How Much is That…

…doggy in the window (arf! arf!) The one with the waggley tail (you’ll be humming that for the remainder of the day now, won’t you).

Our focus in this post, though, is not on cuddly canines, rather it’s on the value of public services. Unlike private service whose value is often determined by whether they are profitable or not (in other words,  do they generate more revenue than it costs to produce the service), the value delivered by public services is not as transparent. This is because the public does not directly pay for services; rather what services are provided and in what quantity is decided by elected / public officials and generally funded from taxation receipts.

The consequence of this lack of transparency is that ‘valueless’ public services are much likely to continue to be ‘dog-gedly’ produced. This is in contrast to private services, which if they lose value will lose demand and the resultant drop in the revenue generated will likely lead to reduction or cessation of production of these services.

A number of  models  have been proposed for measuring public service value. e.g. Accenture Public Sector Value Model, Willingness To Pay Model, Component Based Estimation, etc. Calculating public service value though, using any of these models is not trivial .

So ‘paws’ for thought and think about these: If you work for a public service provider, do you calculate the value your services provide? If so, how do you do so? How do you use the output of your calculation?

Interested in your views. ‘Woof’ you be kind enough to share them?