THE ROLE OF MUNICIPALITY IN PROMOTION OF WELL-BEING: DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICES

Main operational goal of municipality is to serve the society. In order to ensure the democratic municipal operation, it is necessary to involve citizens in decision-making process, create conditions for them to express the opinions, to listen to those opinions, provide access to information and inform about the topicalities, ideas and plans. Municipalities have ability to directly influence the well-being of their citizens, providing services to them. In order to develop services, municipality citizens are satisfied with, it is necessary to involve them in development of these services. Taking into account all mentioned before the purpose of the study is to analyse the importance of engagement of society in development of public services in the municipalities. In order to achieve the purpose, the tasks are formulated as follows: 1) to review the theoretical background for engagement of society in decision-making processes at local level; 2) to analyse the best practice of municipalities in engaging of society in development of public services; 3) to provide the recommendations for municipalities for engagement of society in development of public services for overall well-being. Research methods used: scientific literature studies, structured interviews, statistical data analysis, scenario method. The research conducted in one of the municipalities in Latvia showed that the quality of public services affects the well-being of citizens. Therefore, in order to have a greater effect on citizens' well-being, it would be needed to engage public in different phases of service development - in planning, implementation, development and evaluation.