Home > The Values and relations with the Public > Service Charters

SERVICE CHARTERS

A key mechanism used by the Australian Government to ensure a strong focus on service delivery is agency service charters. All government agencies delivering services directly to the public are required to prepare and implement such a charter. Agencies with policy development functions are also encouraged to develop charters.

The Government’s current principles for service charters, the Client Service Charter Principles 2000, emphasise regularly reviewing charters, monitoring and reporting performance against client service standards, and recognising the needs of diverse client groups. The APS Commission oversees these principles, which are complemented by the Charter of Public Service in a Culturally Diverse Society, overseen by DIMIA and reported on in DIMIA’s Access and Equity Annual Report. The Commonwealth Disability Strategy (CDS), administered by the Office of Disability, which aims to improve access to services for people with disabilities, also complements these principles. All agencies are expected to assess their performance against the indicators specified in the framework and report on progress in their annual reports. The CDS is currently under review.

The effectiveness of service charters depends on a number of factors, including the ability of agencies to successfully monitor and report on client satisfaction using quantifiable performance indicators.

SERVICE CHARTER AWARDS

The APS Commission recognises high quality client service delivery through the Service Charter Awards for Excellence. In 2003 only two Silver awards were presented. They were for ‘demonstrated excellence in using service charters to provide innovative approaches to core service delivery outcomes’. The Health Insurance Commission (a non-APS agency) won one of these for demonstrating a strong commitment to continuous improvement through regular customer research and feedback and incorporating their service charter in normal business planning. The DVA won the second for conducting a rigorous review of service delivery involving large numbers of employees, and courageously facing areas of vulnerability in service delivery.

COVERAGE AND REVIEW

The 2004 agency survey found that 64 agencies (74%) have an agency-wide service charter in place. This was similar to the proportion of agencies that reported having a service charter in 2002—03 and includes the vast majority of agencies with a major service delivery focus. A further three agencies indicated that an agency-wide service charter was being developed. Service charters were more common in large agencies (90%) than small agencies (64%).

While the vast majority of agencies that have a service charter have either revised it (64%) to incorporate the new principles established in 2000, or are planning a revision in 2004—05 (23%), last year’s report presented a similar result (59% had revised their charters and 28% said they would do so the following year). Progress is evidently slower than claimed amongst those agencies that have not revised their charter, which is of concern given it is now four years since the revised principles were published. Of the 18 agencies that stated they were revising their service charter in 2003—04, five (the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), ABS, CSA, Defence, and FaCS) have completed their review. Of the 36% which have not revised their charters, most are small or medium agencies, but there are also some large agencies.

Performance indicators and service standards

The client service charter principles place a strong emphasis on the monitoring and reporting of client satisfaction. They provide that service charters must include service standards and have avenues for clients to provide feedback and make complaints. There must also be mechanisms to report on that data.

The client service charter principles also state that, when deciding which service standards to publish, agencies should take account of their ability to measure performance against each standard. Similar to last year’s results, 78% of agencies with public contact stated that they had identified such indicators or standards (77% last year). A further seven per cent said they were being developed (8% last year). In other words, the further improvement foreshadowed last year has not been achieved. Quantifiable indicators or standards are still more common in large (95%) than small (69%) agencies with public contact.

In line with the requirement for agencies with a service charter to publish performance against their charter commitments in their annual report, the annual report (90%) was the most common place for reporting on measures on the quality of services provided to the public. There was some improvement however, in internal use of reports on these performance measures: reporting through internal agency management structures was very high (84%), the same as last year, and reporting to internal service delivery units/teams was high, increasing 10 percentage points on last year to 68%. The proportion of agencies now using these measures as part of a balanced scorecard concept, while still relatively uncommon, has also increased considerably from 20% in 2002—03 to 32% in 2003—04, with a further five per cent stating that they are developing such a reporting mechanism.