A focus group meeting with government officials on identifying hidden public services was held in Almaty

Project "Service Quality - Zone of Public Control" of the Private foundation for society development informational support within the framework of the USAID and Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia "Good Governance Initiative Fund" hosted a focus group meeting with employees of government agencies to identify hidden public services on May 30 in Almaty.

The event pursued two goals: to get information about examples, criteria, signs of hidden services from public servants - service providers; to hear out any suggestions for identifying hidden public services form the public servants.

The focus group was attended by 15 people.

Topics for discussion were: the concept of hidden public services, the need to identify hidden public services; distinctive features (criteria) of hidden public services; mechanism for identifying hidden public services.

In the course of the meeting, the participants shared their understanding of hidden public services, gave possible examples of such public services, talked about why it was so important to identify hidden public services, and what would happen if they were not identified. The topic of the development of a methodology for identifying hidden public services caused the liveliest discussion among the participants.

According to Sergey Pizikov, project director, 6 focus groups in three regions of Kazakhstan (Almaty, East Kazakhstan and Pavlodar oblasts) are planned to be held with employees of state agencies that provide services. The focus group should consist of 10-12 participants not managers, who are directly involved in the process of providing state services.