The Hosting of Dubai Government Unified Suggestions System Forum, titled “Suggestion-Based Services Improvement”

H.E Abdullah Al Shaibani, Secretary-General of the Dubai Executive Council and H.E Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Executive Chairman of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation and Director General of Dubai Customs, inaugurated the 2^nd edition of the Dubai Government Unified Suggestion System Forum, titled “Suggestion-Based Services Improvement”. The forum was hosted by Dubai Customs and organized by 'Dubai’ The Model Centre’, a subordinate of the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai. 

In the keynote speech, the Secretary-General of the Dubai Executive Council emphasized the importance of the Unified Suggestion System to both customers and employees of Dubai Government. The system was kicked-off by H.H Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, in May 2011. Al Shaibani said :” Following the directives of H.H Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, and in line with his constant strive to fulfill the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President , Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, of a future that doesn’t set boundaries on ambitions, a team from the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai developed the suggestions system to contribute in creating the positive transformation we all aspire to in order to maintain Dubai’s prestigious position and continuously advance government services by catering to customers, achieving a seamless government interconnectivity and innovation”. 

 “The Dubai Government Unified Suggestion System for Employees and Customers has formed a platform for attracting and boosting creativity and innovation. Till now, there are 26 government departments, agencies and organizations that joined the system. The number of suggestions that have been received by participating bodies amounted to 29100 since the system kicked-off. Being an integrated administrative system developed in coordination with a number of government authorities and in cooperation with Dubai eGovernment team for the technical aspect, the suggestions system provides a unified framework and a documented standard methodology for handling suggestions effectively and utilizing them to improve corporate performance and increase satisfaction of government sector customers, achieving consistency and seamless integration between government entities in the area of inciting a spirit of initiative and investing in innovating ideas to maintain the emirate’s image,” he added. 

In the keynote speech at the event, H.E Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Executive Chairman of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation and Director General of Dubai Customs, said:” The crucial factor that determines the ability to utilize suggestions is the readiness of government departments and agencies for development within an innovative perspective, away from traditional thinking and routines. Employees occupying administrative positions are the ones who interact the most with actual needs for performance improvement. The same can be said about customers who, through their businesses, discover these needs. Therefore, suggestions submitted by employees and customers deliver best results, if departments and agencies are able to activate these suggestions and turn them into practical procedures”. 

“Our experience at Dubai Customs has proved that employees and customers’ suggestions can actively contribute to services improvement and procedures enhancement if handled effectively. A massive increase in the number of suggestions submitted by employees and customers was recorded, from 203 suggestions submitted in 2004 to 2566 suggestions in 2012, marking a significant growth of nearly 35% compared to 2011. The total revenues from applying these suggestions amounted to AED 110 million. We created key enterprises based on suggestions we had received from employees and customers; namely the formation of the Dubai Customs Consultative Council, which has become a major communication link with heads of business groups and trade sectors in Dubai, leading to facilitation of trade movement and sustaining the economic development in Dubai.

His Excellency Director General of Dubai Customs said: “Opportunity for an attractive environment inspiring for suggestions had a good turnout  in enhancing Dubai Customs reputation across internationality, evidently, Dubai Customs was the first government department at the level of world earned the “Platinum” category from the Idea-UK  for a three consecutive years, the latest was in 2012 and the accreditation was deserved in recognition to the capability of its adopted suggestions system which was also qualified to win suggestions system best practices competition award from Idea German in its latest cycle last week with the participation of 151 world private and government department’’.        

Commenting on events of the Forum, Eman AL Suwaidi, Director of Dubai’ The Model Centre highlighted that the Forum which was themed “Suggestion- Based Services Improvement’’ seeking to enhance participation and knowledge experiments amongst different government agencies and transferring staff distinguished experiments. At the marginal of the Forum, it would be for the first time to expose best suggestions that had been applied by different government departments to make use of studies in respect to handling, viewing applicability of suggestions, realizing different challenges and understand the way to follow methodology of Clients and Employees’ Unified Suggestion System”   

Interestingly, it is believed the Forum had further widened the participation base including services improvement drivers and government service network improvement champions to purposely encourage related parties through the communication platform, exchange of information, experiments, ideas, adoption and support innovation, mutual cooperation learning amongst different concerned agencies to support improvement of services through the suggestions that were submitted by customers and employees across the Emirate of Dubai.  

Speakers and participants at the Forum were from different government agencies, including  Ms. Wafa Abu Sinaina from Dubai’ The Model Centre and Dr. Eng. Rashid AL Leem, Director General of Sharjah Seaport and Customs, Director General of Hamriyah Free Zone, Ms. Elham Younis from Dubai Police HQ , Mr. Hussain AL Fardan from Dubai Customs, Ms. Mariam AL Miri from Dubai Courts, Ms. Mariam Bin Fahad from Dubai Municipality. The first discussion session was chaired by Dr. Maj. General, Abdul Ghadus AL Obeidi from Dubai Police HQ and Mr. ALHadi Mohammed from the General Secretariat of Dubai Executive Council chaired the second session. At the end of the Forum, Dubai’ The Model Centre and Dubai E.Govenment representatives exposed developmental points and plants for the Unified Suggestions System. 

On the other hand, Dubai’ The Model Centre currently is working to carry out a series of essential changes and development on the system features, besides, developing reports mechanism to the benefit and use of participating agencies in accordance to practical implementation of SMART system tools and mechanism which has been developed in collaboration with Dubai E.Government, basically, after having communicated with government agencies to ensure their needs and sustaining updates, promotion and exchange of knowledge and best practices of government sector

It is worth mentioning that Dubai’ The Model Centre was launched by the Executive Council under sponsorship of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council. The Centre aims at improving general services in Dubai to be the best worldwide. The Centre also targets to enable government departments to improve their services at competitive world levels. The Centre is responsible for evaluation and motivation of general services in Dubai and enablement of necessary human resources to uplift with general services at the best and promoting its world leading concepts