Evaluation by design for public services. Exploring the need of a culture of service assessment

The paper reflects about the need to introduce and develop approaches and tools for public services evaluation. Starting from the acknowledgment that investments in public services has dramatically increased over the last decade, we could state that they must also respond to new varieties of societal challenges and rising demands coming from service users. This pressure makes a strong push upon innovation considering that, if services must be designed to meet the complex needs of users, they also must reach a high rate of delivering cost efficiency. This article proposes an approach based on qualitative and quantitative measurements throughout the whole service design process in which service evaluation may represent a tool for value creation and a driver for innovation in public sector. Considering the emerging interest on evaluating design and innovation (OECD, 2010; European Commission, 2012) the authors try to explore existing evaluation methods for services in public sector, in order to define an evaluation framework that could support new innovation patterns.