One Stop Government: Stalled Vision or a Matter of Design? – Empirical Findings from Social Services in Germany

Abstract

In this paper we present selected results of a \ broader research project that inter alia aims at \ designing and specifying one stop government for \ parents of children with special needs facing a \ significantly high bureaucratic burden. Particularly, \ we refer to findings from two focus groups: parents \ of children with special needs and public \ administration staff. Both groups show different \ attitudes and perceptions towards new models of \ access to public services. Whereas the parents \ supported the designed approaches, the public \ administration staff rejected them. Thus, we analyze \ the meaning of these reactions for the design of onestop \ approaches as well as the ways to integrate \ differing attitudes and perspectives into egovernment- \ design. The article closes with final \ remarks on the usefulness of empirical-based design \ research, more precisely Action Design Research, in \ the context of e-government.