Accentuate the positive!

January 28, 2009

As if to prove this practitioner/academic right, the latest Accenture report “Leadership in Customer Service” highlights several of the issues that I’ve been putting forward, these are two of what Accenture call “enabling practices”:

“Engage. Listen. Respond—Government should actively engage citizens, service users and other stakeholders in defining outcomes and designing services. Through educating, informing and involving citizens, government can then begin to build a more positive trust-based relationship, which will lead to coproduction of public value.”

and

“Be transparent. Be accountable. Ask for and act on feedback—Establishing public trust is the goal. Citizens want governments to share their policies and programs more actively and regularly. Doing so actually enhances the economic and social value of this information, fosters a broader awareness and sense of ownership among citizens, and a willingness to act as coproducers of public value.”

If that wasn’t enough of the material I’ve proposed their conclusion states:

“What must happen to change citizen sentiment? First, governments should achieve the four enabling practices described and discussed in the full report. They should also move the customer service focus beyond the quality of the service transaction toward a relationship with citizens that fosters deeper trust, improves the relevance and transparency of government decision making, improves service design and delivery, and encourages a “coproductive” relationship based on shared responsibility.”

It quite a long report but good to see!


What have I just been saying?

January 25, 2009

Just to prove that the occasional thing from academia is worth reading, a recentish paper, which those without access to the British Library or similar may have trouble obtaining but well worth reading, comes from the School of Management at Surrey University.

Kolsaker, A., Lee-Kelley, L., (2007). “G2C e-government: modernisation of transformation?” Electronic Government, An International Journal, 4(1): 68-75.

The “G2C” in the title refers to “government to citizen” – note, not customer or anything else…

On page 7, they state -

“We would argue that the UK government in its haste to transform itself, has unwisely opted for quantitative (the number of online services) rather than qualitative (focusing on user experience) transformation.”

Which I wouldn’t argue against!

On page 72, we find:

“Although essentially a captive audience for the government, irate citizens can not only withdraw their participation, but their negative comments can deter others thinking of e-government engagement. It is imperative, therefore, that G2C offers users unambiguous, overt value and high quality service experience. Technology-enabled modernisation, therefore must offer not only modern technology, but a ‘modernised’ user-centric level of service.”

In the conclusion on page 74, they propose:

“If e-government services are to be citizen-centric and widely used, they must clearly be designed for the benefits of citizens, rather than simply for cost-cutting purposes. Many citizens, perhaps especially the old and the vulnerable may not embrace ‘modernisation’ as eagerly as governments. ‘Transformational government’ may, therefore, be a step too far for the majority of the public at this time. In our view, the emphasis should shift now to improving the functionality and quality of the existing online services and building up customer support for G2C e-service users – particularly the first-time or the uncertain user.”

Which agrees with what a few of us, crying out in the wilderness, have also been stating. Primarily, in my view, to focus on qualitative measures of service delivery, whilst at the same time improving services according to that citizen feedback.

It is also noticeable that Kolsaker and Lee-Kelley use the term “citizen” rather than “customer”…


Behind the Vanguard

January 22, 2009

Just when you were thinking that John Seddon had been quiet for a while, up pops a paper on the topic of NI14, what more can I or anyone say, just read it -

http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/9-nihorse.asp


Co-production – part 2

January 20, 2009

An article in the latest issue of the journal produced by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the professional body for public sector finance staff, who may be described as a rather traditional group, states that:

“we need to understand public services delivery as a dynamic system where organizations, services and users interact to co-produce public services. This goes beyond its comprehension as ‘simple’ inter-organizational networks. Rather, it recognizes that service technology, service users/consumers and service organizations are all in interaction in the production of public service.”

Osborne, S. P. (2009). “Debate: Delivering public services: Are we asking the right questions?” Public Money & Management 29(1): 5-7.

Which being the case, much more agile means of developing, improving and studying service delivery mechanisms need to be used.


Co-production

January 19, 2009

Whilst researching using Google for some additional sources on ‘co-production’ and ‘systems thinking’ for a paper I’m writing about action research and e-government, I came across a publication written by Zoe Gannon and Neal Lawson from December 2008 published by Compass, the democratic left pressure group that has support within the Labour party from the likes of Jon Cruddas MP, entitled exactly that: Co-production! Strangely, I am on the Compass mailing list but had somehow missed the promotion of the report.

The report provides a useful history of co-production with some practical examples from the UK.


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