Client Orientation as the Device for the Increasing

Introduction
Bureaucratic paradigm by the nature does not give room for the “customer
orientation”. (I am later explaining, why I am using quotes.) An official inside
bureaucracy should serve his superior and be responsible to him. Rules and
regulations defining his actions are expected (at the best) to reflect public will and
citizens needs indirectly. Therefore improving “customer service” is considered as
supplementary and recourse consuming obligation, imposed by politicians.
Introduction of feasible and effective devices of “customer orientation” is presuming
changes of basic PA paradigms. I am focusing firstly on main reasons of changes that
can better explain basic strategies of modernisation aimed to reduce the gap between
government and citizen.
The development of post-war welfare state should not be treated purely as an
accumulation and increase of welfare and, its crisis, consequently as the point, where
the process has reached physical and financial limits. The basic reason of crisis was
rooted in the internal logic of traditional government and public organisations. They
were per se inward looking and were not suited to follow rapid changes in their
environment. At the previous stage of development the public organisations were able
to neutralise market failures, because services and goods were relatively standartized
and simple; their characteristic were quite stable. In 1960-s essential shift in the
citizens’ basic needs took place, that presumed more complex, more diversified (or
individualised) services and goods. Basic justification of service delivery by public
organisations – their ability to reduce transaction costs – became redundant: attempts
to meet increasing citizens’ demands by traditional organisation rapidly increased
their costs without obvious improvement of their quality. So, the simplest solution
was offered – let get these services back to the market, that would rise the efficiency
and transparency of the...