‘Citizen engagement’ at the USJ

A public lecture on “Citizen Engagement and Quality of Life: A Toolkit” was held Wednesday by expert Lyle Wray at the University of St Joseph (USJ).
The presentation described six elements from customer service involving the value proposition for a public service, a vision building and direction setting, co-producing results such as reduction of childhood obesity, citizen academies as a tool for effective participation in and understanding of public sector processes, and also evaluation of public services in partnership with citizens and nongovernmental organizations, and targeting and measurement of community quality of life dimensions without regard to public services.
The thesis of the work described is that active citizen engagement in the quality of life process is likely to lead to more effective, efficient and responsive public services and enhanced quality of life.
The speaker yesterday had a meeting with Government officials from several departments to share “technical issues” on its performance measurement regarding the public services. However, Lyle Wray did not mention any advice given to the Government, saying it was only a presentation and a question and answer session.
Lyle Wray is executive director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments based in Connecticut and has written and made numerous presentations on citizen engagement, performance measurement and use of citizen-centric web public services. From 1992 to 2003, Lyle Wray was the executive director of the Citizens League based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He was appointed to the Connecticut Education and Training Commission in 2007 and is the Chair of the Performance Measurement Committee responsible for drafting the annual report to the legislature. He teaches public administration courses online in metropolitan government, outcomes measurement for public services, public service redesign and e-government.