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Commonwealth Government Service Charters
Rose Verspaandonk
Politics and Public Administration Group
22 May 2001
Background
The requirement that service charters be developed by Commonwealth organisations
engaged in service delivery was announced in March 1997 in the Prime Minister's
More Time for Business statement.(1) Prior to this,
some agencies had initiated their own charters. The initiative followed
similar approaches in the United Kingdom and the United States.(2)
The introduction of service charters was welcomed by the then Commonwealth
Ombudsman, Ms Philippa Smith, who noted that even the process of
developing a charter could 'result in a realignment of priorities.'(3)
Overall responsibility for service charters is held by the Special Minister
of State, supported by the Department of Finance and Administration.(4)
What are Service Charters?
A service charter is a public document that sets out the standards of
service that clients can expect from an organisation, as well as avenues
for taking up complaints.(5) It should be developed in consultation
with clients, staff and other stakeholders. Service charters are intended
to ensure that organisations:
- focus on service delivery
- measure and assess performance, and
- initiate performance improvement.
These goals are reflected in the categories for the Service Charter Awards
for excellence, which are discussed in the next section.
The service charter of the Department of Transport and Regional Services
is an example of a relatively detailed charter. It includes:
- the goals of the organisation
- the services provided
- broad service quality commitments (e.g. courtesy)
- specific standards of service (e.g. phone calls to be returned within
one working day)
- a request for courtesy, honesty and accuracy from the client
- opportunities to provide feedback to the agency, and information about
how to complain to the Ombudsman, and
- a commitment to assess the organisation's performance against the
standards set out in the service charter.
The charter of the Child Support Agency is briefer. It emphasises the
Agency's desire to treat clients fairly, and facilitates feedback. This
charter has won an award for both its content and its integration into
the agency's operations.
Organisations are required to consider the Government's Client Service
Charter Principles(6) when developing or reviewing service
charters. These provide guidance on the content, development, maintenance
and review of charters, as well as reporting requirements.
Scrutiny of Service Charters
Service charters are open to public scrutiny. They have been subject
to monitoring by the Department of Finance and Administration (which publishes
a whole-of-government report)(7) and the Public Service and
Merit Protection Commission (which reports on charters in its State
of the Service report)(8).
The annual service charter awards for excellence have been managed by
the Department of Finance and Administration in conjunction with the Australian
Quality Council. The categories in 2000 were:
- demonstrated excellence in integrating service charters into core
service delivery outcomes and organisational culture
- demonstrated excellence in service charters driving online service
delivery
- demonstrated excellence in service charters driving service delivery
to rural, remote and regional Australians, and
- demonstrated excellence in service charters driving service delivery
to clients with additional needs (this includes people with disabilities
or English as a second language).
Service charters are also a component of the annual awards for annual
reports, which are overseen by the Institute of Public Administration
Australia.
Significance of Service Charters
Service charters are an important development for several reasons.
- they provide a clear and accessible commitment to standards, which
can assist the client to form reasonable expectations and, if necessary,
seek redress
- by publicly committing to particular standards, they may facilitate
the process of public accountability, and encourage improved performance
in public sector organisations
- they may be indicative of a changing client profile. For example,
the general level of education in the community is rising, and it could
be argued that deference to authorities is giving way to assertiveness
and a stronger sense of entitlement, and
- they symbolise the changing public service. As the public service
increasingly emulates the private sector, it is not surprising that
it has adopted a market-oriented mechanism for performance improvement
and client communication.
Issues
This section discusses three issues arising from the introduction of
service charters-the need for greater client awareness of charters, the
unequal relationship between the client and the Commonwealth agency, and
the importance of maintaining a broad and robust range of accountability
mechanisms.
Service charters have the potential to empower clients. The extent to
which they assist clients to voice concerns and seek redress depends partly
on the level of awareness of service charters among clients. Preliminary
evidence suggests that clients may be unaware of the existence of service
charters, and this problem needs to be addressed if charters are to be
an effective instrument of empowerment.(9)
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The British Experience
John Major's Conservative Government introduced the Citizens'
Charter in 1991. In 1997, the incoming Blair Labour Government
reviewed the Charter program, revamping it in 1998 as Service
First. The new program emphasised effective consultation, meaningful
standards, closer relationships between related service providers,
updated principles and a re-invigorated awards scheme.
One of Service First's initiatives is the People's Panel.
The panel consists of 5 000 representative citizens, who are
surveyed and consulted about service delivery improvement. Members
have been consulted about a range of issues, including electronic
service delivery, the ministerial public appointments process and
country-of-origin labelling for food. (www.servicefirst.gov.uk)
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Similarly, the potential for service charters to empower clients
should not obscure the fact that the overall relationship between the
client and the bureaucracy is likely to be an unequal one. Factors such
as weak English language skills, lack of self-confidence and lack of time
may impair a client's ability to secure what they believe to be a fair
outcome. In many cases, the organisation is also a monopoly supplier of
a service, meaning that the client does not have that ultimate power of
transferring their 'custom'.
These points lead to the third issue. Service charters are a new component
of the Commonwealth's large and complex framework of redress and accountability.
As well as being important in protecting the rights of clients, this framework
is essential to ensuring that the Government remains accountable to the
public, on whose behalf it delivers services.(10) All citizens
(not just direct clients) have a stake in the quality of public services-both
because they may pay for these services through taxation, and because
these services generally contribute to the public good (e.g. through the
education of a new generation of workers or through public health initiatives).
Within this framework, service charters have the potential to complement
such measures as the Ombudsman, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, judicial
review, internal complaint procedures and parliamentary oversight. Service
charters are at the 'soft' or persuasive end of the spectrum, with judicial
review at the 'hard' or coercive end.
Service charters can complement these other aspects of the framework.
For example they provide information on how to complain to the Ombudsman.
Also, to the extent that they result in better service delivery, service
charters could reduce the demand for remedies. However, it would be unfortunate
if they were promoted at the expense of these other measures.
Conclusion
The comprehensive implementation of service charters symbolises the changing
service delivery environment. Charters reflect the increasing emphasis
on individual client-provider relationships and the trend of modelling
public sector arrangements on those that operate in the private sector.
If service charters empower clients and enhance agency responsiveness,
they will be a welcome addition to the broader, and more traditional,
accountability framework.
Endnotes
- Policy making bodies are encouraged, but not required, to have a service
charter.
- See www.servicefirst.gov.uk
and www.customerservice.gov
for further information. According to the Department of Finance and
Administration, countries that have statements of service standards
include New Zealand, France, Portugal, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Ireland,
Hong Kong, Canada, South Africa, Namibia, and Costa Rica.
- Philippa Smith, 'Service Charters: The Latest Fad or Last Hope?',
Admin Review, May 1997, p. 30.
- Information is available at: www.finance.gov.au/online/charters/.
- Service charters should not be confused with service level agreements,
which specify the agreed level of service within an agency or between
agencies.
- These principles note that 'A charter in itself is not intended to
confer legally enforceable rights on clients of Commonwealth agencies.'
Client Service Charter Principles is available at: www.finance.gov.au/online/docs/principles.PDF
format.
- Service Charters in the Commonwealth Government: Second whole-of-government
report by the Special Minister of State, Senator the Hon. Chris Ellison
is available at: www.finance.gov.au/online/charters/#w.o.g_report.
- See www.psmpc.gov.au for the
most recent report.
- For example, Centrelink's Annual Report 1999-2000 acknowledges
that in May 2000 12 per cent of clients were aware of its
charter.
- For discussion of this issue, see Linda McGuire, Service Charters-Global
Convergence or National Divergence? A Comparison of Initiatives in Australia,
the United Kingdom and the United States, Working Paper 71/00, Department
of Management, Monash University, November 2000.
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