HISTORIC PRESS RELEASE – Users Must Come First Throughout in Improving Public Services: Customer Focused Government report published [November 2001]

The press release issued by HM Treasury on 23 November 2001.

Better public services must start from a better understanding of users and their needs, expectations and behaviours. This applies at the outset of policy development as well as in front line service delivery, according to a Public Sector Productivity Panel (PSPP) report published today. The report builds on the growing understanding of what ‘customer focus’ means in practice for public sector management.

Welcoming the report, Chief Secretary Andrew Smith said:

“We remain committed to improving the quality of public services throughout the delivery chain and ensuring that the public get the best possible service at all stages. But improving delivery is a limited benefit if we are not delivering what people really need.

“This report makes it clear that improvement must be sought from the earliest stage of developing new policies or adapting and improving existing ones. It takes a new look at customer focus, in particular the need to shift radically the whole of an organisation – strategy, policy and front line delivery – towards service users.

“It lays out a path to a powerful transformation of public services, and I am pleased that the report has identified some clear successes that public service agencies should study carefully to see how they can keep consumers at the front of their thinking.”

Lynton Barker, PSPP author of the report said:

“In the private sector, companies have learnt that if they interpret customer focus as only about front line systems and processes, they will not achieve sustainable success. Only when they change their strategy, policy, behaviours and reward systems outward to ‘face the customer’ will they increase customer satisfaction.

“Customer-focused Government requires a similar fundamental shift in the way public services are conceived and managed. I think this is a real challenge to public sector organisations, but one which it is essential to meet successfully if the Government is to achieve its planned transformation of public services.”

Peter Wanless, Board level customer champion at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which will be piloting the approach set out in the report, said,

“I think this report provides an excellent grounding in what customer focus means in the context of public policy-making, as well as very practical advice in how to achieve it.”

The report sets out four key principles for public service providers to address :

• Understanding the customer : who they are, what they want and understanding how they act at present and how they could act in future.
• Building operations around the customer : how strategy, performance measures, systems, processes, organisation, values and behaviours support customer focus.
• Managing stakeholder relationships : making sure that all parties with an interest in better services – the wider public, business, voluntary sector and representative groups, as well as individual users and public sector bodies – understand and support each other and manage the potential risks of close relationships.
• Using customer understanding to deliver target outcomes : developing and implementing strategies to make best use of customer knowledge and relationships in order to improve performance.

The report finds that the quality of front-line public services such as health care or vehicle licensing are compared increasingly with other service experiences such as banking or shopping, and that there is an increased expectation of high quality public services that match those provided elsewhere.

The recommendations reflect findings that the public are more discriminating as customers and conscious of the impact of Government policy on their lives, their health, opportunities and business, than ever before and want higher levels of personalised service, wider choice, more information, and a greater voice.

The report looks at the lessons public service agencies can take from the success of a number of public sector exercises:

• DWP developed in parallel overarching delivery principles to protect and enhance the dignity and individuality of existing and imminent pensioners, and specific, targeted objectives for identifying the needs and concerns of future pensioners, including under 16s about to enter the world of work, savings and pensions, the self-employed and presently unemployed as well as those presently working for an employer.
• DfEE (now DfES) developed a targeted, flexible approach to ensure that effective delivery of the new National Literacy Strategy takes account of the full range of consumer interests at every level, from the individual child, teacher and school to regional and national agencies, including local education authorities, OFSTED and the Department itself.
• DfEE and South East Careers Service developed a ‘walking through what happens’ model from the perspective of six different stakeholders, including a disaffected young person, social services and the Youth Service, to assist effective delivery of the Connexions Service for young people in the area.
• The Office of the e-Envoy is planning two e-strategies focused on service delivery to pensioners and young people as customers across Government. Both groups are high priority for the Government but do not fall neatly within the jurisdiction of any single Department.

Preparation of the report included interviews with a wide range of external organisations including interest groups, industry bodies, non Departmental public bodies, other Government Departments and individual public sector staff.