Social Audit of Governance and Delivery of Public Services (Pakistan)

The social audit of governance and public service delivery has the following key objectives:
• to monitor the effects of, and inform policy makers about, the devolution of public service delivery and local governance;
• to assess the views of citizens about public services, measure citizens’ knowledge about local governance,and evaluate their participation; and
• to increase the informed interaction between communities and public service providers.

Qualitative and quantitative data are used, collected through household questionnaires, community profile questionnaires, published and available administrative data, interviews with elected representatives and service providers, and focus group discussions. Most of the information is subjective, although objective information resting
on published and available administrative data is also used.

Within each district, representative communities are selected by a two-stage stratified random sampling process. The sampling frame in each district is represented by the official list of union councils within the district, which are stratified in rural and urban types in order to include a proportion of urban and rural sites according to the urban and rural population proportions in the census. The allocated number of union councils for the district is then picked randomly from the list of urban and rural union councils for the district. For each of the randomly selected union councils, a list of communities and villages is obtained and a random selection of one community from each list is obtained.

The household questionnaire (organised into four section: general, public services, local government and community participation) together with the community profile questionnaire focus on the use, experience and perception of public services. These findings are linked to the data collected from the service providers, the elected representatives and government officials,and analysed in order to identify actions for improving service delivery. The findings are discussed with communities through focus groups in order to develop possible solutions that would be discussed and implemented jointly by service providers, planners and community representatives.This cycle is expected to be repeated regularly. Table 26 presents the two main themes and the specific issues analysed in the social audit of governance and public service delivery in 2004-05.

In the first exercise, two sets of gender-based focus group discussions were conducted. The social audit also gives particular attention to women in analysing and organising the results, as also demonstrated in the report extract.

The social audit gives particular attention to poor, vulnerable and marginalised groups; most results are also disaggregated to highlight the particular experiences of these sub-groups.

http://www.ciet.org/en/documents/projects/200621012547.asp