Memorandum from the Local Government Association
The LGA has played a leading role, on behalf
of local government, in helping councils improve their understanding
and use of customer insight. Last summer we formed an alliance
with the National Consumer Council (NCC) to bring in some added
expertise and challenge to our work. We are aware that the NCC
are also submitting evidence to this committee. Their evidence
reflects the valuable insights they have gained into customer
views through their work both in public services and in the private
sector. This memorandum responds to questions which relate to
the LGA's work in the area of customer insight.
Q1 Can public services learn from the way
that either non public sector organisations or overseas governments
make use of user experience in service design and delivery
In March 2006 the LGA published the results
of research into best practice in the use of customer intelligence.
It deliberately commissioned research into organisations outside
local government to challenge its thinking. RSe Consulting researched
a series of case studies into successful businesses and other
organisations which built a clear and credible picture of the
way that they gather and use information about their customers.
The full report and a summary are available on the LGA's website:
http://www.lga.gov.uk/ProjectHome.asp?lsection=59&ccat=1145
The research confirmed that local government
relates to its "customers" in a different context from
business. A local council serves all the people living in its
area; it cannot pick and choose the most profitable. Some people
are direct customers of services such as schools or libraries;
others have a wider interest in public services, and how they
affect their area as citizens. For "universal" services
such as recycling and street cleaning, everyone is a customer.
All of these relationships take place within the context of democratic
local accountability, where people are voters as well as consumers.
But, quality customer information can be used as tool to support
democratic decision making, just as it can inform commercial decisions.
It does not remove the need for hard political choices, but it
gives stronger evidence about the impact of decisions on local
people.
Councillors and council staff who responded
to this piece of research were very enthusiastic about the potential
for using tools that were already commonplace in the private sector—and
a few councils were already doing so. Despite the very different
contexts and customer relationships experienced in the public
and private sectors, there was a strong view that the basic tools
could be used in any setting.
There is no doubt that valuable lessons can
be learned from the private sector and actively seeking these
out can be very useful in challenging existing practices and mindsets.
For councils, as for other public services, there is a need to
shift perspective, from one based on service provision, to one
based on the customer experience.
Q3 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?
Following this initial research into best practice,
the LGA and NCC have now completed further research into customer
satisfaction measures for local services (carried out by Tetlow
Associates—full report and summary available on the LGA's
and NCC's websites: http://www.lga.gov.uk/ProjectHome.asp?lsection=59&ccat=1145).
This piece of research was completed fairly rapidly and was designed
to set out broad options for the way that customer satisfaction
measures could be used in a performance framework for localities.
The research focused mainly on councils themselves. However, from
2009, comprehensive area assessments will be made of all local
services in an area. The research therefore gives some pointers
to ways that councils could use information to inform a wider
role in "place shaping"" and the potential for
a shared "data protocol"" which would make it easier
to share information between different service providers.
Lessons from the research relevant to this inquiry
are:
— While measures of customer satisfaction
are very important to monitoring performance, they are not enough
in themselves. To get behind the levels of satisfaction expressed
by customers, you need to ask about the specifics of their actual
experience.
— Customer measures are most useful
at the local level—it is unwise to make comparisons between
services, councils or areas based simply on satisfaction measures.
If we ask people how satisfied they are, their answer will depend
on factors such as socio-economic status, attitudes towards government
and/or the council as well as their experience. "As a result,
satisfaction scores can mislead if used to make direct comparisons
between services".
— Surveys are a key tool but only part
of the picture. Councils supplement them with qualitative information
from focus groups and face to face contact, information from different
sorts of consultation and other information about the local area
and the people who live there.
— The research found that councils
were already investing a lot of resource in terms of time and
effort in seeking customer views. However, they were generally
not making best use of this information either within the council
or in local partnerships. Generally, they were not able to use
this information to benchmark themselves against other similar
councils. We therefore need to develop common ways of collecting
customer data so that it can be used in a more coordinated and
effective way.
— The next phase of work, expected
to take place over the next few months will be the development
and testing of a shared data protocol and customer segmentation
which would enable councils to take a common approach to collecting
and using data from customer surveys. The LGA and NCC believe
that it is crucial that capacity is built in councils and other
local service providers because customer insight is most effective
in improving services when it is used by the people who plan and
deliver those services locally.
February 2007
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