Does the Israeli government consult with and listen to the people? Some ministries do and many do not, according to the Center for Citizen Empowerment, which has just published the first chapter of an index that ranks government ministries in terms of providing a solution and service to Israeli citizens and listening to the public in decision-making processes. 

The assessment was conducted during the last quarter of 2021, which means that the results covered the previous Likud government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu and very little under the new coalition government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.  

Lawyer Eli Mogilevsky, CEO of the Center for Citizen Empowerment, explained: “Our goal is to help the government work better for the public. This is the first time that all government ministries have been comparatively examined in terms of service, responsibility, public participation, access to information and effectiveness. Our aim is to compare government ministries so they can improve in the areas in which we measure them and examine how much government ministries really manage to work for us citizens. 

The non-partisan and independent Center for Citizen Empowerment, founded in 2003 by the late Yitzhak Preuz Nazarian and his daughter Dora Nazarian, is an organization that works to improve the administration in Israel, promote the executive’s executive capabilities and increase the effectiveness of the public sector. Since its establishment in 2003, the Center has led extensive public activity on changing the system of government and promoting governmental stability, and currently focuses on improving the processes of implementing government policy in Israel and the functioning of the executive branch.

The sources of information included, among others, the office sites on gov.il (the government legislation site), a public participation site, official Facebook pages, publications and reports from the ministries, as well as the ministries’ responses to clarification requests. In the last stage, the index data were presented together with the measurement methods for the reference of all bodies measured and leading research bodies in the field. The references were presented to a non-partisan, professional advisory steering committee that includes senior officials and senior officials from the public sector and academia, for validity and accuracy in accordance with the comments and criticism we received.

The best marks were – surprisingly – earned by the Health Ministry (which was widely criticized in the media during the COVID-17 pandemic), followed by the Israel Employment Service, the Education Ministry and the Justice Ministry. The worst marks were given to the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and the Prime Minister’s Office. 

As part of the Citizen Empowerment Index in Government Work, 32 government ministries and affiliated government units were assessed, focusing on the ability of government bodies to involve the public in decision-making processes

Only nine public bodies have a full-time “public participation supervisor. Twelve of the public bodies did not hold any significant consultation with the public during the 2021 work year, and only a small minority of all bodies that conducted public participation proceedings published the results of the consultations they held publicly.

Most government ministries publish consultations on legislation in a legal and minimalist form that makes it difficult for the public to understand the nature of the proposals and what the proposed change is and without background material, the survey found. Most of the public bodies measured did not have a meaningful dialogue with the public as required of them in the regulatory design process. 

In this area, the Justice Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry – which were found to adhere to relatively high standards in maintaining a quality dialogue with the public as part of policy promotion processes – excelled compared to the other government bodies.

With regard to a significant number of state institutions, problematic findings were found regarding the application of basic standards of response and public service. Only eight of them could be described as having public consultation services as clear and understandable. 

Some government ministries failed even to publicize the hours when then answered the telephone. About half of the government ministries have no dialogue with the public in the Arabic language. More than half of the government ministries surveyed repeatedly asked the public to provide information that was already in their possession as part of the service process. 

Most of the bodies examined did not have a deadline for providing service-level agreements (SLA) between the service provider and the customer describing the products or services to be delivered, a single point of contact for end-user problems and the metrics by which the effectiveness of the process is monitored and approved.

In this area, the Health Ministry received good marks for presenting much higher standards than the other ministries in terms of response and service to residents. Only this ministry operates and publishes information regularly on its Facebook page in Arabic. Many entities do not respond to citizens’ inquiries on their Facebook page within a reasonable time in responses to posts, comments in communities and inquiries in the Messenger app. 

The Finance Ministry and its Tax Authority stood out with very low marks, as – despite being in charge of the government’s economic policy – they did not publish a single public participation procedure during 2021 and found significant difficulties in meeting certain standards of service and response to the public, according to the Empowerment Index. 

The index will consist of four chapters. It was developed by the Center for Citizen Empowerment with the help of researcher Libby Maman and inspired by a study she conducted on the democratic qualities of regulators in the European Union. The index compares all government ministries in 25 parameters that relate to listening and responding to the public in government work. Among other things, it is measured how accessible and simple the service of these bodies is, the quality of communication with citizens in the framework of handling public inquiries and social networks and the degree of citizen participation