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Public services need to be more ‘customer-focused’

Attempts to reform public services will only succeed if they focus on the experiences of service users and become more ‘customer friendly’, according to a new report from the think-tank Demos. The report, The Journey to the Interface argues that reform of schools, hospitals and other public services have focused too much on competition and contestability, at the expense of the experience of users.

The report was launched on Thursday night by Ed Balls MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

“If public service reform is to succeed, we need to develop a powerful service culture,” says Sophia Parker, Deputy Director of Demos and co-author of the report. “Improvements in public services do not solely depend on who is delivering them, whether from the public or private sectors. Private sector involvement does not guarantee the creation of a culture of service: 80% of us had negative experiences of consumer services last year alone. The real challenge for our public services is to close the gap between what people want and need, and what service organisations are actually doing.”

The report’s authors also argue that current systems to measure the performance of public services have neglected people’s direct experience of services at the expense of centrally imposed targets. They propose that public services should be judged on key indicators of people’s experiences; for example, people’s capacity to cope with long-term illnesses themselves, a key indicator for Birmingham OwnHealth, as featured in the report.

The report notes that users of public services are demonstrating an increasing desire to shape their own experience of healthcare and education. NHS Direct now receives 600,000 calls per month, and 52 million Americans go online every week to find out about health. It points to initiatives like patientopinion.org.uk, which allows NHS patients to swap stories about recent hospital treatment. The site enables others preparing to go to hospital to make decisions about where to go for treatment.

“From patients to parents, service users need to play a more active part in shaping their experience of public services,” says Sophia Parker. “This means engaging people at the point of delivery. Citizens need to be able to shape services in the school hall as well as the town hall.”

The report makes a number of recommendations for central and local government, including:

• Senior civil servants should resolve at least ten individual complaints from members of the public every year, to help find new ways to improve public services such as schools and hospitals. All civil servants should visit the frontline at least once every six months.
• The Treasury needs to build longer-term thinking into the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, and should set up a Working Group to find new ways to measure the impact and value of public services.
• Local authorities should set up dedicated customer service team, to oversee customer experiences across councils and report directly to the senior team. Local authorities should also overhaul career structures and compensation packages to incentivise creating great service experiences and engaging with people to develop services.

Notes to editors

1. The Journey to the Interface: How public service design can connect users to reform by Sophia Parker and Joe Heapy is published by Demos on 7^th July 2006. Copies can be downloaded from value www.demos.co.uk/publications/thejourneytotheinterface or ordered from Central Books on 020 8986 5488.
2. The Journey to the Interface will be launched on Friday 7^th July 2006 by Ed Balls MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
3. Sophia Parker is Deputy Director of Demos. Her previous publications include The Other Glass Ceiling: The domestic politics of parenting and Strong Foundations: Why schools must be built on learning. Joe Heapy is director of the service design consultancy Engine.
4. Demos is an independent think-tank. It has a long-running programme of work on public service reform.
5. The Journey to the Interface was produced in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.