed a broad spectrum of activities impacting on many entities and included a diverse composition of collaborative networks, funding entities, and participants with a multitude of expectations. This project has been implemented since 2002. The lessons learned from the project management can be summarized as follows:


78

Project management constitutes both art and science and its contribution is enormous. If project management is conducted properly, it will create positive changes for each individual and service unit. Aside from being a stepping stone for career advancement, it also makes us conscious of potential success ahead, adding diversity to work rather than being contented with routine work. Moreover, it also opens up an opportunity to freely experiment new things and new works as well as to put ourselves to a test and develop vocational skills. There are also challenges inherent in project management. Project administrator must confront unexpected outcomes or persevere amidst uncertainties which are hardly acceptable as well as endure through dilemmas and difficulties, especially when you are a project administrator who has responsibilities but no decision-making power. Substantial risks are always present. If the project does not progress smoothly, overall mission will be jeopardized. Project management constitutes both art and science Science is referred to a study of methods that are used to explain, coordinate, and prepare documents. In addition, it also encompasses readiness to oversee budgeting, estimation of timetable, and deciding which resource will be used. Art is referred to development of your own decision and learning how to lead the mass, and it also concerns learning other details without being too engrossed. Moreover, it also involves decision-making based on incomplete information and amidst sign of conflict. In addition, you must be able to seek an answer which is more acceptable to the majority, rather than a perfect answer. Most project administrators work in a complex service unit where there are various teams represented by diverse groups which present challenges and merits attained from good relationship. These diverse groups of people exist both inside and outside a service unit. Project administrator needs to understand his roles From some perspective, it can be discerned that project management resembles managing a large organization because there is coordination with several people and generation of synergy within a team, despite the fact that everyone has different background and varied level of skills and expectation. The project administrator may find himself or herself in a status which does not have formal authority at all. He or she needs to collaborate with others who have never worked together and encounters a host of uncertainties. However, there is one characteristic which is similar to other administrator, that is, accountability for achievement of a predetermined goal. As for the People's Audit project, after knowledge management was explained to potential participants, we still had to find an approach to maintain progress of the project. In the end, coordinators had to conduct research study and advice participating organizations as well as constantly follow up outcome and motivate participants. After a while, both coordinators and front-line officials were stuck.


79

I tried to find project management technique once again by considering my roles as project director, educator, and funding organization. Then I traveled to visit, give advice, and collectively find solution in order to keep the project going and achieve its goal. If the project could not be restarted, I intended to educate them again or discussed with administrators of participating service units to create mutual understanding and recommend possible work methods. Moreover, the project’s success also depended on individual characteristics such as honesty, integrity, able to wait patiently for desired outcome, and open-mindedness in terms of accepting new things which are as equally important, that is, required skills for advancement and smooth implementation of the project, attending to communication with all concerned parties, using suitable, comprehensible language with a certain group and team members, thus ensuring that each task is clearly understood.. Furthermore, other success factors also include coherent communication to funding agencies, sponsors (including network organizations), and working teams regarding scope of work, and expectation; documentation of project implementation process (e.g. various tasks, responsibilities, relationship); and understanding target groups and their needs.

In the People's Audit project, King Prajadhipok's Institute periodically organized meetings with network organizations and sponsors and disseminated relevant information in order to review tasks and aligned our approaches. Moreover, progress report was also periodically prepared and submitted to our sponsors (UN Development Programme or UNDP). As for project participants, that is, service units such as local administrative organizations and other government agencies, they needed to study the context of their organization, understand organizational culture and employees. Notably, this project involves a multitude of participating organizations, including service unit directly attached to a central authority such as sub-district public health clinic and Mae Chan provincial police station or local administrative organization of varied sizes, ranging from small tambon administrative organization which was recently established and whose administrators still lacked experience to medium-sized and large tambon administrative organization (some TAO received several awards e.g. good governance). Moreover, in terms of municipality’s size, varied sizes range from sub-district municipality (e.g. Mae Chan sub-district municipality), Muang district municipality (e.g. Ban Phru Muang municipality, Sakon Nakhon Muang municipality) to city municipality (e.g. Hat Yai municipality) which differ in terms of coverage area, income, and population. In addition, urban and rural difference was also relevant. Therefore, to effectively lead the project, project administrator must enhance his or her capacity by 1. Enhancing own management skills pertaining to process management: This concerns learning about how to coordinate with others, being comfortable working with others, costing, timing, and available resources. 2. Enhancing coordination skills pertaining to project management: This is all about working through other people successfully. Therefore, project administrator should


80

be equipped with communication skills, whether it be writing, speaking, negotiating, and motivating others. Moreover, project administrator must be able to coach and mentor team members. 3. Building network organizations to support the mission: This project concerns diverse issues which might be beyond his or her current experience. Thus, project administrator should study as much as possible so that he or she can work with other people who have varied background. Therefore, project administrator must be “well-versed about work methods" for the success of the project. Building strong working team Project administrator must be able to work under pressure because he or she often runs the project by himself or herself, especially when a team member resigns or cannot fulfill objective.

To achieve goal or resolve problems with team efforts, working team should be composed of members with varied background and belief. Moreover, people that come to work together have varied expectation and believe that their participation will bring knowledge, experience, or skill that can help team achieve its goal. If they are refused a chance to help the project succeed, they would feel deceived. In implementation of the People's Audit project, a study must be conducted to survey expectation of working teams which are those working routinely in central authorities and particularly working teams in network organizations representing government institutions and private sector that are determined to learn new things and witness outcome. Most of them are knowledgeable and experienced in collaboration with community and state agency and also desire to utilize their knowledge and experiences in order to help the project achieve its goal because the project is beneficial to the society as a whole. Therefore, balancing between allowing working team to enhance required skills by themselves and avoiding loss or inappropriate action is difficult for project administrator. We can begin working properly by having working team develop a sense of ownership from the start and allowing working team to help refine the project’s scope and meanings (and negotiation with funding agencies). In this regard, in the implementation of the People's Audit project, working teams included various teams from King Prajadhipok's Institute and network organizations such as the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (PDC), Community Development Department, non-governmental organizations, civil society sector, and educational institutions as well as local administrative organizations participating in the project. These teams were represented in a working group. King Prajadhipok's Institute formed a working group to collectively set the project in motion. In this case, everyone felt a sense of ownership. After a project makes some progress, participants should engage in decision-making as much as possible. To feel like project owner in the People's Audit project, in each area coordinator was empowered to make decision in his or her area.


81

Consequently, project officials could make various levels of decision and meetings were held periodically to discuss and plan together. Such periodic meeting encouraged dialogue and often produced practical solution, and such deliberation was instrumental to the project’s progress. Importantly, to achieve anticipated outcome, every day when educational training was conducted, team members would discuss and adjust work plan daily. Thus, formulation of a plan was rather flexible and there was mutual respect among team members. Accordingly, working teams had an opportunity to determine when to convene and develop plan so as to rotate responsibilities among provinces. Then, the coordinator in that province would lead the implementation, take a major role in organizing activities, had a prime responsibility in determining who should participate (based on working group’s general advice), venue, date, training site, and case example. This approach encouraged diverse and lively format because it conformed to such area’s context. Moreover, the organizing team also enjoyed their work because they had a vital role in getting things done. Collaboration in developing universal rules and assigning responsibilities enables working team to work on common principles and choose work methods which yield similar outcome. By allowing working teams to make joint decision and choose a resolution method whenever a consensus was required and mentioning each member’s knowledge and experiences, project administrator must be there to ensure that no issue was left out and offer advice on work approach. Therefore, project director must attend this matter. In discussion meeting to seek a solution and work out a plan, project director must be there to discharge his or her assigned duty, that is, complete the task to achieve its goal to everyone's satisfaction. Therefore, it is imperative that motivation be created and this is not difficult to do.

• Show that they are important to this work. Explain working team about their roles and responsibilities, how each member can help in such collaboration and contribute to the team’s success. Moreover, project administrator must thank working teams for their efforts.

• Build confidence among team members and avoid being reluctant or not confident to start. Thus, confidence-building is imperative and working teams will discover this themselves. So, definite goal must be communicated to working teams so they can exert their roles in determining matters which are closest to them.

In the beginning of the project, in some province we found that working team might not have self-confidence because some team member had only little experience. Nevertheless, preparatory meeting, training, and mentoring could raise their confidence, ensuring that they could complete the work satisfactorily.

• Recognize good performance: Stipulation of operating standards should be suitable, not too tough or too lenient. In working team meeting and recording of working team’s performance, irrespective of whether it appears on


82

notebook or other document, we must be sure that names of team member who contributed to team efforts must be shown in proper place and their good performance should be mentioned and acknowledged by sponsor or administrator of their organization.

Project administrator must dutifully act as a communicator to inform front-line officials and their superior about their good performance and recognition. Another important thing is project administrator should not plan the project single-handed and direct working teams to implement this plan. They would feel as if they were implementing your plan, not their plan or our plan. In this case, performance and work methods would be affected. Generally, the plan of the People's Audit project derives from collaborative planning by working teams which are staffs of King Prajadhipok's Institute and network organizations, including area coordinators. This approach ensures that the plan obtains consensus from working teams and can be implemented. Moreover, working teams would feel that this is our plan, not my plan or your plan. Furthermore, whenever a visitor, particularly foreigner or executive from funding agency, visits a site to observe the project, project staff will have confidence and a sense of satisfaction and pride. Consequently, they will be enthusiastic and more assertive. If we give an opportunity so they can express themselves, they should not be interrupted. Instead, we should provide only some basic advice. Understanding genuine needs

The plan of the People's Audit project has been revised but revision would not change overall structure of the plan whatsoever.

After some progress has been made, a meeting would be held to compile lessons learned by working teams, those practicing the concept, and funding agencies. If necessary, the plan might be revised for the best interest of the project. Identifying genuine needs might be imprecise. Often the project tends to be an answer, rather than a mean to achieve the goal, that is, participants have different understanding about project implementation. Some might think they don’t care about outcome at the end of the project. However, some might perceive that this project was implemented to improve public service delivery through public participation and this will lead to public satisfaction and required action will be taken to meet public needs. Therefore, successful project administrator must constantly review expectation and genuine needs. He or she can find an approach that will satisfy such need more efficiently because such approach can produce a faster result and less cost, compared to other method.


83

To satisfy genuine needs • Record or consider matters that can explain operational gaps between current

operation and desired outcome. Identify results of such gap and any impact on team members and those outside working team. Explain inherent risks if such gaps are ignored and benefits from gap reduction in order to find a solution to existing problem. The wider the gap, the harder the work it will be for front-line staff.

• Exchange information and document by using document as a vehicle for dialogue between project administrator and funding agency or sponsor. The information is presented so that concerned parties are aware of the current situation. Moreover, such presentation is also used as a tool to request for additional fund and clarify various matters.

• Request for approval to clarify actual requirements: If you implement the project without any approval from superior, you might run into trouble later because you cannot achieve the project’s predetermined goal.

In this regard, project administrator cannot be sure that genuine needs have been satisfied because he or she does not know what they really are. Financial analysis No organization in the world can bear losing a lot of money or resources from an unproductive project. An important role of project administrator is to monitor and audit spending and resource utilization of the project. Sometimes he or she may have to procure additional financial resources in time of need and examine repercussions and how efficient and effective spending and resource utilization turns out.

Expenditure planning is required for making advanced payment and reimbursement, and monitoring and auditing payment evidence. It is necessary to have an auditor. Moreover, financial planning should be revised periodically because sometimes there might be unexpected transaction or changing environment might have repercussion on predetermined budget. Project administrator must always update expenditure so that he or she can keep abreast of outstanding obligations and payment and what item or resource needs to be spent or used. If all these are performed during operation, financial plan can be revised accordingly. At the end of the project, these tasks are also required in order to review how efficient resource utilization has been and how well financial planning has been performed.

Administrator should do the following: • Estimate cash flow: Think broadly about the project to increase efficiency of

budget allocation and review budget for planned transactions. • Estimate spending: Identify anticipated expenditure in the project, including

remuneration, material and equipment costs, and other expenses. Keep in mind that outstanding expenses will increase spending in the operation.

• Create financial schedule: Project administrator should clearly summarize inflow and outflow of resource expenditure throughout duration of the project (quarterly and annually) and prepare financial report to indicate financial


84

standing which will be presented to concerned parties. Moreover, this will build transparency in the operation.

Moreover, project administrator must also work with other departments like finance, supply, and accounting to prepare expenditure of money or resources timely and sufficiently. Formal kickoff of the project At present, when a project is about to start, people often say “let’s do it.” However, an important thing which will affect work later is a formal kickoff of the project. Such kickoff will publicize the project among concerned persons (those responsible for project implementation) in order to inform that the project will start now. Moreover, outsiders and sponsors will also acknowledge and feel being a part of the project.

Furthermore, formal kickoff also creates a commitment for administrators. Invited administrators will feel being a part and be willing to support the project. The event is also an opportunity for working teams to review or refine project details as well as interact and get acquainted with the management. Such rapport can benefit project implementation at a later stage.

This is the reason why the People's Audit project was formally launched in both central and various regions. A number of competent individuals from many institutions were invited to participate in the event to create awareness and gain cooperation. Moreover, subordinates could also attend the event because their superiors already acknowledged about the project.

Formal kickoff is also an opportunity for working teams to contemplate how they will execute the project because they will gain better understanding from listening to the project’s introduction on the kickoff day. Moreover, they will know and get acquainted with each other and will be ready to collaborate in the future.

To ensure success of formal kickoff of a project, project administrator should

• Identify who should be invited: Those invited might include stakeholders. In case there is a large number of participants, representatives might be invited so as to create expectation and gain endorsement of the project. Moreover, representatives from concerned organizations should also be invited.

• Plan to present about project management: Even though project administrator knows that working team has been briefed about project details, all requirements, importance, and commitment for the implementation should be emphasized.

• Spend time efficiently: The first meeting will be held to align understanding of each potential member who might join the team in the future. Various tools are used in the meeting, such as agenda, flip chart, and discussion method, to ensure that time is spent efficiently.

Meeting will energize working team and promote unity within the team quickly.


85

Stop to think and examine actual happenings After some progress has been made in project implementation, project administrator might assess if planned tasks have been accomplished and any action has been taken to mitigate anticipated problems. Nonetheless, something the causes a big headache can always happen but this can be resolved with forecasting and preparation of alternative solutions beforehand. This is risk assessment. Normally, project administrator often jumps right at a problem to solve it without stopping to think first.

Project administrator needs to examine what happens by asking “Should this problem be rectified? Is it worthwhile to solve? “Is there any approach to solve the problem?” In the People's Audit project, execution and realities were reviewed monthly and sometimes the project had to be delayed in order to solve problem or improve situation, for example, waiting for funding support, working team’s coordination, or network organization’s decision. All these impelled us to seek new operational tactics. This project reviewed execution by posing the above questions, thus helping working teams understand when and what they needed to change, based on the following approaches.

• Examine when problem will be more explicit and what it really means. Facts

are examined immediately after working team realizes existence of challenge, opportunity, capital, and benefit. This is done by gathering detailed information and presenting them to the management so that they can be consented to continue working according to plan or extended goal of the project.

• Make a review after possible solutions are identified by emphasizing solution’s feasibility – Can it be done? Can it be supported? Within a specified time frame, study outcomes e.g. context of leadership, local area, organization, and people which are very diverse should be leveraged. Solutions may be different. Sometimes a trial must be conducted first, for example, the project’s curriculum must be tested and piloted in Phitsanulok for improvement. A model was created by staging five provinces for pilot programs so as to answer whether the People's Audit project could actually be implemented. The trial in Phitsanulok was conducted based on this thinking.

• Make a review before actual implementation: Regarding this issue, project administrator assessed operational expenditure and potential risks. Thus, administrator must have an opportunity to review information and discuss about timing and plan to mitigate those risks. In this project, project administrator planned with working teams and later also planned the implementation with sponsors. Then, expenses were estimated and there was discussion between the management and funding agencies,


86

Cancel unproductive matters and not worth doing

A primary goal of the project is to achieve predetermined outcome that is, producing results from the project’s investment. Since this project expended the budget which was sponsored by UNDP and King Prajadhipok's Institute and received non-financial support from network organizations, including PCD and network service units. In many service units, decision to participate in the project must wait for approval, causing delay to the project and disruption to its timetable. Consequently, some activity had to be scrapped. For some service unit that initially planned to participate in the project but failed to join, they had to be dropped out; otherwise the project might not finish in time. However, the project did not entirely drop out all service units which were not ready at the time. If they were still interested, they could join whenever they could.

Cancellation of some activity is something which project administrator does not want to see because some service units already started working together. However, due to a number of reasons and transfer of executives, some activity or service unit must be dropped out. Aside from that, duration of some activity may be twice as much or take longer than that. Sometimes solution may be something that needs to be adjusted to produce greater benefit and a better chance of success. When a plan is reviewed and examined frequently, it means reassessment of resources (e.g. time, money, personnel, equipment, etc.) and outcomes (e.g. satisfaction of concerned parties, including people and public official, improvement of service delivery, etc.) is being carried out again. Project assessment should be done at certain time after an initial survey, data collection, and identification of solution and before full implementation.

To be most effective in project implementation, project administrator and working team should

• Always observant of any significant change: A hypothesis "project with an initial estimation will stay like that forever” is incorrect because situation changes, sometime faster, sometimes slower than prediction. Thus, situation may change and deviate earlier assessment at the outset of the project, impelling execution of feasibility assessment which provides various alternatives such as project finance and seeking additional budget. In case project duration is extended, additional budget is required; otherwise it cannot continue to operate.

• Avoid using the word “failure”: In many organizations, whenever cancellation occurs, project is considered a “failure.” On the contrary, cancellation of a project with appropriate reason is a smart management. In this case, project administrator can channel resources to other mission which is more important.

• Be careful not to let lethargy win over: For every project, after some progress, there tends to be sluggishness. Working team might be bored and does not feel like working, especially when confronting obstacles. However, people will develop a sense of ownership and like to work as a team. Project administrator and sponsors often think “I'd like to see this continue until completion of the project” but in reality, lethargy often occurs. Whenever


87

such feeling occurs, with enormous investment, project administrator, however, would want to continue even though such project should be scrapped.

Therefore, it is important that incentives be used to reduce working team’s lethargy. The People's Audit project invites working team to meeting and synergize. Lethargy may be caused by many factors such as too many reports, lack of understanding, not knowing what to do, lack of resources, or lack of cooperation from concerned parties. These problems can be solved. The project should convene to review and revise implementation plan.

Therefore, investment project engaged by an organization can progress by starting from endeavoring to produce desired results. Investment can produce undesirable consequence. In many cases, such project or activity should be scrapped. However, in broad perspective, nothing bad happens. The People's Audit projects encountered this because some network organizations intended to participate in the project but were later reluctant and could not gain cooperation from other people in their organization. Many external factors such as political situation, conflict in relationship between coordinators or staffs in the organization, or indecisiveness of organizational leader might cause lethargy; and finally the project came to a halt. In this case, project administrator must consider how to tackle this issue. Finally, it was decided to drop such organization which decided to participate earlier even though every team member, particularly I and staff at King Prajadhipok's Institute, was depressed and did not really want to cancel such activity. Development of plan format An important aspect of passionate management is a written plan specifying desired results. A written plan is necessary because it can be used by project administrator as a communication and educational tool. It can be used to communicate to team members who perhaps may forget what commitments are and who are leaders. With a written plan, working team will know what resource should be used and how much, when, and where. Accordingly, preparation can be properly done so as not to cause delay, and working team can manage their work because they know what they should do. A written plan informs project administrator and working team what actual results are and how much they deviate from expectation. If evaluation is performed during the implementation, plan can be revised or work improvement can be undertaken or rectified in time. Moreover, it also educates you that in the future plan preparation should be realistic as much as possible; otherwise plan will not be useful because it is impractical and no one can execute the plan properly.


88

As for the People's Audit project, the working teams had operating plan. Overall project plan constitutes a bible used as an operational guideline. The working team periodically evaluated performance as compared to the plan. Importantly, the working teams of King Prajadhipok's Institute often adhered to deadline and aimed to finish our work on time. Then, we worked backward and tried to achieve the targets within that deadline. Moreover, we prepared a central plan before provincial working teams completed their plans and indicators were used to help working teams operate more efficiently. Aside from the plan, it is imperative to design indicators.

Furthermore, we also systematically viewed the project’s work process as follows:

Input Process Output Outcome Impact

For a small project which does not take much time and does not involve many people, it is a simple plan. Sometimes only Gantt chart showing core activities in different period is shown with a list of concerned and responsible persons. The work plan of working team and each provincial coordinator is similar to this. While a large project requires more sophisticated planning tools and also uses computer program to readily revise work plan or alter resources, or once information is received, plan can also be revised easily. For maximum benefits, project plan must

• Begin with creation of network diagram which specifies required tasks in the project and relationship between various tasks; this is not result (what precedes, what follows) and dependency (a task cannot commence if another task has not finished). To apply the People's Audit concept, knowledge about the People's Audit, various methods used to create participation process, and other techniques must be disseminated first before the concept could be implemented. Therefore, the project’s prerequisites include congregation of knowledgeable persons, potential participants, compilation of body of knowledge, fund raising, preparation of curriculum and manual, pilot program, and improvement before the concept could be disseminated. If preceding activity has not occurred, subsequent activity could not happen because there must development of knowledge and tools. You cannot do certain activities right away.

• Develop control plan for the project: Indicate estimated duration of each activity in network diagram (what precedes, what follows). After dependency is assessed, the results are then shown in timeline by specifying beginning and ending date of such activity. This is a control matrix for project implementation.

• Identify critical points and risks by using symbols: Computer software can be used to highlight risk-prone activities and warn working team so that they can develop flexible activities and preventative measures to achieve the goal. In this project, project administrator would be careful if risks had been identified but sometimes risks could not be averted, such as trusting network organization so much that close monitoring was not undertaken, causing some


89

service unit's personnel to have distorted understanding and eventually project implementation could not achieve the goal. Thus, work control schedule constitutes stipulation of activity duration whereby working team used as a work map and project administrator used as an auditing method to examine whether such task finished in time.

Open up venues for learning Normally, there is a gap between the level of certainty as desired by management team and the level of uncertainty of the project. In other words, management team wants to make a good decision for investment in a high-valued resource. The reason behind commencement of a project is to satisfy needs or tackle problems for which present organization does not have a solution.

To study implementation method so as to overcome uncertainty, avoid looking at your incompetence.

• Link plan details with level of uncertainty: Draft simple timetable and

budget without too much detail. Split time period and budget according to various phases of the project, similar to making a graph. Avoid using plan or graph which indicates level of knowledge higher than working team’s competence.

• Provide level of learning: The higher the level of uncertainty, the wider the level of estimate. The more learning there is, the more accurate the estimate of working team will be.

The estimates in the People's Audit project were rather accurate because there were many standard expenses which could be estimated precisely. As the Institute’s regulation stipulates these criteria, uncertainties were quite marginal. Nonetheless, problems arising from failure to meet targets caused frequent plan revisions, budget not being expended in time, or sometimes budget was insufficient for execution of the work because funding did not forthcoming. Sometimes the project needed to borrow money from the Democratic Development Fund or out of other participant’s purse.

• It was stipulated that meeting be held periodically to review progress of the

project: Periodically, discussion with the management was carried out to consider when they wanted to study or learn about the project. It should be assured that they clearly understood that each consent meant an agreement for the next phase of operation. Thus, an initial consent might mean reviewing the issue, then coming back to review again. So, in the second phase, consent applied on other matters. For example, regarding solution for this project, the management and sponsors would take action periodically, including expenditure report prepared by the finance department and work method described in periodic progress report. During the initial phase, project details will be written for clarity and endorsement by concerned parties in order to prevent problems later. However, request for consent in later period concerned more with consent for detailed operation. As long as spending did not exceed the budget, the task was within the defined scope, and approval was obtained, there would be no problem.


90

Thus, “level of information in prepared document will reflect level of knowledge and uncertainty of the project.” The more detailed, the more clarity and certainty will be obtained. Understanding teamwork When a working team is formed, each member tends to be individualistic or focuses on himself and will ask himself these questions: “What will I be doing?” “What’s in it for me?” and “What will he expect from me?” However, after a while, working team will think: "How can we complete work satisfactorily?" Project administrator should help team members in the process whereby working team changes their mindset from “doing for oneself” to “doing for the group and the society as a whole.” Thus, there should be a linkage from personal needs to the needs of the team and the group by reinforcing relationship between working teams as follows:

• Discuss team’s roles in a meeting: In at least one team meeting, the project’s

goal should be reviewed and there should be a discussion on how these results will benefit network organizations which are service units and agencies, general public, and participating officials. Thus, clarification should be sought at a meeting to satisfy working team and team members.

• Meeting with each team member: Each member is explained why he or she is selected to join the project and what he or she can do to help project administrator. Discussion focuses on problems or obstacles that they may encounter. In this respect, I traveled to meet coordinators in provinces to conduct such meeting and jointly sought solutions with them. Additionally, I also discussed with them via telephone and email.

• Maintain diversity of each team member: If a working team cannot work as a unified body that mean there are diverse ideas in the team. That is contrary to the fact. In this regard, project administrator must ensure that everyone can be at ease in expressing his or her own opinion; otherwise they may feel that they are not part of the team.

In this setting, team members gain mutual respect. Everyone has different skill, knowledge, and experience but such diversity is exploited in working team. Development of plan format Some project administrator might be fortunate enough to work in an organization with a high standard, good work process, and coherent system, but some may have to work in a situation where relevant document and information are quite limited or inexistent and operating system is also unsatisfactory. It is fortunate for the People's Audit project. The project’s main host, King Prajadhipok's Institute, consistently improved


91

the operating system and our operational standard received quality assurance certification in accordance with ISO 9020 (2000) specifications. Therefore, project administrator and working team have standardized methodology for plan development. Consequently, we have a solid foundation for development of a robust plan, instead of starting from scratch. Project administrator must prepare coherent approaches for all activities and develop them as plan framework and then add more details on implementation. A lot of documents must be prepared. However, having too many documents is also a problem. Documentation should be the right amount and valuable. Recording information, preparation of document, and communication is difficult to master, except that person is keen in such matter. Thus, it should be assured that documented work process in operating unit has been audited and such document should be shared with working team.

To develop a framework for a practical plan, the task is divided into three parts as follows:

1. Plan work method: Which work method is best for our organization (study current method)? Does the best method involve explanation of a framework, estimation of efforts, duration, and capital required and presentation in diagrams in different time period?

• Plan operation and control: How can we review work progress? What change factors should be included in the report? What agreement is required? What approach is used in meeting of working team? Which approach would you like to develop to enhance collaboration of working teams?

• Plan communication and for personnel needs: What method would project administrator want to have to facilitate implementation as a person who is responsible for recording and documentation? Which site will be used to build expectation between working team and the management? Which process should be used to monitor work progress to assure time security of working team in project implementation? How can we revise the plan?

Therefore, it should be accepted that such effort must be made. If it is executed properly, documentation is a friend, rather than a foe. Managing project participants As a project administrator, an important thing that project administrator can do is to interweave all parts of the project. Project does not exist in a vacuum. Project administrator, working team, and all tasks interconnect with other parts of participating organizations. The results of the project will be interwoven into an organizational chart if we want to see continued growth after project completion.


92

Learning to accommodate and connect with the network can be instrumental in the success of a project. Consequently, working team will be satisfied with the results. Thus, we must make the best effort to care for people, stakeholders, and the management. There are several stakeholder groups in the People's Audit project, such as funding agencies, particularly UN Development Programme (UNDP) and King Prajadhipok's Institute, network organizations, coordinators, and organizations that implemented the People's Audit concept, personnel of these organizations, people who are patrons of public services, attendees in training programs, and so forth. The project can be successful by building relationship between stakeholders. Some methods include

• Getting to know participants and or stakeholders: Identify each group or individual that has influence or may be affected by the project, considering individuals both inside and outside relevant organizations. You should know them on personal basis (if possible) to identify what they want from the project and their urgent needs.

This is why project administrator of the People's Audit project must travel to visit concerned persons on regular basis. It was found that the project would progress slowly if a visit was not made. This is because there was a lack of motivation or assistance whenever they needed to understand the tasks first before taking action. Moreover, morale is also important. Project administrator should take the following actions.

• Understand power and influence of concerned parties, both formal and informal organization. Project administrator must oversee or control some group. As a leader, some person should have influence over those whom you cannot supervise or control.

• Develop a strategy for contact with stakeholders: Not every stakeholder attains the same level of importance. We should gather knowledge and power of stakeholders in a way that it conforms to our knowledge and needs as well as power to develop a suitable technique for direct communication with stakeholders. Moreover, the context of organizations and areas is also clearly different. Thus, project administrator must understand how to apply a suitable strategy.

Therefore, project administrator probably finds that exercising ex officio power is not smart because that might lead to dissatisfaction. People tend to react negatively if power is exercised instead of developing their expertise and capacity so that they will turn to support their own knowledge and capacity-building. Multilateral-based participatory work will lead to reconciliation and create power for further collaboration even though they will keep stumbling because they still do not understand the principles or this is still a pilot program.


93

Evaluation If project administrator does not know where he or she is in the process and does not keep track on what to do next, he or she will not know if the mission has been accomplished. So, you will no longer be comfortable when claiming where the progress is compared to targets. The People's Audit project or any project was created to achieve predetermined goal. We cannot show that a mission is accomplished unless we can describe how the situation was at the outset of the project, what has been done, what we gained, how the current situation is, how the community is, what idea people have in mind, and what happen at the end of the project.

If finding evidence to prove such matters starts from ground zero in the beginning or should record work schedule based on planned timetable, desired cost and outcome after the commencement of the project, such as execution or design requirements (quality, expense, speed, image, etc.). Therefore, we should record reality, that is, when activity started, when actual cost was incurred, how much improvement was realized. The last step is comparing various plans with reality, separating operational problems from mistake and estimation such as performance lower than standard criteria, for example, if estimation is not accurate or close to reality or chosen answer is inappropriate; sometimes over-estimating or under-estimating and unsure whether estimates are correct. One role of project administrator is to inform working team of the methods being developed for data management in the project. In this case, working team will inform project administrator to find a solution. If collaboration is required, working team meeting will create participatory atmosphere because all parties collectively learn about the problem and solve the problem together.

• Consider data collection method: As soon as you know what information you need, where they come from, how you get them, who collect and develop them into a form that can be easily compiled and input (may be a format distributed to working team, both paper and electronically transmitted file).

The project administrator developed a framework for data collection for central and regional working teams, making data collection very easy for working teams, and this is also true for compilation, analysis, synthesis, and report writing.

Not only data collection, information should be in a suitable format and they should be timely, clear, and credible. Really know potential threats to the operation In project implementation, risks and uncertainties are unavoidable. Those who manage information well must convey positive attitude that is instrumental to success


94

and supports things to do to colleagues and concerned parties. However, ignoring qualitative factors or potential risks is also dangerous. Usually, every project faces a certain level of risk, whether it is low risk (such as expenditure slightly exceeding budget) or high risk (such as completion is six months behind schedule).

Consequently, working teams received accident and health insurance because they had to travel frequently. Budgeting plan must be close to reality as much as possible and this is done by collecting information as much as possible. Everyone accepts that threats can happen. However, we must manage them with knowledge, experience, and wisdom of working teams and advisors. Furthermore, in case any team member cannot work, another member can take up assignment in his place. As a project administrator, I tried to train team members so they could help each other and learned how to do various jobs. For example, trainer could work as an administrator. For content that could be presented to participants by other person, he or she can substitute as a trainer. It was found that our working teams had many talented persons. This is good in a way because small-time team members could have stage to play. As a Thai saying goes, we turned “crisis” into an “opportunity.” We found out that some official or assistant could work as a trainer. Some staff has many talents like taking photographs and shooting and editing VDO and also working as an assistant trainer. Preventive concept can keep cost down compared to non-preventive one and this strategy offers the best rationale as a risk management approach, particularly in a high-impact situation. Therefore, we should place emphasis on prevention and this approach is better than trying to solve problem later. Risk management which is a vital component in planning can be conducted as follows:

• Identify key potential risks: What is the part of your project (or organization) which you know the least? Review them thoroughly such as scope, time, and cost of technology, resources, marketing factors, and environment. For example, coordinator is moved out of the area, causing interruption to the work but there must be someone who can continue doing such work. Speeding up problem-solving through coordination and create understanding with substitute can be a great help. By giving an opportunity to a trainee to participate in the project, working team will have someone to help when facing difficulties. Moreover, with this solution, resources in the project can be mobilized without costing a lot of money.

• Identify the number of risk factors and analyze risks: Even though risk analysis is difficult, we should try to identify a natural number of potential risks (e.g. insufficient budget, budget does not arrive in time, delayed delivery of work, delayed submission of progress report causing delay to next round of budget approval and disruption to work or budget is not approved because of management transition and new manager does not understand the project. With bureaucratic-like procedure, our operation is similar to bureaucracy. For example, disbursement is not flexible, urgent work that does not have a plan is rare. Sometimes staff must make advance payment out of his or her own


95

pocket and take risk whether he could get disbursement afterwards. Sometimes network participant is reassigned to other post and the replacement does not cooperate. Then this participant does not want to deal with the work anymore because he has a lot of work). Assessment of possibilities and each impact from risk is imperative. It is likely that undesired event that is not supposed to happen becomes a reality and affects the project.

• Prepare contingency plan: Stipulate operating procedure in case problem arises. Choose the best method to manage risks that may occur and seriously affect the project and all concerned parties.

Therefore, if we try to lead a project without managing risks and uncertainties, we may run into a situation that directs us to unplanned course.

What happened to our project, especially uncontrollable external factors, which might come from expectation from some service unit such as local government authority, but transfer of official to other post affected our project, causing disruption to cooperation that had been built from the beginning. Importantly, this was not foreseen at the outset of the project. As project administrator, I tried to coordinate and establish contact again. However, in the end, I must admit that this risk really affected our project. Because formal access to local administrative organization was required, dissemination of the concept could not be done. Consequently, improvement of public service delivery through public participation (People's Audit) in local administrative organization was difficult to achieve. Under this circumstance, working teams and I resorted to direct contact with central and local organizations and invited them to participate in the project without awareness of the top level. This is because sayings like “we already have a lot of work," “this is not our job,” “we don’t work here anymore,” “we moved to other place” were construed as signaling of risks to the project that project administrator must take some action.

In conclusion, project management is not an easy task but it is not too difficult if everyone tries to understand the project, organizational context, concerned parties, and importantly all colleagues. Be compassionate, learn together, think positively, turn crisis to opportunity, have fun working, have discipline, not discouraged, organize your thoughts, set priority, and importantly perform evaluation, prepare report, delivery assignment before deadline. If you do something good but do not record and report it and do not learn how to present your performance, how can good project emerge and get recognized by funding agencies and the society? How can we make the project sustainable? After project has made some progress, project administrator will realize that this project would cease upon completion of the project and depletion of the budget. What a pity. How can we deal with this? The working teams of King Prajadhipok's Institute found solutions to promote participatory concept by the People's Audit approach as follows:

1. Create commitment with emotionally binding agreement which is more valuable than document agreement which does not mean anything if no action is taken. However, if participant realizes how important it is, he will test it and witness the result by himself.


96

2. Arrange this curriculum as a proficiency certification program: By doing this, interested persons can attend the course but they have to pay by themselves because there is no budget. What they will gain is knowledge and proficiency certificate from 51 hour course attendance (6 days from 8.00-21.00 hrs.). On 31 December 2007, nearly 200 students from four classes representing many sectors all over Thailand have applied this knowledge in their work with satisfactory results.

3. Build body of knowledge and arrange a forum for exchange of ideas every year: By doing this, those who applied the knowledge can share experience and exhibit their works, thus expanding the network even further. Moreover, there should be a website to disseminate knowledge.

4. Disseminate information and provide a forum to exhibit successes to general public and interested persons on continual basis.

5. Conform to the intent of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2550 regarding public participation in state administration, public hearing, and good governance in accordance with the People’s Audit concept and various participation techniques.

6. Build an operating network.

This illustration depicts composition of a work, that is, inspired to encourage public participation in improvement of service delivery and creation of participatory innovation in order to ensure that service delivery can be improved collectively, leading to better services and continual inspiration. All these are achieved with internalization through participatory process.

Furthermore, another constituent in a work is collaborating on a mission and helping each other, having interest to get things done, exercising wisdom, making initiative, interacting with others, sharing lessons learned, and reinforcing each

INSPIRATION

IMPLEMENTATION

INNOVATION

INTEREST

INTERACTIVE

INCLUSIVE

INTELLIGENCE

INTERCHANGEABLE

INITIATIVE

INCENTIVE

IMPRESSIVE

INVIGORATE

INVALUABLE IMMUNITY

IMPROVEMENT INTERNALIZATION


97

other. In addition, good performer should be recognized, then give incentive to those doing good deeds. All these will activate continuous motion of the internal cycle, converting into an invaluable immunity because everyone is doing things together wholeheartedly. In this setting, project administrator is just a facilitator who motivates, reinforces, and shows appreciation. 2. Lessons Learnt from People’s Audit Concept Application

Success or Failure Factors

Implementing the People’s Audit Project for a while reveals important factors that influence success or failure of the project which are;

1. Knowledge Base to conduct the project, learning from various countries and advise from expert shall be combined and used to prepare an academic document that will create a form of dispersing knowledge, training and practicing.

2. Understanding, willingness, collaboration in implementation from every party, self commitment, intensity and clear responsibility in following up on the operation. The selected members including participation of concerned person especially people with less opportunity, every body who participate will feel the ownership and glad to support the units’ work.

3. Have politics culture that emphasizes in Public Participation and culture of good governance of every related party. When the people have public recognition, they will be willing to collaborate with the government office in the People’s Audit process. Meanwhile, if the government sector have empowerment and enabling environment and good governance then it will allow the people to participate without mistaken and also it will increase power of the public as well.

4. Leadership status in work unit, especially in allowing the people to truly participate and become partner in uplifting the Service Delivery. The leader must have recognition for public, democratic culture and good governance to allow the public to participate in the work procedure of the unit and allow the public to participate in auditing their work.

5. The participation of facilitator and team both from inside and outside the work unit that will become a center in driving and operating the project. Without a center in operation and coordination, this project shall never accomplish the target. The center team must be accept by every party, sociable, posses good working skill and have determination.

6. Academic consultant and coordinator to provide advice, technical support and stimulate work when the operator is uncertain or face with obstacle during work. The skill and working method of the consultant is also another important factor.


98

7. Level of exchanging information to be used for work improvement. This is an inter-study between parties to protect mistake that might occur with other team. Team meeting and calling on the team and public sector including participatory evaluation will be highly advantage.

8. A strong working network, knowledge base and experience in working with government and public sector.

9. Operation resource to derive the project toward target. Support from United Nations Development Program (UNDP), King Prajadhipok’s Institute, Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC), and network organizations facilitate the operation of this project as same as the work unit that implement this concept that would need a resource for operation as well.

10. The policy continuity that is the executive must commit to the job continually. 11. Political situation with competitiveness, campaign for election, dividing into

groups and aligned nation will obstruct the project from accomplishment. Therefore, it is very important that the project operator must be neutral.

12. The organization chart of the work unit, coordination, ability to give an order between the top executives and middle management such as the incident at Provincial Local Administration.

13. Mutually Positive thinking instead of criticizing will strengthen the project.

Figure Organization Culture Adjustment Cycle from PA Process

Action

Attitude Adjustment

New Behavior

Organization Culture

Realize

Practicing


99

In conclude, the People’s Audit program will encourage opportunity for the social, strengthen the community, create collective needs of society that is contrary to atomistic participation. The program will establish social capital that will reinforce true democratization because the public will be able to practice political skills and democracy. The program will also help in practicing participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and consensus democracy. In addition, it will reinforce good governance and encourage the public participation which is a new style of citizen politics. This project is a social movement that will reinforce effective democratization, facilitate in establishing people based politics and create good governance culture to Thai society. As Sydney, Verba, Norman Nie, and Jae-on Kim (1971, 1978) stated that team activity and team work in community is another type of participation in politics.

This project may be started slowly but the advantage is flexibility in working. Appropriate Technology of Participation can be selected according to context of the issue and area. The People’s Audit require time in learning and building up network but this process must be done slowly in order to fast advance in the future. It is better to go slow to go fast rather than go fast to go slow. The project is an establishment of learning process and knowledge management to the participant because every participant will learn together, have systematic thinking, establish skills, simulate thinking, share vision and learning as according to concept of Peter Senge (1990: 236). This project might be illustrate as seeing an elephant from behind without a clear picture of the front part, therefore it requires collaboration from every party to turn the elephant round and see how beautiful it is.

The People’s Audit Trainees have been applied the concept and tools of People’s Audit in various aspects such as in local government management, in private organization, in government agencies, in community and in their own families. The following figure is extracted from their experiences exchanged in the People’s Audit Forum in March 2008.


100

Figure Model of People’s Audit Dissemination and Application

Increase personal capability

Change-Paradingm-Vision

Change-Paradigm-Vision

Increaseproductivity

Lessons

ActionMore products quantity

quality-Groups-Org.-Firm

expand-Mindset-Tools-Process-Method

NEXT

KnowledgeManagement

belief that PA can be actionable

PA training

Basic capacity

- personality-leadership- social capital- mindset

Information

CONEXT

OpportunityCondition

PA .Perspectives•PA.AS Process•PA .AS Content•PA .AS Context•PA .AS activities

unbeliefthat PA can be actionable

inspiration

There are 2 kinds of People’s Audit trainees, the first group does not believe that People’s Audit can be actionable and do not apply it to their work. What they get is, therefore only information. For the second group, they believe that People’s Audit can be actionable and apply it to their works. This helps increase their capability. People’s Audit concept is expanded as tools, process and method to establish public participation in uplift public service deliveries. In addition, it can change mindset of those who apply it. People’s Audit can inspire the trainees to try it and help increase their capability. People’s Audit can help create basic characteristics of good citizen such as personality, leadership, social capital and mindset. When paradigm shifts and action occurs, the productivities increase. Then there are lessons from implementation of People’s Audit concept. People’s Audit, accordingly, can be

- process in improving public services deliveries - content in establishing participatory democracy, new public

administration and improving public services deliveries - context of works or activities - activities for public services deliveries ( planning, implementation

and evaluation) After having lessons learnt from the process, the next step is knowledge management.


101

3. Lesson Learnt from Policy Engagement and Decisions Lessons from policy engagement and decisions can be classified into 2 groups, the local and national levels.

For both levels, there are both 1997 and 2007 constitutions as well as many laws and regulations that support the application of public participation tools. However, the knowledge on People’s Audit is quite limited and the government officials still get used to the old paradigm of administration.

At the local levels, leaders and staff at DLA are important factors to accept the concept. The continuity of personnel and consistent policy are also crucial factors. If these people aware of new model of public participation, People’s Audit will be introduced to the local government organization..

In addition, if the local government organizations themselves see the importance of People’s Audit and participate in the program, they will get succeeded in strengthening public participation activities in their communities. From our experience, some of them received awards accordingly.

At the national level, both leaders and staff are also important too. The OPDC establishes the indicators to measure the performance of the government organizations in implementing the open system. To fulfill these indicators, People’s Audit has been introduced to the 75 provinces. Some public participation tools have been applied by the government officials and people in many provinces to improve the service deliveries.


102

Recommendations for Follow- on Actions This project has been conduct since year 2003. The work period covers quite long period of time. There has been an application of knowledge in various work units in various organizations either to direct enhance the Service Delivery or the create participation process or both. Either way, the projects are effectively conducted to promote participatory democracy. In order to have follow on actions, we would like to propose the following recommendations.

Policy Implication

1. The government should effectively implement the Constitution 2007 by applying People’s Audit concept in both national and local levels. The OPDC and DLA are the key organizations for fulfilling this.

The 1997 and 2007 Constitutions mandate the public participation, especially the 2007 one. There is specific section on public participation policy that The State shall act in compliance with the public participation policy by encouraging public participation in the determination of public policy and the making of economic and social development plan both in the national and local level, encouraging and supporting public participation to make decision on politics and the making of economic and social development plan and the provision of public services, encouraging and supporting public participation in the examination of the exercise of State power at all levels in the form of profession or occupation organisation or other forms (section 87). Therefore, the pressure from the constitution will help enhance public participation. People’s Audit can be the tool for implementing the constitution.

For the local level, not only section 87, there is specific sections related to local administration as follows;

the Section 281. the State shall give autonomy to local government organisation with the principle of self-government according to the will of the people in a locality and shall encourage local government organisation to be the principal public services provider and to participate in rendering resolution to any problem occurs within its vicinity and Section 287. People in a locality have the right to participate in the administration of local government organisation and the local government organisation shall facilitate the people to have participation thereto.

So far, there has been no effective mechanisms for implementing this public participation policy, People’s Audit is the solution to this.


103

Administration

To enhancing Public Ability to Promote Public Service Delivery Procedure, every sector must have work procedure that determines to enhance the public potentiality in order to participate in this process and the service provider must be able to work. The following are recommendations for People’s Audit administration.

1. Continue People’s Audit activities so that public appreciation in public services deliveries can be sustained.

2. Use People’s Audit as KNOW HOW for local government for establishing public participation

3. Award the outstanding organizations applying People’s Audit concept 4. Organize PA forum fro exchange experience and knowledge among those

who apply PA concept. 5. extend PA to other regions such as to other countries in ASEAN. The Ministry

of Foreign Affairs should work in collaboration with UNDP/ Thailand to invite the foreigners to come to learn PA in Thailand.

6. Increase new loop of PA implementation so that the lessons can be studied. 7. Start from small units and extend to larger units 8. Arrange public relation to increase recognition in meaning, boundary, target

and objective of the project via radio and other channels. 9. Adjusting Culture of the Organization must begin from providing knowledge,

exercising and real practicing. The attitude of employee will be adjusted to achieve new behavior. New culture will create constant learning.

10. Establish inspiration for top executives to participate in the project then persuade persons at other levels so they would accept the idea of participation. This project had arranged several seminars to provide knowledge to the government officials from various departments, including private meeting. The public sector will receive invitation through community leaders.

11. Build team of experts in each area to responsible for training the person who will participate in the project to be able to work. The team will also be a mentor in working, observing and conduct a participatory research. The team member will be selected from the person who share same idea, believe in participatory democracy, interest to experiment and want to work for the social.

12. Implement the procedure and prepare a report, conclusion on lesson, present to the public to convey the outcome. Research and Evaluation should be conducted to broadcast the concept that passed the test and have concrete result.


104

Recommendations on Post-Project Review For effective People’s Audit, the operator needs to rely on the principles in order to a c h i e v e s u c c e s s f u l w h i c h a r e ,

11. Commit to the job and determine commitment as important policy for the work unit

12. Share mutual understanding, objective, target, participation process and feed back obtained from the evaluation. Most essential is sharing same participation activity and have thorough communication with each other.

13. Practice evenly to ensure that people in different area can also access to this activity as well.

14. Mutually Respect in ensure that every body shares part of responsibility and willing to listen to other person opinion.

15. Be responsible to ensure that the related officials and public will share responsible and to ensure that this project will achieve the target because the allocated resources and enough time provided.

16. Be accountable in ensure that the information earned from the evaluation is actually collected from the period that participation has been transmitted to all of the participants and to show that the result of this study has been introduced to the policy setting process.

17. Be cooperative in ensure that various departments will be involved and practice the project and agree to collaborate. Networking is very important for PA.

18. Be confident in each other to ensure communication and establish relationship.

19. Be integrative, think as a whole and bilateral working to ensure wide span of participation that covers every group of people interested and might be effected from decision making of the government and local administration.

20. Start from positive thinking will create good impression to each other and encourage collaboration. If the project is started with negative thinking, deficiency or contradiction then it will cause obstacle to the operation.


105

Appendix In June 2005, representatives from the Office of UN Development Programme visited the People's Audit project in Phetburi province. Consequently, executives of Rong Khe and Ta Mai Ruak tambon administration organizations were rejoiced with an opportunity to boast their performance.


106

In August 2005, administrators of the Civil Servant Commission of Mongolia visited this project in Chiang Rai province to study application of the People's Audit concept with municipality, public health, basin and forestry management as well as safeguarding life and property.


107

Experience sharing meeting on 6 November 2006.

Deputy Mayor of Sakon Nakhon municipality is talking about experiences in application of the People's Audit.


108

Study tour of an advisor of Bhutan king in February 2007 Broadening the scope of the People's Audit concept and participation techniques used by various organizations Students of Klaeng Withaya Sathaporn School under patronage of Sonta International Club, Bangkok 6, used the People's Audit concept to encourage participation in environmental quality management, surveillance of toxic chemicals. Training was held on 14 January 2007.


109


110


111

Training at Ngao TAO in Chiang Rai province in January 2007

Exercising the People’s Audit to build participation and consensus in a training program of the Ministry of Social Security and Human Development which was held during 3-4 February 2007.


112

Study tour in the People's Audit project by the deputy minister of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan during 27 April-3May 2007.


113

After training finishes, recreational activities are provided by project administrator.

peopleaudit

Documents

peoples audit service

peoples audit website

peoples audit network

peoples opinion

form peoples audit awareness

advanced peoples audit

government practice

government official