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Getting Serious on Client Service: An IPAA Policy Discussion Paper

Institute of Public Administration Australia, November 2011

Executive Summary

Public sectors worldwide are facing unprecedented pressures to deliver more effective, efficient and responsive public programs. This is in the face of a combination of social, economic and global challenges. The Information and Communication Technology revolution is rapidly changing how society operates and how services are delivered and critiqued.

Many of the "easy wins" have already been made in delivering service improvement, making it harder for governments at all levels to find significant future enhancements. This is coupled with rising public expectations regarding public service delivery notwithstanding fiscal constraints and crises in most advanced countries.

This paper explores the issue of how to further improve public sector service delivery in spite of these challenges. In particular the issue of customer service in the tax-payer subsidised general government sector is examined from three perspectives.

Firstly, the core attributes of a well-functioning service delivery strategy are examined. Secondly, significant gaps in the implementation of such strategies in Australia are identified. Thirdly, it is argued that addressing these gaps requires a fundamental rethink of who exactly governs the customer experience in public bureaucracies, and ways to strengthen both internal and external accountabilities are suggested.

Whilst governments at all three levels within Australia have embraced egovernment strategies for delivering public information and services to their clients, this is not a substitute for designing and implementing a customer service strategy within each public sector agency.

An effective service strategy will intersect relevant service priorities with managing client expectations and improving service capability, ensuring a better match between service expectations and different potential channels and service standards. This provides the opportunity for agencies to ensure that their planning efforts are driven by the need to achieve service outcomes for their customers and ensure collaboration between all partners involved in the service delivery.

Increasingly the way forward in government sector service delivery will be to extend beyond individual public sector agencies. Instead services will be delivered in a more holistic way reflecting cross agency and cross government collaboration utilising a broader range of service providers. Services will also be more targeted and personalised to specific groups of clients rather than a one size fits all approach, reflecting the public's increasing desire for greater choice.

Promoting public participation in service design and delivery will be critical in solving how to deliver more effective personalised services at a lower unit cost than top-down driven services. This will operate in tandem with decentralising control of public services to either the individuals who use the service or the lowest appropriate level. This will require a rigorous analysis of the service delivery value chain; knowing how to progress from a deep analysis of clients' needs and expectations to delivering a service of quality with strong client input and feedback and the empowerment of front-line staff to deal with problems and complaints as they arise.

Global standards for service delivery set by countries like the Denmark, Finland, Canada and the United Kingdom should be within Australia's reach. Service delivery must be elevated to a national conversation and momentum must be built in support of service delivery improvement as a national strategy. Lastly, consideration should be given to requiring all public sector bodies to develop, publish and rollout integrated service delivery strategies as well as holding CEOs accountable for their success.