Business | General
Roadmap for the future
We spoke with Ahmad Bin Bayat, Secretary General of the Dubai Executive Council and Chairman of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme (DGEP), about the aims that have been defined in the Dubai Strategic Plan (DSP) for government excellence, the role of DGEP and other initiatives.
- By Neesha C. Salian, Staff Writer
- Published: 23:38 May 3, 2009
We spoke with Ahmad Bin Bayat, Secretary General of the Dubai Executive Council and Chairman of the Dubai Government Excellence Programme (DGEP), about the aims that have been defined in the Dubai Strategic Plan (DSP) for government excellence, the role of DGEP and other initiatives.
What are the steps that will be taken to facilitate the objectives for government excellence set out in the Strategic Plan?
The Dubai Government has incurred a reputation for effective and speedy implementation of its set objectives. This will be no different. There are specific procedures and plans that will be adopted to implement the main issues in government excellence and other sectors, which will be carried out in close co-ordination with other departments using a systematic and programmed approach.
Examples of how government departments have started working towards their objectives include the Dubai Municipality's recent announcement of its updated policy. The Dubai Police also announced its updated review and policy.
There's also a methodology in place to review the execution of these directives. This will also help us determine why there's a delay in the implementation and analyse the reasons for the hold-up.
What role has the DGEP played in helping the government adopt internationally benchmarked best practices in its administration and services?
Since its inception, the programme has had a positive and direct impact on the government's systems, services and policies.
The programme is based on the EFQM excellence model (European Foundation for Quality Management), which has been successfully validated in European countries.
The model has also been customised to suit our requirements. We have also added principles related transparency, innovation and continuous learning to the model. We learn and also encourage other departments to learn from best practices, and benchmark their performance against the world-class examples.
We are proud that this programme has contributed directly to the growth and quality of the services rendered by the government. However, we still have a long way to go and we are committed to improving our methods, services and policies in our quest for excellence. This concept is also deeply rooted in government employees and the heads of different departments.
How is the government working towards improving responsiveness and customer service?
The Mystery Shopper is an important initiative being taken to ensure higher standards of customer service. As part of this initiative, trained people assess the performance of different sectors of the government based on different criteria, including friendliness, customer service, customer satisfaction, the queuing system, parking facilities and others.
We have also recently implemented an integrated customer complaint system concerning the services delivered by the public sector. The system, the first of its kind in the region, will help different government departments understand, address and resolve customer complaints effectively.
Such initiatives have been launched to not just improve our service but also to exceed the quality of service provided by the private sector.
What direction can the government take to empower and motivate public sector employees? How will you be working with the Dubai Institute for Human Resource Development (DIHRD) to achieve this objective?
This is definitely an important issue for us. We will be concentrating strongly on training and enhancing the skills of public sector employees. We will define training requirements for government employees.
We will also work towards lessening the gap between the existing skills and capabilities of the employees and those that are expected of them. Training programmes to empower and enhance skills of government employees — in areas such as strategic planning and customer service — to help them offer the highest standards of professionalism are also being initiated.
We will be working with the DIHRD in creating programmes tailored to address specific skills. We also issued the Civil Services law recently, which will be a role model in the field of human resources.
What are some of the challenges that you are likely to face in carrying out objectives laid out in the Dubai Strategic Plan?
We live in a world of flux. Some people believe that long-term plans are not practical in such a fast-paced and dynamic environment as ours.
However, if you have a systematic roadmap for the future, as we do in the form of the Dubai Strategic Plan, we can achieve important milestones. It is only natural that we will be faced with various challenges, including competition in the business environment, on our path. The only way to face these is to adopt a determined stance and accomplish these goals efficiently and at a dynamic pace.
We also see this plan setting an example for other governments, as have our initiatives such as the Dubai Government Excellence Programme, which was launched by Shaikh Mohammad in 1997 as a pioneering visionary concept. There was no other programme of its kind in existence. Today there are seven such government excellence programmes in the Arab world.
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