“Our Lives Are Affected by Government Agencies”: Citizens’ Perception Survey as a Measure of Public Service Efficiency in Ghana

Abstract

Efficiency in public service delivery is critical in enhancing and improving the quality of citizens’ lives. Conversely, inefficient public service delivery has profound adverse effects on the quality of citizens’ lives. In the theory of public services efficiency, direct citizens’ surveys are a useful tool for measuring efficiency in public services. Our core consideration is the impact on human life, which is viewed as a function of the efficiency of public services delivered. We rely on the Ghana Living Standards Survey data to show that analytic leverage can be gained in gauging public perceptions of public services delivery using a perception index through the application of a comparative analytic design. Our results show that differences exist in the perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency among essential and auxiliary services, and such differences have also been found to mirror the spatio-economic attributes of citizens. We argue that public services can positively affect lives through a combination of policy measures spanning increased fight against corruption, improved funding, enhanced monitoring, and increased institutional capacity for improved expansion in physical presence, quality, and the visibility of public services.

Introduction

The concept of public service connotes the continuous provision of services offered by those in authority while conforming to prescribed values and attitudes. Public service could be considered a process, an attitude, and an activity. According to Duguit (1923), public services are activities that are of importance to the collective good, and those in authority are under obligation to continuously provide, even if through the use of force. Public services are, therefore, to be provided without interruption. However, public services are gradually drifting from the active provision of various services to a more secondary, supportive function of facilitating the initiatives of the private sector in line with capitalist ideologies and neoliberal market principles (MacDonald & Ruiters, 2012). In other words, the logic underpinning the drift in public services provision is a logic of public support for private responsibility (Gilbert, 2004). While this transition paves the way for an increased role of the private sector to deliver goods and services, it is likely to marginalize the role of the public sector and commercialize such services to the detriment of the poor and vulnerable in society. The drift in the function of public service organizations has failed to resolve the inefficiency challenges in service delivery because commercialization of public services seems to widen the rural–urban gap and impoverishes those in rural areas. Key challenges facing public services efficiency have been identified to include operational efficiency, financial accountability, improvements in product, and service quality (Kamoche, 1997). In business circles, efficiency is mostly seen as producing services at minimal cost, targeting a section of the population, and maximizing profits. The ability to surmount these challenges and to satisfy the needs of the population by providing public services has been used by the United Nations (UN) to measure the socioeconomic progress of countries and the well-being of citizens.

The UN Human Development Index (HDI) has shown remarkable progress at the global level, rising from a value of 0.598 in 1990 to 0.728 in 2017, representing a 21.7% increase. However, significant disparities exist when one examines regional-level dynamics. For instance, the bottom 5 of the 189 countries involved in the 2017 rankings are all African countries with Burundi (0.417) and Chad (0.404) occupying the bottom 2 (UNDP, 2018, pp. 1–2). Norway (0.953) and Switzerland (0.944), however, occupy the top 2 ranked slots, closely followed by Germany, Australia, and Ireland to complete the top 5. The HDI is a composite index comprising three essential elements: education, health, and income per capita. These top 5 ranked countries record high levels of socioeconomic development, a situation that completely outpaces their African counterparts. Meanwhile, in many African countries, including Ghana, there is a dearth of studies that compare efficiency of public services delivery along rural–urban lines. Therefore, utilizing performances in essential services of health and education as bases for determining the public’s perception of efficiency in public service delivery puts into perspective a global phenomenon in a national context.

In this article, we use Ghana, which mirrors the situation in sub-Saharan Africa by examining the impact of government services on the lives of citizens through an analysis of citizens’ perceptions of efficiency and competence. In doing so, we compare the perceptions of rural and urban dwellers on auxiliary and essential services within two time points in the periods 2012 and 2016. Our substantive claim is that variations exist in perceptions of the performance of auxiliary and essential services along rural–urban lines. We, thus, aim to answer the following key question: “How do citizens’ perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency vary across auxiliary and essential public services in Ghana?”

To do so, we examine perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency in public services delivery among rural and urban households and show that diversity exists in such perceptive evaluations. The overall goal is to analyze the impact of public services on the lives of citizens and how that shapes responses of public service institutions toward lifting their game to meet the public’s expectations, keeping in mind the often cited disparity along the rural–urban dichotomy. The article is structured such that we proceed with a review of the theory of public service efficiency, present our methodological approach, and proceed to analyze the empirical data. The final segment discusses the findings and concludes.

A Theory of Public Services Efficiency

Many studies employ the concepts of efficiency, effectiveness, and competence in measuring the delivery or performance of services. The definitions of efficiency and effectiveness are conveyed simply by emphasizing that efficiency is about the right things being done, whereas effectiveness is doing things right (Drucker, 1976). The concept of efficiency is about the performance of processes converting inputs into outputs. Efficiency, therefore, is a relative concept where an economic unit’s performance must be compared with standards, and value judgments are at the center of established standards (Førsund & Hjalmarsson, 1974).

In an attempt to improve the value judgment on services provided, policymakers have the responsibility for making decisions that have efficiency implications and for the design of reform strategies. Public administrators are responsible for the strategic management of public services. Therefore, service to the public, and citizen involvement and participation in government as democratic ideals should take precedence within public administration (Waldo, 1948). As such, public administrators must design and implement policies that are responsive to, and even shaped by, public needs and demands. Andrews and Entwistle (2014) contend that efficiency in the public sector is not only about minimizing cost and maximizing production outputs but also encompasses the quality of production outputs and who needs better or more quality outputs. It also includes whether there should be a reduction in existing outputs to divert investments into future service production, and the link between what is produced and the needs of citizens.

Waldo’s democratic ideals have received criticisms for being one-sided (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; Jørgensen & Andersen, 2011). Amid the hostility toward the value of efficiency, an alternative viewpoint is that there are broad, democratic, and far-sighted elements in the efficient public administration concept that can guide public managers’ decisions on the appropriate allocation of resources (Rutgers & Van der Meer, 2010).

Allocative, Distributive, Productive, and Dynamic Efficiency

Andrews et al. (2007) categorize efficiency into allocative, distributive, productive, and dynamic efficiency. Allocative efficiency is the balance between the demand for services and their supply. The concern is whether the goods and services produced are the ones that citizens value. Technically, a service may be provided very efficiently, but if it is not one that people want, it can still represent an inefficient allocation of resources. For Andrews and Entwistle (2014), the patterns of service utilization are a useful proxy measure of allocative efficiency. A bus without passengers or a library without readers might signify a misallocation of public resources. Nonetheless, citizens’ perception of the value of a library, or a bus, justifies the funding for their continued operation. Therefore, in public management, the rules of demand and supply do not always apply. Allocative efficiency can be measured by employing surveys to gauge citizens’ level of satisfaction with public services provided by a government (Dowding & Mergoupis, 2003). However, the reliability of citizens’ assessments seems to be a concern for several researchers because of the tendency to ascribe causal relationships coupled with the questions asked and the characteristics of the service as well as the respondent (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003). In other cases, the level of expectation will determine the level of satisfaction (James, 2011). The caution in using citizen surveys in measuring allocative efficiency is for researchers to control for conditions such as expectation, citizen, and service characteristics.

Distributive efficiency measures the distribution of services to citizens and their relative cost to government and society. Viewed from the Pareto-efficiency perspective, the distribution of goods or services is considered optimally efficient when any change in the distribution to satisfy one group tends to disadvantage other groups (Andrews & Entwistle, 2014). The Pareto view of distributive efficiency has received criticisms on its optimality (Greenwald & Stiglitz, 1986; Hicks, 1939; Wolf, 1987). Lerner (1944) argues emphatically that Pareto’s view on efficient resource distribution is affected by the problem of diminishing marginal utility. Lerner, therefore, claims that society stands to benefit from the redistribution of specific resources from the rich to the poor. Therefore, there is a good reason for advocating that governments play a vital role in the distribution of resources to maximize social efficiency. Thus, distributive efficiency is the most effective and efficient process for the distribution of goods and services to those who need them (Lerner, 1944). Measuring distributional efficiency involves efforts to disaggregate the quantity and quality of service outputs by different social groups. It can also be measured with the use of specialized indicators designed for the purpose of measuring distributional policy outcomes (Andrews & Entwistle, 2014).

Productive efficiency deals with the relative inputs required to achieve the primary outputs of production. The logic is that, in providing one service, an inverse relationship arises where there could be a cut in the quantity or quality of another service. Hence, productive efficiency is sometimes described as productivity. Ultimately, it implies the effort to simultaneously pursue the maximization of outputs and the minimization of inputs (Farrell, 1957). It also incorporates concepts of cost-effectiveness in producing a given unit of organizational performance (Ostroff & Schmitt, 1993). The selection of the least costly method for delivering outputs is generally regarded as a matter for the professional judgment of public managers. Politicians and their senior officials have the job of developing policies likely to foster productive efficiency. Policies such as devolution of power and the establishment of single-purpose agencies (Osborne & Gaebler, 1993), privatization or deregulation (Swann, 1988), and mandatory competitive tendering (Eliassen & Sitter, 2008) are thought to reduce production costs.

To determine the production cost and output of a service―the productive efficiency of any given public service―it is indispensable to measure the inputs and processes involved in the provision of such services. Analysts contend that the measurement of outputs is the most challenging aspect of evaluating productive efficiency in the public sector (Simpson, 2009). In many instances, however, budget estimates are used to measure inputs, and citizens’ experiences measure the quality of public service outputs. Citizens can measure the volume of service, the speed and delivery of services, and the extent to which established services meet standards. An advantage of developing indicators of this kind is that they offer a clear and transparent yardstick by which to judge the achievements of public services against both their prior achievements and those of competitors (Andrews & Entwistle, 2014). It is, therefore, impossible to use a single indicator to measure productive efficiency because of the multiplicity of organizational goals, the joint production of services, and the publicness of public services.

Dynamic efficiency focuses on the allocation of resources, considering current and future consumption patterns. Freely determining market interest rates should, in theory, safeguard the balance between present and future consumption (Barrell & Weale, 2010). The decision to invest in infrastructure such as schools and hospitals carries the opportunity cost of reduced current consumption. At the same time, less capital investment leads to a decline in the flow of future benefits (Andrews et al., 2007). Economists believe that the activities of public services should produce the optimum possible benefits for the citizens, and they castigate governments when, in their view, resources are used inefficiently. Politicians may underinvest in desirable projects but overinvest in vanity projects. Public managers, therefore, need ways of measuring and managing dynamic efficiency so that they can make the right decisions about investment in capital projects and prioritize between different types of current expenditure.

However, public managers and their political masters want to know whether they are making the right resource allocation decisions to improve performance in the future. To address this problem, governments sometimes use leading indicators of dynamic efficiency, which are focused on the patterns of performance, the kinds of decisions, or the organizational characteristics that researchers think will lead to dynamic efficiency (Andrews & Entwistle, 2014). While regional governments may use income data to measure their performance, these broad measures of economic activity are unlikely to be appropriate for lower levels of government or, indeed, for agencies tasked with the delivery of particular services. Inputs of this type are easily measured as most government and public agencies report capital investment in one form or another.

The four categories of efficiency examined above are mutually reinforcing in ideas and practice in the public services space, providing a solid framework within which to analyze the efficient allocation of resources by governments to improve the well-being of citizens. This is appropriate for analyzing essential and auxiliary services within the Ghanaian context as varied motives shape the supply and demand for such services.

Research Design and Methodology

Method and Data Sources

To answer the question, How do citizens’ perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency vary across auxiliary and essential public services in Ghana?, we employ a comparative analytic design and make use of empirical data from the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) carried out by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in 2012–2013 and 2016–2017. A comparative analytic design allows us to examine patterns of similarities and differences in citizens’ perceptions of performance in public services delivery shaped by spatio-economic factors. The GLSS data are part of a periodic data collection exercise used to measure the standard of living of Ghanaians resident in both rural and urban areas. The World Bank introduced the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) in 1980 as part of measures to improve statistical data at the household level essential for social and economic policy design, implementation, and evaluation in developing countries (K. Scott et al., 2005). The LSMS, therefore, is a rich source of data for assessing the impact of public services on living standards of citizens. Using the GLSS data set, we identify and purposively select three essential services (Government Schools, the Police Service, and Government Medical Services) and three auxiliary services (Passport Office, the Registrar General’s Department, and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority) from the 2012–2013 (GLSS Round 6) and 2016–2017 (GLSS Round 7) data. Our data selection procedure is consistent with those employed by Clifton and Díaz-Fuentes (2010) in the European community, and Andrews and Van de Walle (2013) in the United Kingdom, whose studies distinguish between essential and auxiliary public services in the evaluation of citizens’ perceptions.

The data subset relied on is derived from the governance-effectiveness of government agencies section in the GLSS survey questionnaire. A nationwide sample of 18,000 households in 1,200 enumeration areas was used in the sixth round. In the seventh round, a sample of 15,000 households and 1,000 enumeration areas was used to generate the data. The survey question under which the data were generated in the GLSS sixth and seventh rounds is “Our lives are affected by government agencies. In your opinion, how do you find these agencies?” A 5-point Likert-type scale, with measurement items ranging from very competent/efficient to very incompetent/inefficient, and not applicable, was used. It is perceived that the more competent an institution is, the higher its level of efficiency. In making the data fit for our purpose, we recoded, where necessary, the following: “very competent/efficient” and “competent” into “competent/efficient”; “very incompetent/inefficient” and “incompetent” into “incompetent/inefficient” using SPSS version 22. This enabled us to generate Figures 1 and 2 in our analyses section. Not applicable meant that no one in the household had visited the institution for a service within the time of the survey. Therefore, such responses were treated as missing values.

Figure 1.

Perception of auxiliary services based on location.

Figure 2.

Perception of essential services based on location.

The analytic lens of our article focuses on households’ perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency of auxiliary and essential services in Ghana. We employ mainly an empirical analytic approach by describing our data patterns and offering explanations for observed similarities and differences. Besides, we identify patterns of strong/weak relationships and show correspondence along a rural–urban divide. We distinguish households in this study based on location (urban and rural). The designation of areas as urban or rural is mainly determined by population density and land size (Bibby & Shepherd, 2004). Rural areas are sometimes referred to as peripheries, or isolated areas where it is not profitable to provide certain services, or dwellers cannot afford services or do not need them altogether (Clifton & Díaz-Fuentes, 2010). In contrast, urban areas are characterized by availability and access to services like electricity, water, sanitation, health care, and education. A large pool of labor, a higher local market, lower information, and transaction costs, among others, make the urban area comparatively advantageous in demand for public services. Furthermore, the centrality of the urban area in governance arrangements makes it centripetal to essential and other services. However, the absence of these same preceding factors in the rural area propels an increase in internal migration of citizens to urban areas in pursuit of better living conditions. Meanwhile, governments are required to provide essential as well as auxiliary services to their citizens in both urban and rural areas. As such, an understanding of variations in citizens’ perceptions of efficiency of public services delivery across the rural–urban divide is critical in discussing improvements in the living conditions of citizens. We, thus, structure our analysis to address key questions of the study framed around issues of perceptions of the performance of essential and auxiliary services within rural and urban areas, and across them.

Analysis

Perceptions of Essential and Auxiliary Services Along the Rural–Urban Divide

The dichotomy in socioeconomic development between rural and urban areas is very vast in developing countries; hence, most public services are found in urban areas. Regardless of this disparity relative to location, citizens still have access to services that they need and are considered essential. Demand for auxiliary services does not, however, follow this logic. In the analyses that follow, we compare “highs” and “lows” on ratings of efficiency and inefficiency along a rural–urban divide for both auxiliary and essential services. We also use households and rural/urban areas/dwellers interchangeably in our analyses.

In the GLSS sixth round, rural households recorded an efficiency measure of as high as 32.2% (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority [DVLA]) and a low of 31.9% (Registrar General’s Department [RGD]) for auxiliary services. Inefficiency ratings for this same round of data collection ranged from a high of 12% (DVLA) to a low of 5.4% (RGD). A comparison of scores for the same public services across the two survey periods shows marked improvement in the seventh round. For example, whereas the DVLA recorded an efficiency score of 32.2% in the sixth round for rural households, this had increased to 43.6% in the seventh round. The score for the RGD also improved from a low of 31.9% to 45.7%. These efficiency results show increases of 11.4% and 13.8%, respectively, from the sixth to seventh rounds of the survey for the DVLA and RGD and signal that rural perceptions of efficiency of public services improved over the period. The inefficiency ratings for DVLA and RGD in the seventh round are 10.4% and 5%, respectively, showing a reduction in the perception of inefficiency when these scores are compared with the sixth round results of 12% and 5.4%, respectively, for the same public services organizations.

In respect of urban areas, efficiency scores ranged from a high of 51.3% (RGD) to a low of 38% (DVLA) in the GLSS sixth round. For inefficiency, however, the figures ranged from 17.8% (DVLA) to 11.3% (RGD) on a high–low continuum. In the seventh round, efficiency ratings for both the RGD and the DVLA reduced to 43.6% and 34.6%, respectively. The scores for inefficiency for these two public service organizations, however, improved by decreasing to 11.4% (DVLA) and 5% (RGD), respectively, from the previous 17.8% (DVLA) and 11.3% (RGD) sixth round ratings. Figure 1 shows details of the ratings.

From the descriptive analysis above, auxiliary services score higher ratings of efficiency in urban than in rural areas, whereas in respect of inefficiency, rural areas perform less poorly than their urban counterparts.

The second category of services in our analyses of scores of efficiency and inefficiency are essential services. For these essential services, urban areas recorded a high efficiency measure of 36.2% (government schools) and a low of 31% (police service) in the sixth round. For the inefficiency rating in the same sixth round, the police scored a high of 14.3% while two other essential services (the government schools and medical services) scored a low figure of 8.3%. In the GLSS seventh round, efficiency scores ranged from a high of 35.8% (government schools) to a low of 30% (police service) for urban dwellers. These seventh round results show a declining public perception of efficiency in the delivery of essential public services in urban areas. For inefficiency, the police service and government schools recorded a reduction in their scores, the two scoring a high of 13.1% and a low of 7.3%, respectively, showing marginal improvements in the public’s perception of inefficiency in public services delivery in urban areas.

In the rural areas, efficiency scores ranged from a high of 46.7% (government schools) to a low of 42.2% (police service) in the GLSS sixth round. Inefficiency scores also ranged from a high of 12.6% (police service) to a low of 8.7% (government medical services). Also, the results of the seventh round show slight improvements in ratings of government schools (48.2%) and the police service (45%) for rural areas from the previous 46.7% and 42.2%, respectively, in the sixth round. There is also an observed reduction in the inefficiency ratings for the police (11.9%) and the government medical services (8%) for the same period in rural areas, indicating a decline in public perception of inefficiency in essential public services provision. Figure 2 gives details of the measures.

Discussion

The main question undergirding our study is, “How do citizens’ perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency vary across auxiliary and essential public services in Ghana?” By applying the public service theory, and using rural and urban households as our sample population, our analyses show that variations exist across the rural–urban divide in respect of household assessments of the performance of public service institutions (both auxiliary and essential).

From our analyses, it is possible to gain analytic leverage in gauging public perceptions, attitudes, and opinions on the efficiency of essential and auxiliary public services using a nonmetric analytic approach. In general, essential services are deemed more impactful than auxiliary services. In other words, essential services affect lives more than auxiliary services, lending credence to the classification criteria used to group services as either essential or auxiliary. Essential services are also significantly patronized in both rural and urban areas. Nevertheless, variations exist in levels of patronage and perceptions of performance along a rural–urban divide, although essential services are comparatively widespread, accessible, and affordable and can be found within the dimensions of allocative efficiency. As the provision of essential services is a measure of government performance, most governments commit a substantial amount of their GDP toward the provision of essential services (see World Bank, 2014). Decentralization as a policy to ensure allocative efficiency (Rodríguez-Pose & Maslauskaite, 2012) offers local governments the opportunity to provide services at a lower cost (productive efficiency) and in a competitive way to citizens.

Local governments are mostly responsible for the provision of health care, education, sanitation, water, electricity, among others, to its citizens. The perceived ease of access to local authorities offers citizens a voice to express their disapproval when they have reason to believe public service delivery is inefficient. Citizens can, as well, opt out or exit localities where services are delivered inefficiently. Reback (2005) shows how open enrollment programs for students in Minnesota allow transfers from one school district to another. The use of voice and exit mechanisms are ways of determining the performance of service providers (Shah, 2003). Rural areas have limited alternatives to the kinds of services they receive from the government. Yet, they have a more prominent voice to complain and confront service providers and local authorities when services are provided abysmally because of their proximity. Urban dwellers, however, have a combination of voice and an exit mechanism. Competition among private health and education providers ensures the efficient delivery of public services.

Like most developing countries, government schools and hospitals are at the core of essential services. They have a more extensive client base and enroll a substantial number of students from the basic to the tertiary level. In the 2015 Ghana education sector performance report (ESPR), enrollment in public schools for the academic year 2014–2015 was 87.4%, while private schools absorbed only 12.6%. Government secondary schools and universities also enroll more students than private schools (see Government of Ghana, 2015) partly due to a government subsidy for public schools, supported by improved quality and access. Public primary schools are supposed to be free and compulsory, backed by a constitutional injunction, but resource constraints continue to stifle the attainment of this goal. The initiation of programs such as the Capitation Grant, the school feeding program, and, recently, the free senior high school program could be the basis for the perceived impact of education on households and, hence, the high ratings for government schools (46.7% and 48.2%, respectively, in the sixth and seventh rounds) particularly for rural households. The free senior high school program, in particular, has freed parents of significant financial demands, making disposable income available to families to spend on other commodities rather than education. This logic is consistent with the ideals of dynamic efficiency, where current spending in education could lead to future economic performance (Knudsen et al., 2006). Also, the equitable allocation of essential services like education across the country ensures distributive efficiency. However, education funding is not adequate; the politicization of education is a significant factor suffocating the educational system in Ghana. The Afrobarometer report for Ghana indicates that problems of unavailability of textbooks, absentee teachers, crowded classrooms, and poor teaching are the major problems when accessing public education (Armah-Attoh, 2015). In a situation where suboptimal planning underpins major educational programs, Ghana’s free senior high school program is likely to choke the tertiary education system. Already, little attention is paid to technical and vocational education and yet, the conversion of polytechnics into technical universities, teacher and nurses training colleges into tertiary-level educational institutions may generate a new but different strand of challenges.

In the area of health care, many studies have found that the distance to a health care provider influences the use of services more than other factors such as cost (Akin et al., 1998). The complementary services provided by medical teams, especially with the introduction of Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS), have expanded access to medical services. The introduction and patronage of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) also make health care affordable. For these reasons, access to public health care in rural areas has increased while urban centers have alternatives from private health care providers. In addition, health care spending has recorded modest increases since 1990. Data from the World Bank (2014) indicate an increase in public spending on health care in Ghana from 1.7% of GDP in 1990 to 2.96% of GDP in 2012. However, spending between 2008 and 2012 shot up to an average of 12.32% of total government spending, although, in 2012, only 9.72% of total government spending went into health. Nonetheless, Ghana’s expenditure levels in public health and the human capital stock are modest as compared with the standards of other lower middle-income countries. As a result, Ghana’s health indicators lag well behind those of most of its peers (G. K. Scott, 2019). Health care is one of the services that scored highly on the efficiency rating by rural dwellers (46.3% and 48.9%, respectively, for the sixth and seventh rounds of the GLSS), showing an improvement of 2.6% between the two data points. Problems such as long waiting queues, lack of medicines and supplies, lack of attention and respect for patients, and the absence of doctors are some of the challenges that still need to be addressed by the public medical services. In the meantime, challenges of access and affordability have compelled health-seekers to turn to traditional medicine as a substitute for conventional public medical services.

Whereas all essential services ranked high on scores of efficiency, the police service, an essential service provider, ranked highest on the inefficiency score for both rural and urban households. This may be explained by the high expectation the public have of the police in enforcing the law and maintaining order, and ensuring the security of lives and property. Given that the police are insufficiently resourced and deployed across the country coupled with consistent public opinion surveys ranking them among the top corrupt institutions in the country, any significant gains by the service are likely to be eroded by the negative tagging. For instance, Ghana’s police-to-population ratio in 2014 was 1:1926, a ratio almost twice as high as the UN recommended standard of 1:500 (Bagson & Owusu, 2016). The perception of inefficiency or lack of police professionalism, which affects the institution’s image, is not only a problem of developing countries. There has been the discovery “that support for the police is a ‘fuzzy,’ complicated, and multidimensional concept” (Worrall, 1999, p. 62). The findings by the preceding author portray the magnitude that a sense of negative police contact can shape the general public’s perception of the police. The implication is that there may be a global trend in citizens’ perceptions in policing, as described by previous surveys and particularly with respect to the situation in Ghana. This thought reinforces the belief that multiple factors influence how people perceive the police and that the implication of specific variables is partly a result of the operationalization of outcome measures. The police have limited capacity, a situation indirectly controlling most of the factors that influence how the public perceives them. However, they can influence the public’s perception by striving to satisfy the public, and being professional in their interactions. Indeed, the perception of citizens on the police is not all gloomy. There has also been a steady increase in the perception of efficiency since the GLSS sixth round.

The RGD received the highest rating of efficiency for auxiliary services in both rural and urban areas, showing the impact of the service on the lives of citizens. The improved rating by rural dwellers in the GLSS seventh round could be explained by the enhanced governmental support the institution has received in recent times. Government support has resulted in the expanded access to services such as certification to carry out business activities and reduced duration for business registration through digitization, among others. The slight reduction in the efficiency perception by urban dwellers points to the institution’s inability to rout out unauthorized intermediaries in the business registration and certification processes, and to bring technology to bear on its processes to increase output and meet citizens’ expectations.

Rural dwellers perceive the performance of the DVLA as impactful. This authority impacts the lives of citizens, because possessing a driver’s license is the first step toward obtaining a job as a driver, and being a driver is an essential source of livelihood to the household and other dependents. However, delays associated with acquiring driver’s licenses and processing of vehicle documentation such as registration and renewal of road worthiness, compounded by the presence of unauthorized intermediaries and other malpractices, cast a slur on the image of the DVLA. The authority’s use of a computerized system for testing prospective drivers among a population of mostly illiterate/semiliterate potential drivers further deepens the grounds for the unfavorable rating. The DVLA is a state institution that is replete with public complaints about the dissatisfaction of services rendered often related to speed and cost. The 4% reduction in the efficiency rating for the DVLA in urban areas shows that in the past 5 years, the driving authority has not made any significant strides at improvement. A lot still needs to be done by the DVLA to make citizens experience the impact of its existence.

Overall, essential services are ranked high in rural areas compared with auxiliary services considering the sample population of each service. Auxiliary services, however, rank high in urban Ghana compared with rural areas. The reverse of the reasons accounting for the low rankings in rural Ghana is believed to account for the trend in urban Ghana as most auxiliary service providers are located in the big cities across the country. The selective provision of services to those who can afford them can be considered as discriminatory. For example, out of the 16 current administrative regions in the country, the RGD has its presence in less than half of them. The location of auxiliary services could be influenced by a cost–benefit analysis (productive efficiency), which is a business-oriented rather than a public service-oriented model. Kettl’s (1998) view could well be relevant here because poor households are unlikely to patronize paid services because they cannot afford the rates charged, and are unable to travel to urban centers where these services can be accessed. Managing a public service with a business model tends to defeat the purpose of public service and, thus, makes citizens customers of government (Schachter, 1995). It is, therefore, not uncommon to find rural dwellers operating businesses without the necessary licenses, permits, and certification.

As noted above, there are differences in scores of efficiency and inefficiency among services (auxiliary vs. essential) and along the rural versus urban divide. This is consistent with our claim that variations exist in perceptions of the performance of auxiliary and essential services along a rural–urban dichotomy. These variations, our discussion has shown, are traceable to spatio-economic factors such as citizens’ location (rural or urban), accessibility/affordability of services, nature of service (either essential or auxiliary), among others. While admitting relatively abysmal ratings of auxiliary services by rural households, the slight improvements observed between the two data points may have been triggered by certain factors. Increased access and visibility, investment in infrastructure, information and communications technology (ICT), and improved client services, among others, are the factors that have recently animated public discourses on the performance of public services agencies in Ghana.

Conclusion

There is the perception that essential services are generally more efficient and perform much better than nonessential services, which could be a justification for the high annual expenditures by governments on them. Rural areas appreciate essential service providers despite the several efficiency challenges that exist. In a similar vein, urban areas perceive auxiliary services as efficient even though the ratings are marginal. As established by the current study, the trend in perceptions of the efficiency of services needs remedial action because the efficiency ratings of some essential services have reduced in the past 5 years. Auxiliary services in rural areas have, however, seen improvement within the period, an indication of a mixed response to expectations of efficiency in service delivery.

Guided by the concept of public service efficiency, our study offers analytic leverage in gauging public perceptions of public services efficiency and performance through a comparative analytic design using a perception index and applying a comparative analytic approach. Also, we have shown that differences exist in perceptions of efficiency and inefficiency among essential and auxiliary services, and such distinction has also been found to mirror the rural–urban dichotomy. Thus, regularity in the conduct of perception surveys to generate sufficient empirical bases for policy decisions on public services should be maintained. By so doing, public services institutions could then be resourced to deliver valuable services to vulnerable populations and thereby contribute to improving the HDI and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by world leaders.

Much as our study has illuminated the significance of perception surveys and the benefits accruing from same, we also discovered several loopholes in the public services delivery system to be accounting for some of the poor ratings for both essential and auxiliary services. Adequate distributive and allocative efficiency, especially of most auxiliary services, is required to improve these ratings. There is an urgency for a vigorous increase in public services investment by the government to increase the quality of services delivered and enhance the performance of public services. Also, policies that measure and ensure allocative, distributive, dynamic, and productive efficiency, such as the fight against corruption, competitive tendering, decentralization, and deregulation, should be pursued to enhance institutional capacity for effective public service delivery. It is only through a strong political will that the efficiency of public services can be enhanced from which development will be achieved for the benefit of the poor. Monitoring and evaluating public service organizations through data like the LSMS can be a means by which governments assess their programs. Huge investments from governments and donor organizations will be wasted if such data are not adequately utilized in decision-making. Application of the long and short routes mechanisms (citizens complaint system, the passage of a right to information, citizens review boards, residential welfare associations), as commonly used in India, can be adopted to track the intended destination of services (Blair, 2018).

Finally, we recommend the use of the LSMS data by governments of developing countries for assessing and evaluating social intervention programs. This should enable a determination of whether services intended for specific beneficiaries such as the rural poor and disadvantaged actually get to them. While we admit there are limitations in the broader application of the results of our study due to the employment of an idiographic approach, we consider this current study as significant in flagging those areas in the public services delivery sphere that require remedial action for improved service delivery. It is important to also note that the use of perception surveys is not a sufficient empirical base for large-scale policy reforms. Going forward, we recommend alternative data analyses approaches such as regression or structural equation modeling in studies of this nature to test for the effect of spatio-economic factors such as location and accessibility/affordability on perceptions of efficiency with household attributes as control variables.