05 Jun Conference on communication of public administration with the general public

Organised by the ″Media Craft“ and the ″Apriori World“, and with the support of the  National Academy of Public Administration, the ″FOCUS“ conference on innovations in communication of public administration with the general public was held at the MP’s Club (Klub poslanika) in Belgrade. Numerous participants, mostly from the PR world, talked about the challenges of communication of the public sector with the citizens, media and all other parties interested for the results of work of the authorities on all levels.

Openness of the authorities, but also of employees working in public administration is the key for the trust developed by the citizens in them. It does not happen on rare occasions that the citizens get very imprecise or almost no answers on their personal requests or asked questions.

Director of the National Academy of Public Administration, Mr Dražen Maravić, emphasises that for the change in such a relation what plays an important role is standardisation of the model of behaviour, adding that the heads are the ones who should advocate the changes, and also the ones to show this on their own example.

″It is important to standardise actions of civil servants, give them forms, instructions and clear and unambiguous instructions, but also to explain the reasons for doing this, on the other hand – because the citizen is the one in the centre and thus it is important to raise the level of service“, says Maravić.

A panel discussion was held as part of the conference, and in the second part of the programme, experts for public relations from various sectors discussed their own experiences and examples from practice.

This international event gathers representatives of the public and the private sector so as to start the implementation of goals of common progress via simple and transparent communication. This is why the FOCUS conference programme offers the participants education on the latest trends in communication in the public sector through practical examples of respected domestic and foreign communication experts, challenges the civil servants meet and advice on how to improve communication on all levels.