New measurement tool will help to improve services

Published on Wednesday 9 June 2010 21:27

WITH cuts of £6 billion announced by the coalition government, and the prospect of further financial pain in the pipeline, Britain is entering a new era of austerity.

Every organisation, and every individual, will be thinking about their budgets and how to tighten their belts without compromising their lifestyles.

Local government in particular faces unprecedented challenges to maintain services while curtailing spending. From leisure facilities to care for the elderly, from police on the beat to care for disabled people, the public expects a high and wide-ranging standard of service from councils.

The idea and principle of service is at the heart of everything that is undertaken by Scotland's councils. Yet increasingly, as budgetary restraint bites hard, there will be worries that the quality of local government services will be compromised across Scotland. Those who use council services need to be reassured their council is not shedding services that adjacent councils are retaining.

While there will always be local variations in delivery there is no reason why there cannot be a universal standard for service.

So how can council taxpayers be assured their local council is delivering consistent, better targeted and more efficient customer service in this tough economic climate?

One answer is the new Customer Service Measurement Tool (CSMT), a pioneering national standard to improve the way Scottish councils evaluate the performance of the services they deliver.

It has been developed by the Improvement Service in collaboration with Consumer Focus Scotland and the Local Authorities Research and Intelligence Association, which supports local researchers in the public sector.

Scottish councils including Aberdeen, North Lanarkshire, North Ayrshire, Stirling and Dundee have also been involved in the development process.

CSMT offers a consistent way of measuring customer service across Scotland's local authorities, and in turn will enable councils to ensure services are delivered in the right way, to the right people.

It will become the gold standard for satisfied customers, and it will save time and money.

The reasons for its introduction are simple: in 2005, Audit Scotland said there were significant variations in the way Scotland's councils measured customer satisfaction.

In 2007, the Crerar Review of regulation, audit, inspection and complaints-handling of public services in Scotland also revealed support for measuring public services by focusing on outcomes. But it also recommended that there must be greater reliance on self-assessment by service providers as a means of reducing the burden of external scrutiny.

A study commissioned by Consumer Focus Scotland and the Improvement Service in 2008 then revealed a strong appetite to collaborate in the development of a new standard for satisfaction measurement.

Today, it is vital councils understand what users think of their services. This knowledge can only help deliver better quality public services. The only way to achieve this was to have a uniform tool.

The new standard is cost-effective and simple to use. Councils do not need to spend time and money developing their own solution. There is a format and structure to capture customer views on service delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism, staff attitude and general satisfaction.

How was the problem handled? How long did it take to speak to someone? Was the information accurate and easy to understand? How polite and friendly were staff? How satisfactory was the outcome?

CSMT will also be aligned with other national standards and self-assessment techniques, including the Customer Service Excellence Standard and the Public Services Improvement Framework.

For Scottish councils, the benefits include the ability to intelligently benchmark their performance and to identify Scotland-wide trends.

The burden of providing credible evidence to scrutiny bodies will be eased and the standard will help inform and direct decision-making. Most importantly, councils will be able to identify areas of weakness and target resources where they are most needed.

Scotland's councils helped to launch CSMT yesterday. In due course, Scotland's service users will be able to have their say on the quality of local services.

&#149 Colin Mair is chief executive of the Improvement Service, established by the Scottish Government to help improve local public services.