Chapter 5: The Values and relations with the Public

Service charters

A key mechanism that the Government has used to encourage increased focus on service delivery improvement has been the introduction of agency service charters. All government bodies that deliver services directly to the public are required to implement a service charter. Agencies with policy development functions are also encouraged to develop charters. The Government revised its initial guidelines for service charters in 2000 and reissued them as the Client Service Charter Principles.⁵ The revised principles give greater focus to reviewing charters, monitoring and reporting performance against client service standards, and recognising the needs of diverse client groups, such as people with a disability and those living in rural and regional Australia. The guidelines are overseen by the APS Commission.

The APS Commission administers the Service Charter Awards for Excellence, which recognise and encourage high standards of service to the public by departments, agencies and their staff. The 2002 awards were reported in the State of the Service Report 2001–02. The 2003 awards will be presented in late 2003 and will be reported in the State of the Service Report 2003–04.

Requirements for client service charters are complemented by the Charter of Public Service in a Culturally Diverse Society, introduced in 1998. This charter articulates the Australian Government’s strategy for ensuring that government services are delivered in a way that is sensitive to the language and cultural needs of all Australians. The charter is overseen by DIMIA. DIMIA’s Access and Equity Annual Report 2002 illustrated the considerable progress that had been made in implementing and reporting on access and equity against the charter’s performance management framework.⁶

The effectiveness of service charters is dependent on a number of issues, including the ability of agencies to successfully monitor and report on client satisfaction using quantifiable performance indicators. In establishing such indicators, agencies need to carefully consider the feedback mechanisms most appropriate for providing them with information on client satisfaction. Effectiveness can also be assessed by service delivery staff’s awareness of their agency’s service charter, and their views on the impact that the charter has on their service delivery work. These issues were explored through the agency and employee surveys. Data from the surveys are complemented by a review of service delivery information in selected annual reports.

Coverage and review

The agency survey found that 64 agencies (72%) have an agency-wide service charter in place. This was similar to the proportion of agencies that reported having a service charter in 2001–02. A further two agencies indicated that an agency-wide service charter was being developed. Service charters were more common in large agencies (91%) than small agencies (63%).

Fifty-eight per cent of agencies that have or are developing a service charter have revised their charter to incorporate the new service charter principles established in June 2000. Another 27% are planning a revision for 2003–04. Small agencies were more likely to have revised their service charter in line with the new principles than medium or large agencies (68% compared with 50% for both medium and large agencies).

Performance indicators and service standards

The client service charter principles place a strong emphasis on the monitoring and reporting of client satisfaction. They provide that service charters must include service standards and have avenues for clients to provide feedback and make complaints. There must also be mechanisms to report on that data.

The client service charter principles state that when deciding which service standards to publish, agencies should take account of their ability to measure performance against each standard. The agency survey found a high level of use of quantifiable performance indicators or service standards for the quality of services provided to the public, such as numbers of complaints and compliments received, results from client surveys and data on timeliness of service. Seventy-seven per cent of agencies with public contact stated that they had identified such indicators or standards and a further eight per cent said they were being developed. Quantifiable indicators or standards were more common in large (96%) than small (69%) agencies.

Eighty per cent of agencies that had or were developing quantifiable indicators reported internally and/or externally against them. The most common place for reporting mechanisms was the agency’s annual report (93% of agencies reporting against indicators), reflecting the requirement for agencies with a service charter to publish performance against their charter commitments in their annual report. The proportion of agencies reporting to internal agency management structures was also very high (90%). Sixty-two per cent of agencies reported against quantifiable indicators to internal service delivery units or teams, and a further seven per cent were developing such reporting mechanisms.

Feedback mechanisms

The agency survey asked agencies that have contact with the public about the mechanisms they used for obtaining feedback from the public. The most common method for obtaining feedback was a complaints/feedback website link, reported by 80% of agencies that have contact with the public. Other widely used methods were customer surveys (69% of agencies) and complaints/feedback phone hotlines (60%). Forty per cent of agencies that have contact with the public indicated that they had mechanisms in addition to those specified in the survey. These included feedback forms or comment slips available on-site, and regular meetings with clients or focus groups.

Under the client service charter principles, agencies are required to publish a summary of client complaints and feedback in their annual reports. Agencies have taken different approaches to this requirement, with the extent of quantifiable information varying considerably. Examples of the type of information on customer feedback contained in agencies’ 2001–02 annual reports are set out at Table 5.1. A case study of the DVA approach to measuring client satisfaction is also provided.

Table 5.1: Client satisfaction-examples of information from agencies' 2001-02 annual reports

Agency	Measures	Outcomes-2001-02
DEWR	Job Network-complaints lodged through customer service line Client feedback system (predominantly workplace relations services)	22,104 calls registered, 36% being complaints relating to quality of service . 4 complaints, 50 compliments.
DCITA	Client survey (covering broad range of indicators)	95% of clients rated staff service as satisfactory to excellent. Areas of strength: willingness to assist; timeliness of advice. Two areas identified for improvement-consultation with clients about development and review of policy and responding to client inquiries by email.
NMA	Written comments- visitor feedback database	More than 2000 written comments from visitors regarding services, programs, exhibitions, buildings and facilities. Negative comments mostly related to lighting or size of text labels. Positive comments mostly related to exhibition content and friendliness of staff
CSA	Professionalism survey	Results remained stable. Attributes relating to personal characteristics of staff (politeness, helpfulness, sincerity and ability to listen) rated well by clients.
Customs	Comprehensive system to record, analyse and action complaints and compliments received through a variety of methods.	1695 complaints and 980 compliments received. Most complaints related to Tourist Refund Scheme, staff attitude, and queuing. 48% of compliments related to staff being helpful and informative. A number of significant initiatives and improvements implemented as a result of client feedback.
Centrelink	Four customer satisfaction surveys covering service delivery channels, customer service centres and call centres, as well as qualitative research into customer expectations.	Broad range of indicators. Examples of proportion of customers rating Centrelink positively include: 78.5% for accuracy of information and 88.8% for staff helpfulness (call centre survey); 59.0% for ease of access to services and 80.0% for timeliness of decisions (National Customer survey).
DAFF	ABARE-client surveys on quality and level of services AQIS-feedback register for complaints and compliments	96% of clients would purchase from ABARE again and 95% would recommend products or services to others. Majority of complaints voiced concern about delays in entry processing. Several compliments received for high performance of AQIS's service to clients.
ITSA	Monitoring of complaints about service standards and compliments	23 complaints received; 12 found to be justified. Complaints related to timeliness, accessibility and employee attitude. 41 formal compliments recorded relating to usefulness of information and employee attitude.

Note: Table includes examples only, and is not intended to be comprehensive.

Source: 2001-02 annual reports

There was considerable variation among agencies in relation to their use of feedback mechanisms on the basis of size. In particular, small agencies involved in public contact activities were more likely than large agencies to use a complaints/feedback website link (88% compared with 77% for large agencies and 71% for medium agencies), and large agencies were more likely to use customer surveys (82% compared with 56% for small agencies) and phone hotlines (73% compared with 53% for small agencies). These differences could reflect a number of issues including different types of clients and relationships, different ways of doing business or different levels of available resources, with small agencies opting for less costly mechanisms. Agencies involved in public contact activities were also asked which were the most important of the feedback mechanisms they used. The mechanisms most frequently identified as most important were customer surveys (identified by 33% of these agencies) and complaints/feedback phone hotlines (identified by 29% of agencies).

Service charter awareness and effectiveness-Employee views

The employee survey found a high level of awareness of service charters among employees directly involved in service delivery to the general public, with 86% of employees involved in service delivery stating that their agency had a current service charter. However, the level of awareness of the existence of a service charter varied considerably across agencies. For the 19 large agencies with a service charter, employee awareness of the existence of a charter ranged from a low of 54% to a high of 98% at Centrelink.⁷ Nevertheless, of the nine large agencies where more than 60% of employees were involved in direct service delivery, all but two had at least 85% of employees aware of the existence of a charter. Employees at small agencies with service charters were less likely to be aware of the charter than large agencies (81% compared with 88%).

Employee responses also indicate a high level of awareness of the content of their agency’s service charter. Seventy-one per cent of employees involved in direct service delivery who believed that their agency had a service charter indicated that they had a high level of awareness of its content, with another 24% indicating a moderate level of awareness. Results again varied considerably between agencies. For large agencies with a service charter, the proportion of employees rating their awareness of the content as ‘high’ ranged from a low of 38% to a high of 78% (at both Centrelink and the CSA).⁸ Employees in small agencies with service charters were less likely to rate their knowledge of the content of their service charter as ‘high’ (59%) than employees in large agencies (72%).

Employees were generally very positive about the role of their agency’s service charter in improving service delivery. Seventy-five per cent of service delivery employees who believed their agency had a service charter agreed that it helped them deliver quality services to the public, and only four per cent disagreed. Where employees indicated that they had a high level of awareness of the content of the service charter, they were even more positive, with 86% agreeing that it helped them deliver quality services.

There were considerable differences in employees’ level of awareness and view of the effectiveness of service charters, depending on their location. Employees outside the ACT involved in direct service delivery were more likely to indicate a high awareness of the content of their service charter (72%) than those working in service delivery in the ACT (64%). Similarly, employees outside the ACT were more likely to agree that their service charter helped them deliver quality services to the public (78%) than those within the ACT (60%). These results suggest that agencies may need to ensure that service delivery staff in the ACT receive the same level of training and information about service charters as those outside the ACT, even where most of their ACT staff are not delivering services to the public.

The employee survey asked employees involved in direct service delivery whether their work unit received regular feedback from the public (directly or indirectly) on the quality of services it provides to the public. Seventy-one per cent of these employees did receive feedback and 22% did not. There was again considerable variation among agencies. Of the nine large agencies where more than 60% of employees reported that they deliver services to the general public, the proportion of employees receiving feedback ranged from 59% to 100% at the CRS. Medium agencies had the lowest proportion of employees receiving feedback (61%). There was little difference in results for small and large agencies.

A substantial majority of employees receiving feedback (75%) said that there were formal mechanisms in place in their work unit for responding to feedback from the public. The majority of these employees also thought that these mechanisms were effective. Sixty per cent of employees in work units that had formal mechanisms in place thought that the mechanisms were highly effective in allowing them to respond to feedback from the public, while another 31% thought that they were moderately effective. Only 6 per cent of employees rated their effectiveness as ‘low’.

 

5 Service Charter Unit, Finance, 2000 Client Service Charter Principles

6 DIMIA, http://www.immi.gov.au/annual_report/index.htm

7 For the 19 large agencies with service charters and where results are statistically valid for this question.

8 For the 18 large agencies with service charters and where results are statistically valid for this question.