Madinah governor launches performance prize for government agencies

Madinah Governor Prince Faisal ibn Salman thursday signed a contract with a private sector company in collaboration with a German firm to introduce prizes for excellence in government agencies.
Orientation workshops will be held in Madinah on Sunday to familiarize participants with rules and regulations and a criteria for the “Prize for Excellent Performance in Government Agencies.”
There will be gold, silver and bronze categories and weekly and monthly performance assessments for various departments.
Analysts believe that the launch of the prize scheme is the first step toward fostering a competitive spirit between various government agencies and pushing them to achieve high performance levels and services. Wahib As Sahli, supervisor of the prize, assistant deputy governor for development affairs and secretary of the area’s board, said the scheme covers three areas of performance: customer satisfaction levels, improvement levels and quality control systems.
The first criterion seeks to identify the department that reaps maximum customer satisfaction. “There are various ways to gauge responses, such as deploying "undercover" shoppers, conducting direct surveys and opinion polls and determining the quality of alternative means such as phone services, websites and electronic applications,” he said.
Continuous improvement involves comparing government agencies' adoption of systems and the various policies they deploy to secure contiguous improvement in various areas.
Quality control systems include comparing agencies with regard to their adoption of quality control systems and institutional distinction that can enhance the confidence of those who seek the services.
The prize mechanism also benefits from the best international practices in order to achieve its goals of enhancing such services.