back to menuThe ‘Modernising Government’ White Paper sets out the Government’s commitment to deliver public services that are designed to meet the needs of citizens and not for the convenience of service providers. Have you noticed anything happening in this direction?
Maybe not, but it is early days yet. To start with, teams of ‘mystery shoppers’ were sent out to test a range of government services from the customer’s point of view. Some services worked very well but, you will not be surprised to learn, some did not. Other information was gleaned from the findings of the ‘People’s Panel’ and responses to an invitation on the No 10 Downing Street Website to share experiences as customers of government services. [New Year's resolution - look up the No.10 site more often if you have the equipment http://www.number-10.gov.uk.]
It seems that the main problem uncovered is that services are not as ‘joined up’ as they should be, tending to operate in compartments which do not communicate enough with each other. This results in customers having to give details repeatedly to different departments and wondering "do they never talk to each other?".
The Government has now set up five Service Action Teams (SATs). These teams are made up of people from key government departments, practitioners, and outside experts (no consumers, you will note) who will examine how easy or difficult it is for customers of government services to deal with two generic issues and five life episodes. The generic issues are, firstly, how people gain access to public services, and secondly, how to meet the commitment to provide a way for people to notify government departments of a change in circumstances or address in one simple transaction.
I am a little worried about the latter commitment. It conjures up the picture of a huge central computer which has every possible detail about everyone which can be examined by any clerk in any government department at any time. Big Brother knows all about you, and so do all the little brothers and sisters. Perhaps it exists already.
The matter of Long Term Care at Home is in the news at the moment. One wonders whether the brief of the SATs includes an examination of the charges levied by Local and County Authorities to provide essential services. In some cases, according to a radio programme on 7th January, these have been doubled, or nearly so, putting them out of reach of some, and causing others to get into debt to try to meet them. I thought it was the stated aim of the Government that those being cared for by family and other carers at home should obtain essential service at no cost to themselves.
by John Brown with material from "Modernising Government News" for November
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