Memorandum from Pat McFadden MP
In advance of my evidence session on 10 May
on Public Services: Putting People First? I thought the Committee
might welcome a short memorandum. The Cabinet Office welcomes
the Committee's inquiry into this important area of public service
reform and looks forward to the Committee's findings.
Putting citizens and businesses first in the
delivery of public services is at the heart of transformational
government. The 2005 strategy Transformational government—enabled
by Technology (Cabinet Office 2005) sets out three areas in which
public services need to be transformed:
— Services enabled by IT must be designed
around the citizen or business, not the provider, and provided
through modern, co-ordinated delivery channels;
— Government must move to a shared
services culture—in the front-office, in the back-office,
in information and in infrastructure—and release efficiencies
by standardisation, simplification and sharing; and,
— There must be broadening and deepening
of government's professionalism in terms of the planning, delivery,
management, skills and governance of IT enabled change.
The Transformational Government 2006 Annual
Report (Cabinet Office 2007) gave a full update on progress against
this strategy. This memorandum draws out examples of progress
on the first area of transformation.
Putting people—whether front line workers,
citizens or businesses—at the heart of public services is
central to the government's reform agenda. In the Transformational
Government strategy itself, the Prime Minister said that:
"Government has to... keep up with the hopes
and aspirations of citizens and business".
The Chancellor speaking at the Public Sector
Reform Conference on 27 March 2007 spoke of;
"Reforms that create greater citizen empowerment
and accountability so that people have more control over the services
that serve them, greater choice, competition... so that people
have more options from the services that serve them"
WHAT IS
ALREADY HAPPENING
Millions of people are already benefiting from
transformed services that have been designed to put the customer
first. Some of these services are quite radically transformed
from their previous state:
— 5 million customers now visit Directgov
per month, 86% of visitors rate the site as good/very good/excellent,
80% that `it offers `useful information';
— In 2005/06, 2.6 million people booked
their driving test online (practical & theory) with £70
million of fees collected automatically;
— By 31 January 2007, HMRC received
2.9 million self assessment returns online in that year's round
of returns, an increase of 46.49% on the previous year;
— Over 9 million motorists have renewed
their car tax online—a process that joins up MOT Garages
and insurances companies in the private sector with information
held in the public sector to provide a rapid, less burdensome
service for the citizen; and,
— State pension claims and increasingly
pension credits can now made over the telephone in one short phone
call, rather than taking up to two months and several contacts.
THE VARNEY
REVIEW
The Transformational Government strategy said
that government would use
"...the Comprehensive Spending Review to
challenge existing delivery models and set clear plans and targets
for improving services and realising efficiency benefits through
a citizen-centric, shared services approach."
The Chancellor in Budget 2006 asked Sir David
Varney to conduct a review of the opportunities for the transformation
of public services, looking particularly how we can make them
more responsive to the needs of citizens and businesses. The Government
welcomed Sir David's Report (published in December 2006 with the
Pre-Budget Report) and committed to producing a comprehensive
Service Transformation Delivery Plan to take forward its recommendation.
The Varney review identified four priorities
in changing the approach to public service delivery:
— Grouping service delivery—The
public when interacting with government think about tasks or issues
they have to have to resolve (such as moving house, finding a
job). These do not all sit nicely within the domain of a single
department or policy area.
— Rationalising service delivery—Varney
said that we need to cut back the number of websites, phone lines
and offices by investing in fewer, better products which are recognised
by the public;
— Exploiting our knowledge of the customer
to improve service delivery; and,
— Making best use of the government's
information assets; particularly identity information as a fundamental
enabler of organising services around the individual.
Much work is underway to implement these priorities,
including:
The Department of Work and Pension is leading
cross government work on a service to make it much easier for
the citizen to communicate their needs to government. A project
called "Tell Us Once"—designed to test the feasibility
of grouping multiple services around particular citizen episodes.
For instance when a citizen has a baby or suffers bereavement,
how can government adapt so that the citizen only has to tell
us once and public services respond appropriately.
The Department of Work and Pensions and Her
Majesty's Revenue and Customs are leading respectively Directgov
and Businesslink.gov. Over time, these assets will develop into
the primary routes for government information and transactions
for citizens and businesses.
The Cabinet Office has brought together senior
representatives from across government responsible for over 700
contact centres handling in excess of 400 million telephone calls
per annum. These Customer Contact Directors aim to improve the
access and experience for those customers that most need to reach
public services. They have agreed measures to identify and target
the causes of unnecessary and avoidable phone calls to government.
Contact Directors are focussing upon collaboration across public
help and advice lines, making counselling and support resources
more coherent and readily available.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK
TO IMPROVE
SERVICE DELIVERY
The government has sought a statistically robust
representation of people's views on public services as an input
to the policy reviews. Innovative work was carried out by Ipsos-MORI
and has been published on the Cabinet Office website.
In order to provide public services that meet
the needs of customers, whether citizens or businesses, we have
to know our customers well. That knowledge comes from a range
of information such as surveys and consultations, complaints and
comments, customer databases, web usage data and the front line
staff.
INFORMATION SHARING
To provide personalised services shaped around
the customer, it is often necessary for public service providers
and front line workers to share information about citizens between
different systems. In November 2005, the Transformational Government
strategy set out a new ministerial focus on finding and communicating
a balance between maintaining the privacy of the individual and
delivering more efficient, higher quality services with minimal
bureaucracy.
This ministerial focus was achieved by the creation
of a cabinet committee, MISC 31, which is working "to develop
the Government's strategy on data-sharing across the public sector".
In September 2006 following work by MISC 31 the Government issued
an information sharing vision statement. At its heart was a new
statement of government policy:
"Our vision is to ensure that information
will be shared to expand opportunities for the most disadvantaged,
fight crime and provide better public services for citizens and
business, and in other instances where it is in the public interest."
The Government plan to publish an Information
Sharing Strategy in the summer 2007. The strategy will set out
how Government will enable greater information sharing by ensuring
a transparent and consistent approach to information sharing across
government; ensuring that there is a clear legislative framework
in place; encouraging better use of information systems to share
data and, very importantly, maintain and enhance privacy safeguards
so that information is not misused.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the committee
for giving me an opportunity to respond and provide you with an
indication of the work currently being undertaken within Transformational
Government.
May 2007
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