Memorandum from William Heath
1. Can UK public services learn from the
way that either non public sector organisations or overseas governments
make use of user experience in service delivery and design?
Undoubtedly yes.
Typically the NGO sector has minimal resources
and a very high degree of customer focus. NGOs (and the CABx are
a classic example, but this is widely true) typically arise in
response to a concern or unmet need. Any resources they can muster
they throw at the need. So they tend to be highly innovative,
and outward looking even if chronically underresourced. Government
seems to be the opposite—overresourced in what it consumes
(but underresourced in any given part because of an overall lack
of focus), introspective and resistant to change.
Looking overseas, Canada's highly praised modernisation
and transformation started with asking customers what they wanted,
and them "modernising" (ie applying technology and different
business processes) in line with what customers want.
There are good examples of customer-driven public
sector change in the UK: Pension Service; Suffolk council's customer
services joint venture with BT (details available).
2. Is it possible to set minimum standards
for public services? If so, how is this best done?
The UK experience shows the limitations of doing
this centrally and in a monolithic way. What is needed will differ
by geography, customer group and service type.
Standards of public serices should be measured
as far as possible independently of government using direct raw
feedback from those directly affected. It should not be measured
by auditors. We should democratise the process of change.
3. What role do measures of customer satisfaction
have in assessing the standards of public services? How should
user views be monitored? How can the cost effectiveness of user
surveys and feedback mechanisms be assessed?
Satisfaction is subjective. It gives weight
to people who complain over people who are phlegmatic, as many
of us are about public services. What is more important is the
objective measure of people's experience. This "ethnographic"
approach is characteristic of the thriving British service-design
profession. But it is barely used at all in public services as
far as I can see (other than sometimes in health). The best example
to date is Patient Opinion. There is a simple example in the Appendix
to the new Varney report, recounting what happens to a bereaved
person.
Together with the Young Foundation I have been
working on the idea of "UK Feedback", an independent
mechanism for providing unvarnished feedback about what happens
when we encounter public services.
Customer satisfaction research can become expensive,
and the answers it gives can be skewed depending on how the questions
are asked. We should require a high level of transparency about
public money spent on such research, and the brief and methodology.
4. What constitutes best practice in responding
to complaints about public services?
Not my specialist field. But the NCC work "Playlist
for public services" strikes me as exemplary on this and
a number of the themes you riase, and Ed Mayo would be a good
person to give evidence.
5. Is information about complaining easy
to find and accessible?
Ditto.
But I think it's important that complaints are
just one form of feedback, and for a complex system to be sustainable
it needs a rich variety of feedback. This means public services
need to know not just complaints, but also when people are happy
or merely have a neutral experience.
6. Should users be more directly involved
in service delivery? If so, how can this be achieved?
Yes definitely. The best public services across
Europe involve customers as early as possible and as much as possible.
The core finding of the 4th EU Quality Conference in Tampere Finland
built upon the notion of "co-creation" to call for customer
involvement in every stage of the public-service project:
— co-monitoring and evaluation.
This, the EU rapporteurs suggested, adds up
to "co-governance".
Co-creation is described well by Eric von Hippel
in his book "Democratising Innovation". The examples
are about surf-boards ather than public services, but the lessons
are absolutely relevant to public services.
The notion of co-governance is especially powerful
with on-line services because of their powerful opportunities
for fedback.
Major public IT-based projects are traditionally
expensive and inflexible. But contempory techniques support flexible
and interactive development, with advanced users creating tools
and profiles they are happy to share.
The comparison between Google and Microsoft
is very instructive. Microsoft sells complicated products. Google's
value comes from the searches people do. Google maps become valuable
because of the data people add. Its "personalised homepage"
is configured by the user.
The government's IT strategies to date have
not taken into account the central importance of self-service
in developing what works. They simply do things to people using
technology.
The Internet comes with full feedback mechanisms
built in, and it allows infinitely complex configurability because
the choices are made by users. Disseminating information and services
becomes like gardening—a culture in which things grown of
their own accord. This suggests that FoI, consultations, or public-service
notifications to specific groups (eg with diseases, financial
circumstances or in a geographic area) can be configured by users
or by helpers or intermediaries acting on their behalf. Government
just needs to make its data resources available, open and navigable.
Again, Dr Paul Hodgkin of Patient Opinion has
thought through these issues in depth and is a good person to
give evidence.
7. Are there certain types of decision which
are more suited to consultation than others?
Some decisions are matters of leadership (eg
not having the death penalty) or of regulation (eg asking people
to pay tax).
But I think any decision which purports to be
beneficial should be based on consultation. The childrens index,
online health record and introduction of ID cards are all cases
in point, where the consultation was woeful and statements about
benefits and people's attitudes towards these systems can be highly
misleading.
8. Do official consultations typically manage
to capture the views of the right people? What kinds of consultation
are most effective in engaging with the appropriate people?
I don't claim broad expertise in this. But the
ones I have observed (Trident, nuclear power, ID management) have
left much to be desired.
9. How valuable are advisory panels in the
design and delivery of public services?
I have no direct experience of this, and some
scepticism. I think the DTI-sponsored Trustguide research was
far more instructive than the Mori omnibus approach to measuring
attitudes on ID cards. The Trustguide researchers (Hazel Lacohee
of BT and Andy Phippen of Plymouth) might give good evidence.
What they did to unpack this difficut policy question was to use
an informed lay panel (ie they briefed people for several hours,
and then did a focus group). This avoids a paedophile/paediatrician
level of ignorance but gives authentic vox pops.
10. How does user influence relate to wider
issues of democratic accountability?
The issues about self-selection and noisy minorities
are no excuse not to make progress down this road.
11. How should measures of public satisfaction
take account of complaints about policy rather than administration?
The classic example in my experience is my friend
Dreadlock Dave, who had no complaints about his arrest for carrying
hallucinogens (tho he regretted the unauthorised removal by the
police of cash he had earned legitimately and kept in a sock in
his bedroom), no complaints about the trial, no complaints about
his years in prison (other than poor food and lack of daylight
... he led yoga classes and worked on his PhD). He didn't contest
the process or complain or appeal at any stage. But his unwavering
belief (for which ther is a strong rational body of evidence)
is that our drug laws are harmful and wrong-headed, and saw himself
as "PWOD" (prisoner in the war on drugs).
I think the only way to deal with such a situation
is to switch from policy-based evidence to evidence-based policy,
and openness about the evidence on which the policy is based.
In Dreadlock Dave's case this would at least expose the economic
damage and human harm caused by a drugs policy that is not rationally
evidence-based.
12. Are there situations where the views
and experiences of service users are irrelevant?
Nobody asks Iraqis walking down a road in Fallujah
how they felt about laser-guided weapons. And the road pricing
petition shows what happens when a complex issue is approached
in the guise of a simple question. But the responses aren't irrelevant;
they merely don't tell the whole story. So we need more feedback,
not less.
February 2007
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