Delivering public services that are centred on citizens’ needs and expectations is vital for strengthening trust in public institutions, which is a key priority for OECD Members. A vibrant civic space provides the foundation for a people-centred approach to the design and delivery of public services. Civic space is understood by the OECD as the set of legal, policy, institutional and practical conditions necessary for non-governmental actors to access information, express themselves, associate, organise and participate in public life. In other words, it is about creating the necessary environment within which people can exercise their democratic rights and express their voices. At the same time, the OECD recognises that, in democratic societies, a diverse range of citizens and other stakeholders should be involved in rethinking public services. Public sector accountability is based on the relationship between citizens (as rights-holders) and public institutions (as duty-bearers), where performance is measured by citizen satisfaction with services. Designing and delivering services that are responsive, inclusive and accessible for all is fundamental to empowering 21st century societies and effectively meeting their needs, while strengthening democratic governance.

Over the past decade, the Government of Portugal has demonstrated a commitment to placing citizens at the heart of its strategy to improve the design and delivery of public services. In 2021, it released the Guiding Principles for a Human Rights Based Approach on Public Services (hereafter the Guiding Principles), emphasising human rights and participatory approaches for people-centred public service reforms. With 19 ministries and affiliated entities delivering over 1 768 services across sectors and channels, Portugal has a robust public service culture. Since 2018, the government has been decentralising service delivery across 18 regions and 308 municipalities, enhancing local access and scalability.

This chapter begins by describing the main objectives of this Civic Space Review of Portugal. It provides an overview of the government’s ambitious agenda to reform public services and explores the opportunities brought about by the Guiding Principles for a Human Rights Based Approach on Public Services, adopted in 2021, as the first methodology of its kind to support this transformation. The chapter introduces the general civic space context in Portugal in addition to key technological, demographic and socio-political challenges to ongoing public service reform efforts.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the OECD’s general approach to assessing civic space. It reviews how the methodology was adapted for the Portuguese context to focus on utilising civic space for public service reforms with an emphasis on empowering citizens and unleashing the power of digital government. It also discusses the methods and tools used for the Review.

This chapter assesses the conditions for creating people-centred services in Portugal. It begins with a review of the core civic freedoms that underpin a healthy civic space, assesses challenges related to equality and non-discrimination with a focus on migrants and refugees, the Roma community and people of African descent, and finally addresses Portugal’s information ecosystem and the digital transformation of public services. For each area, it discusses key implementation challenges related to public services and provides concrete and actionable recommendations for the Government of Portugal.

This chapter explores the opportunities for civil society in Portugal to directly contribute to more inclusive and accessible public services. It begins with an in-depth overview of the role of civil society organisations and enabling environment for their work as service providers, advocates and watchdogs with a focus on access to funding and administrative requirements. It analyses the legal, institutional and policy frameworks governing participation of citizens in addition to the methods used, identifying challenges and opportunities to strengthen implementation. It includes a set of recommendations on how the government could increase inclusion and impact in the way it informs, consults and engages stakeholders and citizens in service design and delivery.

This chapter considers the experience of designing and delivering more inclusive, accessible and people-centred public services in Portugal. First, it reviews the experience of digital government with a focus on context, underpinning philosophy and key enablers. It then analyses two case studies, the Digital Mobile Key and the Family Benefit for Children and Young People, and evaluates their performance against Portugal’s Guiding Principles for a Human Rights Based Approach on Public Services. It concludes with observations on how the government can deliver on its reform agenda for the two services.