The Public Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister, together with a staff of assistants and trained employees, are responsible for the following areas:
1. Providing a response to letters or appeals addressed to the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister’s Office.
2. Implementing the Freedom of Information Law.
3. Preparing and distributing periodic reports about messages, petitions and appeals from the public.
4. Condolence calls on behalf of the Prime Minister to bereaved families of those killed in terrorist attacks.
5. Implementing national projects initiated as a response to unique needs of the public.
6. Developing tools and methods to increase efficiency in responding to public affairs.
The Public Affairs Department is the primary channel of communication between the public and the Prime Minister, as it forwards to the Prime Minister messages and information received from citizens. In this manner, the Prime Minister receives feedback from the public regarding his policies, Government Resolutions, general performance of the executive authority and any other topic.
Letters and appeals are received from citizens, and various bodies, through different channels of communication: mail; fax; telephone; e-mail; etc. They are attended to according to regulations of proper government and fixed work procedures, while adhering to the principles of professional ethics, relevance, fairness and generosity.
IN 2003, 18,041 LETTERS AND APPEALS WERE RECEIVED AND ATTENDED TO.
The majority of appeals and letters receive relevant replies directly from the Bureau staff. Appeals which are not under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Office are photocopied and forwarded to the appropriate body, and the appellant is advised accordingly. When a response is received from the relevant authority, it is examined, and if necessary, a final reply is sent to the appellant or the Department continues to attend to it until a solution is found.
The topics dealt with are as follows:
- 26%: Politics, foreign policy
- 11%: Legal issues
- 11%: Various
- 10%: Security
- 8%: Welfare and social affairs
- 7%: Housing
- 5%: Finances and banking
- 5%: Infrastructures
- 5%: Employment
- 3%: Civil status
- 3%: Education
- 2%: Media
- 2%: Local councils
- 2%: Health
- 0%: Holocaust survivors
- 0%: Aliyah
In the framework of the Freedom of Information Law, requests for information are attended to according to the Freedom of Information Law of 1988, including examination of the request, confirmation of payment of the information fee, locating the information, dispatching it to the appellant and continued oversight of the request for the duration of time needed to attend to them. Moreover, in the context of this Law, the Prime Minister’s Office publishes an annual report of its activities. The report is distributed, according to law, to public libraries around the country, as well as to government offices and municipal authorities.
The periodic reports presented to the Prime Minister regarding citizens’ appeals, include textual, statistical and graphical data regarding the volume of appeals, such as: analysis of their content, quantity, changes in trends, topics, quotations and examples.
The Public Affairs Adviser accompanies the Prime Minister on his tours around the country, and to meetings with citizens and public bodies. At the beginning of 2004, a new custom was implemented of paying condolence visits to families who lost loved ones in terrorist attacks. During these visits, the Adviser to the Prime Minister conveys a personal letter of condolence to the families, and listens to them, to ensure proper treatment and help.
National projects are carried out in cooperation with various Foundations, in order to lend a hand to those in need. In this framework, jackets were provided to children from underprivileged families in the winter of 2001-2002, as well as grocery coupons through the “Kimcha da Pascha” project during Passover 2001, and school bags were provided to elementary school students in a back-to-school project in 2004.
In order to achieve efficiency and approved working procedures, an internal data base is maintained, which includes lists of divisions of authority, fields of activity, names of public officials, addresses, telephone numbers, information regarding eligibility, etc. In addition, unique responses are continuously being formulated and processed in response to appeals on matters which recur.