Service element of public service

The Finance Minister will present the country’s budget to Parliament in a few weeks. In his presentation, amongst others, there will be a detailed statement of the projected Revenue and Expenditure.

The common citizen, by going through these figures, will come to know the vast amount of money we plan to spend on public sector salaries and pensions of retirees. He is well within his right to ask: are we getting back equal return by way of service?

Previous reports indicate that out of our National Income 40% is set aside for salaries of public servants and pensioners.

What do Sri Lankans want from their public services? Only a few! Most importantly, they want their expectations met. And they want the staff they deal with to be competent and to keep their promises, they want to be treated courteously and fairly and have their individual circumstances taken into account. They also want the service to be good value for tax rupees spent.

Since these factors combined to account for 75% of Sri Lankan’s satisfaction with public services, it is in these areas that services must look for improvement.

The single most important driver of satisfaction with public services is that services meet expectations. People are more likely to say that a service meets their expectations when staff: (1) listen to them, understand their circumstances and treat them as valued citizens, (2) know about the services their organisation offers and can help, (3) communicate in a clear and simple way, (4) treat them with respect, (5) customer focused-friendly, polite and approachable, (6) follow through or do what they say they will do.

Competent staff

There is considerable overlap between meeting citizen expectations and what it means to have competent staff. Competent staff: (1) know about the services their organisation offers and can help the citizen, or direct them to someone who can help, (2) listen to and understand their citizen’s circumstances, (3) citizen focused-friendly, polite and approachable, (4) can communicate in a clear and simple manner.

Technically, a ‘promise’ is any undertaking or commitment made by a staff member or organisation. Keeping promises involves staff who do what they say they will do. To do so, there should be systematic procedures and standards (particularly for response times) so that staff know what is expected of them and the public are aware of the standards they can expect to receive.

Treating people fairly

The current belief among citizens is that most public servants do not treat people fairly. Treating people fairly involves: (1) staff who treat all citizens with respect, (2) are non-judgmental and have a reasonable degree of flexibility, (3) explain the reasons for decisions in a reasonable manner, (this is particularly important if it is not possible to meet a citizen’s expectations).

Being flexible puts a human face on public services and leaves a strong positive impression. People feel that their circumstances are taken into account when: (1) staff are able to exercise some flexibility, particularly in relation to scheduling appointments etc. (2) senior and more experienced staff with the authority to exercise discretion are available when individual circumstances need to be taken into consideration, (3) staff are professional at all times.

Priorities

As we can see from the above experiences, in order to improve the standards of service, the public service leaders must set the priorities right. And, what are these priorities?

First, there should be dedicated and competent staff who can clearly explain processes and inform people of their entitlements. Secondly, the service itself needs a transparent and open request and complaints process and to ensure citizens know about it. Complaints and requests need to be investigated promptly and citizens kept fully informed of the process and when they can expect a response.

Thirdly, public service leaders should set and monitor service standards so that staff know what is expected of them and the public are aware of the standards they can expect to receive. Fourthly, when individual circumstances have to be taken into account, the services need to enable staff to exercise some flexibility and discretion around processes. This is flexibility in how people are dealt with, which may not necessarily affect the outcome of their dealings with the service. Above all, Sri Lankan common citizens have to feel they have been listened to and not treated like a number.

Solution

It is obvious now that public sector leaders in our country have a big role to play to put things right. However, our experience shows that while the challenges may be consistent or increasing, the ways in which they are being confronted, and the results that are being achieved, leave lot to be desired. Historically, our public sector has been seen as a passive vehicle for executing social policy mandated by legislation.

That status quo needs to be changed. With the introduction of the liberalized economy, the people in this country have got accustomed to enhanced service delivery from the private sector. Now the citizens view the public sector as another provider of ‘services’–services for which they pay heavy taxes.

To address this, the public-sector bosses must wake up from their slumber and find ways of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of its service element.

The solution lies in developing citizen-centric models that draw inspiration from the relative success with which the private sector has addressed this situation, and that put the citizen at the heart of service design and service delivery. While the public sector does not choose its citizens, the fact that it is required to service them and their diverse requirements is another factor driving the need for new service delivery models.

Empowerment

In the private sector, when suppliers are not responsive to consumer needs and demands they will be vulnerable to sanctions from consumers. However, this responsiveness to consumer needs breaks down in the case of public services, since there are typically no user fees for these services and governments finance these services out of general revenues. So, there is little incentive for providers to improve the quality of services they offer.

This is where “empowerment” comes in. Empowered citizens and communities can hold the state and service providers accountable for the delivery of basic quality services.

Empowerment can be realized through many means. One is rights-based entitlements, in which the state offers citizens the right to information as well as the right to specific social services and basic necessities (such as food, employment, health, and basic education). In most developed countries these are legally-enforceable rights (often enshrined in their national constitutions), and it therefore becomes a binding obligation of the state to ensure that right to eligible citizens.

Participatory performance monitoring is another empowering mechanism by which citizens and communities monitor and evaluate the implementation and performance of public services, often according to indicators they themselves have selected, and then demand better performance from service providers. Some of the more commonly-used instruments for participatory performance monitoring are citizen report cards, score cards, and social audits. Citizen report cards enable service users to provide their perceptions and views of service delivery performance, outcomes and relevance.

However, while empowering citizens and communities can certainly increase the pressure on governments and public service providers to be more accountable and transparent, it is unlikely to be sufficient in bringing about improved delivery. For services to improve, the state apparatus – including local governments, the government bureaucracy and public service providers – has to change the way it does its business and become more “citizen friendly.” That is indeed the gist of the matter.