IT in Improvement of Public Administration

Abstract

Bialystok City Hall is an organ of public administration. The city of Bialystok has 280,000 inhabitants. In result of the political transformation in Poland, the new authorities have inherited a bureaucratic and inefficient management system as well as an outdated IT. In the electoral programme for 2000 - 2004, the following objectives have been set for the City Hall: to significantly improve the quality of operations and, in particular, to reduce time of handling affairs; to provide complex and professional customer service; to improve the management of assets. In order to improve the City Hall management system, reengineering and TQM rules have been applied. The new management system has been based on new IT solutions, including extranet network and integrated database. In consequence of those changes, some significant results have been achieved, e.g., an improvement of the quality of customer service and also a possibility to monitor the City Hall operational procedures. The vital result however, was a reduction of the decision-making time by the average of 30% and the reduction of the routine affairs handling time by the average of 25%.