Systemic and organizational barriers to service quality improvement in local government administration

The objective of this paper is the identification of the main systemic and organizational barriers to the improvement of the quality of services provided by local government administration with special emphasis on the processes of administrative services provision. The article is based on the results of literature analysis as well as the results of audits conducted in local government offices (in the process system). The research indicates that there exist a number of barriers connected with the functioning of quality management systems. The most significant ones include the following: absence of identified customer requirements, neglect of quality requirements reviews, absence of proper supervision over external processes, limited awareness of the importance of preventive and corrective measures, misinterpretation of ISO standard criteria, performance of activities which do not create added value, mistaking quality audits for inspections. The main organizational barriers comprise the following: absence of the process approach and absence of knowledge of the so-called key processes, which is visible in the incorrect designing of organizational structures and an excessively developed bureaucratic document circulation system.