New Zealand analyses citizen satisfaction with public services

Iain Rennie, Deputy State Services Commissioner, said understanding New Zealanders' experience of public services is the essential first step towards improving the service experience for them. As part of the Development Goals programme to build New Zealand a world class system of State Services, the State Services Commission has released a report that identifies the key things that have the greatest influence on New Zealanders' trust and satisfaction with the services they receive from public service organisations.

"To understand that experience the State Services Commission adopted an international best practice approach, which will focus public servants' attention on what really matters for the people using their services," said Iain Rennie, Deputy State Services Commissioner.

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"The concept is based around the very successful Canadian approach to improving citizens' satisfaction with government service delivery over the past decade - 'Citizens First'. The SSC recently commissioned the first piece of research that contributes to understanding the important things that we need to measure in these surveys - the 'Drivers Survey'."

The Drivers Survey showed that there are six definite drivers of satisfaction with service quality that affect how satisfied New Zealanders are with public services.

The research confirms what the SSC believed to be the case, that meeting New Zealanders' expectations of service delivery is the most important factor. The other key drivers of satisfaction with service quality are:

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Staff were competent Staff kept their promises You were treated fairly Your individual circumstances were taken into account It's an example of good value for tax dollars spent. The survey also revealed the five things that are most important for New Zealanders concerning their trust in public services. Here the most important factor is that people have confidence that public servants do a good job. The other key drivers are: The public service provides services that meet your needs Public servants treat people fairly The public service keeps it promises - that is, it does what it says it will do The public service admits responsibility when it makes mistakes. "The next step for the SSC is to undertake a New Zealand-wide public survey," Rennie continued. "This survey, which is planned to be in the field in August 2007, will take the drivers identified in our current research and measure their presence for New Zealanders." "The results of the public survey will provide a set of benchmark data so that we can measure service satisfaction improvements over time. Most importantly the survey will identify the key areas that public servants need to target in order to make service improvements. It will be up to them to turn the results into action," he concluded. The SSC expects to release the results of the public survey early in 2008.

E-government for export - Article by James Smith

South Korea lends a helping hand – with strings attached, writes James Smith.

Judging by a recent spate of agreements, as well as tracking over the deals we’ve covered in this magazine over the last four years, no government in the region has been as active as South Korea when it comes to promoting the adoption of e-government in other countries.

From the ‘E-Indonesia’ network in Java, Sumatra and Bali, to e-government training in Thailand, online registries in Kazakhstan, cooperation committees with India’s Union Government, and elaborate e-government plans for local government in Russia – no country has been more prolific in exporting the tools of IT-enabled governance.

As a rising star in the field of government technology adoption, you might think there was nothing unusual in this frenetic burst of cooperative endeavour. Afterall, for the second time in a row a survey of municipal e-government by the E-governance Institute of Rutgers University-Newark found Seoul to be the top-ranked city (though coincidentally the research was jointly conducted with Sungkyunkwan University in, er, Seoul).

Meanwhile last year’s Global E-Government Survey from our friends at Brown University eccentrically charted a leap from 86th place to the number one position for … South Korea. And as we all know, the country genuinely is one of the world’s most wired societies with over 70 per cent of homes receiving broadband internet. So the country clearly has more to contribute to the development of the regional public sector beyond Korean drama serials and kimchi.

"Korea will not spare efforts to support countries in not only building advanced network infrastructure but also in introducing e-government services," said Rho Jun-Hyong, Minister for Information and Communications at a recent inter-governmental talking shop focusing on more pervasive ICT adoption in Asia.

And this is a message which certainly seems to go down well in some of the region’s least developed countries. Only a month or so ago Myanmar’s forward-looking leadership announced a wide-ranging agreement to let South Korean chaebol Daewoo to establish new online citizen services. Don’t expect high participation rates for these services for a while – the country has an internet penetration rate 0.03 per cent.

Then there is a new e-government roadmap that has been put together with South Korean expertise and funding for Nepal. Over the next four years the country (internet penetration rate 0.42 per cent) is set to roll-out a “fully-fledged e-governance system” which will deliver the usual comprehensive range of citizen-focused administrative services, and provide all arms of government with a single data network.

But, without wanting to detract from the generosity of spirit which provides trade finance for elaborate e-citizen applications in countries with low teledensity, and next to no internet penetration – perhaps South Korea’s drive for e-government exports will do more harm than good.

When it comes to government modernisation and the consolidation of a country’s information infrastructure, Public Sector Technology & Management likes to be on the side of the angels. We are certainly not arguing that developing countries should limit their ambition – and in the past we have advocated the role of disruptive new technologies to enable countries to leapfrog generations of technology.

But a spirit of adventure when it comes to the value of ICT needs to be married with a certain degree of pragmatism. The easy availability of trade finance does not, by itself, create a business case for importing South Korean e-government expertise wholesale.

The stark truth is that language is still a barrier preventing many of the nuanced lessons that South Korea has learned during its own rapid pace of development from being shared with the audience it deserves. With the right financial terms, it may be easier for South Korea to push metal, code and wires than to sell soft skills and expertise – but it’s the latter the region needs most.

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Hong Kong promotes participation at new govt portal

Hong Kong residents are being encourage to show off their creative side in moves to encourage their use of a new government portal.
Hong Kong people will have a chance to showcase their photos and creative designs worldwide by taking part in the photo and banner competitions organised by GovHK - the new one-stop portal of the HKSAR Government.

GovHK (www.gov.hk) adopts a citizen-centric approach to provide online government information and services, focusing on the needs and interests of the public.

For the photo competition, entrants can submit up to five photos which they believe best illustrate Hong Kong or the daily lives of local citizens. All submitted photos must be taken in Hong Kong. Winning photos may be displayed on the landing page of GovHK, which is visited by people from both Hong Kong and overseas.

For the website banner competition, entrants can submit up to five designs in computer graphic for the banner space on the GovHK homepage.

GovHK currently serves three broad groups of users - Residents, Business & Trade and Non-Residents. For the Residents user group, there are 11 subject-based sections covering key areas of public interest among local residents.

Content related to doing business in Hong Kong and the Mainland is available under the Business & Trade user group of the portal, while non-residents interested in visiting, investing, studying, working or living in Hong Kong can find the information and services they need under the Non-Residents user group.

GovHK also offers an enhanced search function to help users search for government information and services. The portal also provides access to a variety of information frequently sought by the public on its homepage, such as government directory, news, weather and traffic conditions.

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