Public Service Provision of Nakhon Sawan City Municipality, Mueang District, Nakhon Sawan Province

Abstract

This research aimed to 1) study the level of public service provision and 2) propose guidelines for public service provision of Nakhon Sawan City Municipality, Mueang District, Nakhon Sawan Province. This study employed a mixed-methods design. For the quantitative phase, the population consisted of 76,055 residents of Nakhon Sawan City Municipality, from which a sample of 384 was determined using Krejcie and Morgan’s table. The research instrument was a questionnaire with item-objective congruence (IOC) indices ranging from 0.67 to 1.00 and a reliability coefficient of .952. The statistics used were frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. For the qualitative phase, in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 key informants, and the data were analyzed through content analysis and summarization. The results revealed the following: 1) The overall level of public service provision of Nakhon Sawan City Municipality was high ( = 3.88, SD = 0.50). When considered by aspect, timely service had the highest mean ( = 3.91, SD = 0.53), followed by continuous service ( = 3.89, SD = 0.57), adequate service ( = 3.88, SD = 0.56), and progressive service ( = 3.86, SD = 0.65), whereas equitable service had the lowest mean ( = 3.85, SD = 0.62). 2) The guidelines for public service provision of Nakhon Sawan City Municipality are as follows: (1) for equitable service, the municipality should prioritize providing public services to all groups of residents without discrimination by officials; (2) for timely service, it should clearly specify the duration of each type of service to prevent long waiting times; (3) for adequate service, it should prioritize surveying residents’ needs to inform public service planning; (4) for continuous service, it should develop a business continuity plan for public service provision; and (5) for progressive service, it should improve public service provision by adopting digital technology and innovation.