Tas’heel centres epitomise public-private partnership

Since the initiative took off in 2006, the centres have witnessed a significant boost in the opportunities for employing Emirati men and women in private sector companies.

In a dialogue session themed ‘Creative Partnerships with Private Sector to Provide Best Government Services’, and convened by Colonel Aziz Al Amiri, he demonstrated the experience of the labour ministry through the initiative of Tas’heel centres, an initiative brought forward to embody the partnership between the public and private sectors.

“The number of Tas’heel centres, so far, (stands) at 28 in Dubai and the Northern Emirates and (are) run by 685 Emirati men and women”, he said, noting that, nine new centres will be opened in the country’s Capital soon.

Commenting on the centres progress he said: “The rate of customer satisfaction reached 78 per cent, (in two years), and the performance of these centres is subjected to continuous evaluation and surveillance with (the) aim of improving it”.

He stressed the importance of utilising this experience by UAE citizens, with the aim of continuing to develop it to wider scopes, in the future offering services other than those of the Labour Ministry.

“The service provided by Tas’heel centres have alleviated the pressure and crowding (witnessed) in queues snaked in front of the Ministry of Labour, which prompted the latter to devotedly chalk out policies, legislation and upgrade the services, work performance and leave the operational matters to the private sector, which has proven the efficiency in running these centres”, he noted.

Emiratisation of jobs in these centres should not be less than 50 per cent, as this was on of the conditions when establishing these centres, and he noted that localisation of jobs in some centres exceeded 70 to 80 per cent, with the minimum basic monthly salary fixed at Dh6,000. Remunerations are also paid according to the additional work the employee discharges.

There are a number of Emirati women employees working in these centres, whose basic monthly salary stands at Dh26,000 per employee, he disclosed.

“The Ministry of Labour had practically taken the initiative in 2006, when it opened a centre in Ajman on a trial basis, and after the experience was sanctioned, a number of centres were opened in Sharjah and the Northern Emirates”, he said.

He further noted that the experience was generalised countrywide and unified standards and fees were approved for providing the services, as well as laying down mechanisms and control indicators and evaluating the performance.

He said, later, we moved to Dubai where a number of centres were opened as per the unified model.

Thereafter, service centres were opened in Dubai, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaima, and nine new centres will be inaugurated in Abu Dhabi within the year, he added.

The rate of applying the transactions online in 2011 was 15 per cent, and directly at the centres was 85 per cent, and in 2012 transactions submitted online rose to 25 per cent out of the total of 1.7 million dealings, he said.

Challenges

The most important challenges the Labour Ministry has faced in implementing the initiative is manifested in converting the services from typing offices to service centres that meet the needs and expectations of customers and businessmen, he said, adding that, the rise in what he termed as post rotation for nationals working in the centres, non-compliance of the infrastructure and the ministry’s programme for new operation model, unavailable electronic system for receiving the transactions, customers prefer direct dealing with the government entity.

However, he said the Ministry has hammered out a plan to face these challenges, with features which include adjoining the typing offices in building and developing the experiment, phase out withdrawing the licences of the former typing offices, link the minimum wages level to the finalising of a fixed number of applications every month, as well as endorse the monthly allowance system, and link it to the volume of production. He also stressed the importance of laying down and carrying out a new information infrastructure, re-engineering the software programmes, chalking out and implementing a plan to ensure the continuity of work and highlighting the partnership between the government entity and the authorised centres.

Ghobash casts light in the paramount impacts on implementing the experiment, which include two pronged-issues.

The first is the operational impacts, which outlines the need to ensure the transparency and subjectivity in taking the decision regarding the transactions, reducing the time for obtaining the service, providing the services to the applicants by one visit through one portal website only, offering the service to the customers round the clock, six days a week, governance of the submitted services.

The second issue includes focusing on the actual role of the ministry in controlling and administering the labour market by hammering out the regularising policies, introducing and localising the economic activity, creating more than 685 job opportunities for UAE citizens, 28 investment opportunities for national businessmen, as well as upgrading the standard of the customers satisfaction to 78 per cent within two years and implementing broad geographical coverage to offer the ministry’s services throughout the country.

Tas’heel service centres contain seven essential criteria which are: providing quality service to customers, customers themselves, services, channels, technology, operations and creativity.

In a question and answer session, Ghobash said if the government monopolised the services, there would be no competitiveness, and the private sector will not develop.

“It is very important that any government entity explores new horizons for partnership with private sector regarding the operational matters, and devoted to lay plans, policies and strategies”, he added.

malzarooni@khaleejtimes.com