Public Administration

"Αναλύθηκαν αριθμητικά δεδομένα που αφορούν τις δαπάνες του Οργανισμού Περίθαλψης Ασφαλισμένων Δημοσίου (Ο.Π.Α.Δ.) για τη φαρμακευτική φροντίδα, την ιατρική φροντίδα και τις παρακλινικές εξετάσεις για την περίοδο 2003-2008, ανά περιφέρεια και στο σύνολο της επικράτειας. Τα συμπεράσματα είναι πολλά και ενδιαφέροντα και μεταξύ των άλλων έχουμε ότι σε επίπεδο επικράτειας παρατηρήθηκε γενικά μια δυσανάλογη αύξηση των δαπανών για τη φαρμακευτική και ιατρική περίθαλψη αλλά όχι και για τις παρακλινικές εξετάσεις, σε σχέση με την αύξηση των ασφαλισμένων, όπως φάνηκε και από την σημαντική τάση που εμφάνισαν οι κατά κεφαλή δαπάνες. Ακόμα σύμφωνα με τα διατιθέμενα οικονομικά στοιχεία για την περίοδο 2003-2008, διαπιστώνεται διαχρονικά μία αύξηση των δαπανών υγειονομικής φροντίδας που στο μεγαλύτερο μέρος της οφείλεται σε αύξηση των ιατροφαρμακευτικών δαπανών.

Λέξεις κλειδιά: Σύστημα Υγείας, δαπάνες, καμπύλες Lorenz, στατιστική ανάλυση."

""This paper introduces an indicator framework, which allows for a valid and reliable assessment of the service quality of customer-focused government services. While defining service quality is a difficult task, also operationalizing and measuring such an elusive concept can never be done perfectly due to a number of problems. Given the ‘soft’ nature of service quality, most prior research has focused on survey-based methods, which while being essential have serious flaws owed to this method’s inherent lack of reliability. Following suggestions by prior research in the field, this paper develops an assessment framework combining a ‘soft’ indicator based on a SERVQUAL survey with a set of ‘hard’ variables adding the reliability, which previous approaches lack.
The indicator was initially developed, tested and re-adjusted for measuring service quality in Berlin’s 40 Bürgerämter. However, it can be adapted in a way that it is applicable to most customer-based government services. The ‘soft’ part of this indicator was developed on the lines of five dimensions, scoring services according to their tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.

On the ‘hard’ dimension, we have picked a set of eleven variables, which unequivocally add/subtract from service quality, while having the advantage of being measured in a straightforward manner. While the operationalization and weighting of these variables is open to academic and professional debate, we are confident to have followed a transparent and clearly comprehensible process. We acknowledge, however, that these variables will have to be adjusted when other services are being measured.
All in all, the developed Service Quality Indicator for Customer-Based Public Services (SQI) should be regarded as a starting point for a comprehensive and easily constructible framework to assess service quality in the good governance arena. We hope that this indicator framework will be perfected to the point that it can contribute to a better overall measurement and therefore improvement of government services.
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The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

As megaprojects have become ubiquitous, their real benefits and costs have come under increased scrutiny. We interviewed Bent Flyvbjerg, who has extensively studied megaproject development. Flyvbjerg has found systematic problems in the development process: by intentionally misrepresenting information and deliberately disregarding risks, proponents instigate projects that result in fewer benefits and higher costs than promised.

"Democratic orientation in Nigeria in 1999 raised genuine aspirations over timely poverty reduction in the country. However, rural dwellers have remained worse off, hunger pervading and few known infrastructures eroding rapidly. Correspondingly, the crime rate has surged, as a miserable outcome of non-availability of geniuine sources of livelihood. Therefore, this paper seeks to evaluate the impact of poverty alleviation schemes on poverty reduction in rural communities in Nigeria. The method of data collection for this study is descriptive survey. Accordingly, 120
questionnaires were randomly administered to residents of selected five communities in Orsu, and elicited information was systematically analyzed. We argue that the implementation of poverty alleviation programmes in Orsu Local  Government Area has not appreciably translated into poverty reduction. Issues to
contend with are poor funding, mismanagement of funds (bureaucratic corruption), and sudden project/policy abandonment. Hence, there is an urgent need for proper funding and monitoring of poverty alleviation schemes in rural communities in Nigeria."

""In Nigeria, people are no longer suffering and smiling, as Fela sang, but, suffering and dying. Hence, the growing incidences of poverty and concomitant problems in Nigeria are, indeed,
critical issues of concern and contention. The bulk of the matter hinges upon finding apt solutions and strategies to open up and unburden human beings form abject poverty. Thus, numerous ways are sought, to rapidly and timely enhance human capacity. The National Poverty Alleviation Programme (NAPEP) is yet another effort, by the Federal Government, in this direction. Accordingly, NAPEP has had its generous footage in Enugu State of Nigeria, in the course of its confident voyage across the country. This paper is, therefore, a genuine effort to evaluate the implementation of NAPEP programmes in Enugu State and its overall outcome and impact on human capacity enhancement. The descriptive survey method of data collection is adopted. In this way, we obtained our primary data through the distribution of questionnaire, which was designed for selected beneficiaries of NAPEP programmes in the three major zones in Enugu State. In addition, our method of data analysis was based on the use of simple frequency and percentages. We argue, principally, that the implementation of NAPEP programmes, including the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), has not tangibly reflected upon high
feasibility of human capacity enhancement in Enugu State. We conclude that there is urgent need for different levels of governments in Nigeria to exhibit more political will and commitment in the fight against poverty and its attendant problems in the country.""

This article addresses three main issues. First, it argues that David Laitin, in a misguided critique of Bent Flyvbjerg’s book Making Social Science Matter for being a surrogate manifesto for Perestroika, misrepresents the book in the extreme. Second, the article argues that Laitin’s claim that political science may become normal, predictive science in the natural science sense is unfounded; the claim is a dead end that perestroikans try to get beyond. Finally, the article proposes that political scientists substitute phronesis for episteme and thereby avoid the trap of emulating natural science. By doing so, political scientists may arrive at social science that is strong where natural science is weak: in the reflexive analysis and discussion of values and interests aimed at praxis, which is the prerequisite for an enlightened political, economic, and cultural development in any society.