More Citizens are Accessing Social Services and Want Proactive and Personalized Experiences, Accenture Report Finds

A new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN) found that many citizens have acquired significant new caregiving responsibilities at home during the pandemic, yet most are unaware of what social services are available to them.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210511005106/en/

Citizens want more proactive and personalized services from their social services agencies (Photo: Business Wire)

The report, “Social Services: Lead with Impact,” found that while more than half (57%) of citizens surveyed said that the response of their social service agencies to the COVID-19 pandemic has been strong, the majority (89%) said they lack sufficient guidance on what social services they are eligible to access. This posed a challenge for the more than half (56%) of respondents who have had significant new caregiving responsibilities at home during the crisis.

The report is based on two surveys: one of more than 7,000 citizens across 10 countries in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, and another of 600 executives holding leadership positions within social services, employment, public pension and child welfare agencies in those same countries. The research sought citizens’ views on the assistance they received from social services agencies during the pandemic and the views of leaders on their agency’s response to the crisis.

The report identifies key strategies to enable agencies to manage the disruption caused by the pandemic and to transform how social services are delivered in the future. Strategies include the creation of new organizational and workforce processes, the deployment of new technologies and increased agency collaboration with citizens, community groups and ecosystem partners in the design and delivery of new and more personalized services.

“With nearly 600 million full-time jobs lost worldwide in the first half of 2020, many governments — and specifically social service agencies — are now playing a more crucial role in supporting lives and will continue to do so post pandemic,” said Rainer Binder, a managing director in Accenture’s Public Service practice and global social services industry lead.“The pandemic has demonstrated the urgent need for more modern, effective and personalized social services. Meeting current and future citizen service demands will require agencies to rapidly adopt new delivery models while embracing digital technologies and new ways of working.”