The Death of Services: When the Best Service is No Service

Public sector reform has long operated from a single assumption: that the role of government is to improve the services it delivers. Processes get streamlined. Public sector reform has traditionally focused on improving what already exists: digitizing services, reducing steps, simplifying forms. But incremental optimization does not address a more fundamental question: Is this service still necessary at all? 

This session documents a deliberate departure from that premise. By asking not 'how do we improve this service?' but 'why does this service still exist?', a cross-entity reform program formally decommissioned, merged, automated, or restructured 139 government services — making over 826,000 citizen transactions permanently obsolete.

The session traces the three models that emerged from this work: the removal of zero-value administrative steps that served institutional habit rather than governance need; the full dissolution of services through proactive, system-triggered delivery; and partial proactive redesign that radically reduces citizen burden while preserving necessary governance controls. Together, they represent a reorientation in public service philosophy — from citizen-as-applicant to institution-as-actor.