The agencies’ customer service in Päijät-Hämee will focus on Lahti and Heinola in the future. A new service point will be opened in Lahti next June.
In the future, the services of state agencies will be centralized in shared offices. Päijät-Häme, along with North and South Karelia, is a pioneer province where the reforms will partially take effect next year.
In the future, Lahti’s office building in Paavola will provide the services of twelve state agencies from one service point. The change is not very big, as a large part of the services of state agencies can be found in the office building already. The accessibility of the services will improve next summer, when the business of all agencies will be centralized in the same space.
In addition to the existing ones, the services of the Regional Administration Office, Kela and Ara will be added to the office building. The police permit administration will not move to an office building in Lahti, because the premises in Hennala are almost new and in good condition.
Päijät-Häme’s second service point will be in Heinola. As for Heinola, the plans are not ready yet, but a remote service experiment will start there next April, from which we want to get customer experiences.
In addition to these, citizens still have access to telephone and remote services. If necessary, mobile service points can also be used.
The demand for customer services collapsed
The reason behind the reform is the collapse of demand for customer services. The number of customer visits has dropped by half in recent years, and the trend is predicted to continue in Finland. In Päijät-Hämee, the number of customer visits has decreased from 221,000 to 120,000 in a few years.
Centralization secures the availability of local services, because it is not worth maintaining a large service network when the number of customer visits decreases. Nationwide, the reform will be completed by 2030.
At the same time, savings are sought. Nationwide, a significant amount comes from space rents, heating and energy costs every year. For example, in Päijät-Hämee, the rental costs alone save several hundreds of thousands per year.