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GENERIC STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH STEP ONE

ACTIVITY ONE: CONDUCT BACKGROUND RESEARCH

Study the service delivery model of your department to identify its key services and stakeholders, its
target population and typology of service points. Also identify possible interrelationships and reporting
arrangements between the various types of service points and how they are typically configured in
relation to one another. Such a typology of service points could include the following:

❏ Regional and district offices.

❏ Various types of permanent, fully established service points that provide different services and
levels of service.

❏ Temporary or satellite service points that provide selected services at certain times and on specific
days only.

❏ Mobile service units.

❏ Shared facilities.

❏ Thusong Service Centres (one-stop centres providing information and services to communities).

❏ Agency services in which other parties such as post offices or banks provide certain services on
behalf of your department.

Then conduct background research to determine if your department already has geographic access
standards or if they still need to be developed for your service points. Also determine if geographic
accessibility studies have been done as they can provide baseline information on current levels of access
to your services. Review South African and international access standards and guidelines that provide
examples that could assist you.
Consider the geographic access standards of government departments that provide complementary or
related services as these could assist you in developing access standards for your department. Keep in
mind that departments regularly review their access standards and that they change over time.

Examples of further factors that could influence decisions on the

location of facilities

Identify factors that may influence decisions on where the service points of your department should be
located. You can even allocate weights to them to assist in conducting the accessibility studies and in
identifying optimal locations. Conduct research within your department and consult stakeholders to
identify such factors. Examples of such location factors are:

Socio-environmental factors: There are many socio-environmental factors that you could consider.
For example, levels of unemployment may determine the need for labour facilities. Levels of crime may
also be used to weight the demand for police stations in different areas.

Daily movement of people: Defining the geographic accessibility of government service points is
often influenced by factors such as the daily movement of people, in particular the in- and out-migration
of people around towns and cities at various times of day and night.

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