Public Institutions’ Electronic Communication with Citizens Needs Refinement
Communication between a government and a citizen, including communication on websites and social networks, is currently of a unilateral nature - reads the report prepared by Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI), that concerns the communication strategy for the governmental institutions.
The research has been prepared within the framework of the Electronic Connection Development in Georgiaproject, based on the analysis of the information requested by IDFI from the public institutions.
IDFI sent questions to the 24 central public institutions: the President’s Administration, State Chancellery, TbilisiCity Hall, State Audit Service, Central Election Commission, to all the ministries and state ministry bodies (except for the office of State ministry for employment issues)
1. The aforementioned institutions were requested the following public information:
1. The current program of public relations. 2. The number of visitors of the public institution’s website in 2011. 3. The number of visitors of the public institution’s website since January 1, 2012 until now. 4. The number of questions sent to the official email of a public institution in 2011. 5. The number of questions sent to the official email of a public institution since January 1, 2012 until now. 6. The number of questions in a contact form found on the official website of a public institution. 7. The number of questions in a contact form found on the official website of the Ministry of Public Institutions from January 1, 2012 until now. 8. The number of citizens’ questions replied by a public institution via its official email. 9. The number of citizens’ questions replied by a public institution via its official email from January 1, 2012 until now.
According to the research conducted, “the public institutions pay an insufficient attention to the existent means of communication on their websites. For the most part, the letters received by a public institutions aren’t registered by means of the email or the writing function integrated in the website. The public institutions often show no concern of the number of visitors of their websites. The majority of the public institutions haven’t so far developed strategic program of public relations.”
IDFI stresses as well, that “a positive tendency has also marked itself, as it becomes clear from the answers of the public institutions that the development and refinement of the communication with the society progressively takes its place in the priority agenda of the governmental structures.”
To view the recommendations and full version of the research click here.
