Improving Public Services for people – a quality ...



A-IN-18 – ANUPAM KAUL –IMPROVING PUBLIC SERVICES FOR PEOPLE – A QUALITY MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Anupam Kaul

Institute of Quality, Confederation of Indian Industry

ABSTRACT

There have been several approaches by various economies for improving the quality of public services such as legislation changes, tightening of expenditure management, anti-corruption programmes and privatization of public services. The World Development Report 2004 observed that a major cause of failure lie in the low quality of public services offered that prompt citizens to opt for private services even if these are more expensive.

The UK Government’s (Citizen’s) Charter Mark scheme brought about a paradigm change by pitching quality of citizen centric services as the basis for public service improvement and aroused considerable interest around the world. Several countries implemented programmes similar to the UK model, The quality tools adopted for improving public services include the Business Excellence Model and ISO 9000 series of Standards. Based on its own experiences, India has evolved a National Standard (IS 15700:2005) laying down a Quality Management Approach for Service Delivery by Public Service organizations. This paper traces the quality movement in Public Services in India with an updated account of the current developments.

KEY WORDS : Public Service, Citizen’s charter, quality management

INTRODUCTION: QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN PUBLIC SERVICES IN INDIA

The Government of India established the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) to act as a facilitator, in consultation with Central Ministries/ Departments, State Administrations, Organizations and individuals, to improve Government functioning through administrative reforms in the spheres of restructuring the Government, process improvement, organization and methods and grievance handling, and by promoting modernization, Citizen’s Charters, award schemes, e-governance, and best practices.

Public Services in India are governed by more than 2500 different laws and statutes, some of which were framed more than 100 years ago under the British colonial rule. Majority of these were adopted without much alteration when India came under self rule in 1947 and were in different measures, in-compatible with the social, economic and technological developments. Many of the archaic rules presented severe constraints and undesirable provisions that rendered the delivery of service unfriendly to the citizens. This triggered several approaches by State Governments and Central Government Departments to introduce improvement programmes.

The first integrated discussion took place in the Conference of the Chief Ministers organized in  May, 1997 which envisaged that the Central and the State Governments would work together to concretize the ‘Action Plan for  Effective and Responsive Administration’. Based on the Agenda set forth in this conference, the Government of India embarked on several initiatives, adopting distinct approaches:

Review of Administrative Laws - As mentioned before, one of the principal causes for inordinate delay in providing the requisite services to the citizen was the existence of a complex system of rules, regulations and procedures which, over a period of time, had become outdated.  There was also an urgent need to simplify the procedures to quicken the pace of public service delivery and also to provide seamless services to the citizen of the country.  Towards this end, the Government set up a Commission on Review of Administrative Laws in May, 1998. The Commission recommended the repeal of 1382 Central Laws of different categories. Of these, 393  Acts have since been repealed.

Citizen’s Charters – One of the major decisions at the Conference of Chief Ministers in 1997 was that the Central and State Governments would formulate Citizens’ Charters, starting with those sectors that have a large public interface (such as Railways, Telecom, Posts, Public Distribution Systems). These Charters were required to include standards of service and time limits that the public can reasonably expect, avenues of grievance redress and a provision for independent scrutiny with the involvement of citizen and consumer groups.. The DARPG initiated the task of coordinating, formulating and operationalising Citizens’ Charters. Guidelines for formulating the Charters as well as a list of do’s and don’ts were communicated to various government departments/organisations to enable them to bring out focused and effective charters. As on 31 March, 2005, 29 Ministries/ Departments had brought out 107 Citizens’ Charters and 24 State Government Organizations had brought out 629 Citizens’ Charters.. 

Redress of Public Grievances – Corresponding with the setting up of Citizen’s Charter, all Departments and Ministries were advised to designate ‘Public Grievance Officers’; fixing of time limits for disposal of public grievances, development of a software for computerized, web-enabled and networked monitoring of public grievance redress mechanism. As the nodal agency for public grievances, the DARPG itself launched a computerized Public Grievances Redressal and Monitoring System (PGRAMS) in May 2002, to facilitate citizens to lodge their grievances directly through internet. The Department tracks and monitors the progress of each grievance with the concerned department against whom the complaint is made.

e-Governance - A 12-Point Minimum Agenda for promotion of e-Governance in the functioning of the Ministries/Departments has been draftedby the DARPG. The initial phase is concentrating on developing the hardware infrastructure and in creation of electronic interfaces with the clients. A National Institute of Smart Government is being established to develop high impact e-governance applications in delivery of citizen services.

Quality through Training - In one of the early initiatives in introducing quality in governance, the DARPG entered into a bilateral Project – ‘Total Quality Management (TQM)’ with the Department for International Development (DFID), U.K. through the British Council Division (BCD). Under this project, the concept of TQM in Training for State/Central Training Institution was introduced in the year 1996-97 with the following objectives:-

• Raise awareness of Quality and Performance standards in the management of training within government.

• Develop criteria for national standards for training institutes, trainers, consultants through a lead institution, in partnership with 4/5 state level institutes; and

• Apply TQM methodology and techniques in the functioning of government training institutes

VOLUNTARY INITIATIVES

Even while the Central Government was engaged in developing a common theme for driving the improvement mission, several innovative initiatives were taken individually by several progressive State governments as well as individuals heading some important institutions. A world Bank study conducted in India in 2006 examined 31 case studies where such innovations had improved public service delivery at the local level that took place between 1994 to 2004. Some of these were found to have moved beyond the ‘initiative’ to ‘institutionalized’ stage. The World Bank published ‘Reinventing Public Services in India’ a compilation of 10 best case studies in 2006 (Chand, 2006), that ranged from large scale integration of public services by combining e-governance with public-private partnerships; process re-engineering to eliminate cumbersome bureaucratic procedures of land and real estate registration; creation and empowerment of consumer-lead committees to monitor and upgrade healthcare facilities; evolving a model of community participation in dispute resolution and crime monitoring by Police at the suburban and village level; improving urban infrastructure through Citizens Report Cards coupled with empowerment of civic agencies and transparent accounting of public expenditure. The World Bank Report identified seven key instruments that were used by these reform models to improve public service delivery:

1. promoting competition

2. simplifying transactions

3. restructuring agency processes

4. reinforcing provider autonomy

5. fostering community participation and decentralization (of powers)

6. building political support for program delivery

7. strengthening accountability mechanisms

Towards the later part of the period under study, one of the significant discoveries by some of the reform initiatives was the process of institutionalizing the changes through adoption of ISO 9001 certification. A few important cases that adopted the quality management approach for public service improvements are cited below:

Case 1 : The Maharashtra Stamp and Registrations Department

Land and Real Estate Registration function is carried out by Stamp and Registration Departments set up by State Governments. Typical problems include inordinate delays, cumbersome procedures, understaffing, clout of middlemen and related malpractices. The Maharashtra (a State in Western India) Government undertook a whole scale improvement programme based on cultural changes as well as process reengineering to evolve greatly enhanced standards of service delivery. The key approaches included:

• Extensive consensus building covering 2657 employees over a period of 17 months. This included gaining consensus for a common service Standard - Document Registration in 30 minutes (in place of days to weeks earlier)

• Overcoming staff shortage through partial outsourcing of non critical elements of delivery processes

• Computerized Registration Services in all 423 State Registration Offices in one go

• Standardized office layouts

• Re-engineering the Workflow with distributed accountability (staff/ partner) - measured and linked to payments/ rewards

• Telephone help-line for process information

• Telephone based appointment (substitute for crowding)

• Measurement of quality indicators

The management institutionalized the changes through quality management system across all its offices and sought ISO 9001 certification 2004 in one go. Some of the benefits as tracked by the department through a post certification survey included:

• 70 % transacted business without middlemen

• 75 % found staff to be polite

• 95 % stated corruption had reduced

• 100 % reported compliance to 30 minute process norm

• Average process time compiled – 18 minutes

• Average total time spent per transaction – 3 hours

• 95 % reported satisfaction with the service

Case 2 : QMS implementation in Cyberabad Police

Another spectacular improvement initiative taken by the Police Commissionerate of Cyberabad District in State of Andhra Pradesh was in fact modeled exclusively on ISO 9001. This district houses a largely suburban population of 3 million people and has some of the top IT companies operating out of it. The police network comprises of 34 police stations. The exercise was initiated with an analysis of the most common causes of deficient services based on internal and external inputs. One of the significant finding was that even though only 2 % people actually come in direct contact with the police, the public perception largely remains negative. Taking cue from an earlier successful initiative adopted by Punjab Police in quelling insurgency, one of the key approaches was the creation of Police – Public Committees both for identifying the causes of client satisfaction as well as to foster a culture of partnership to evolve solutions. Some of the causes identified were:

a) Apathy to complainants due to high work pressure, inadequate staff strength and lack of training

b) Lack of infrastructure, equipment and technology aids

c) Low morale due to threats of penal actions, and interference by influential people

d) Non cooperation from Citizens in abiding law and blaming police for inaction

The response was engineered through a three year road map (2004 to 2006) concentrating on work culture changes as well as systems building. Some of the Key Quality improvement initiatives taken were:

• Competency Development

– Training to all the staff in Change Management, 5S & Kaizen techniques (3000 staff, 45 work units)

– Soft- Skills training on Communications, Counseling, Team working, Leadership

– Learning Centers in all Police stations

• Work Environment Improvements

– 5S teams formed to improve work areas : Reception, Interview Rooms, Record Racks, Rest Rooms etc.

– Records maintenance a key priority – Two minutes retrieval

• Problem Solving

– Everyone trained in Kaizen tools

– Crimes analyzed and handled by data-driven techniques: 80-20 Pareto Principle

– Crime prone beats and time zones identified

– Better beat management to attack the significant crime prone zones

• Work Processes Standardization

– About 150 policing processes simplified, streamlined and standardized

– Measurability of the results and efforts

After a period of three years all the 34 Police Stations achieved ISO 9001 certification. The significant improvements (tracked through actual measurable indicators) were:

• A friendly & welcome environment

• Quick response: 5 minutes response time; 11 minutes Response Time to reach the spot

• Paradigm Shift – Focus from 2% to 98%

• Large Scale involvement of Community in Policing

• Culture of Continual Improvement

• Involvement in decision making

• Fairness and sense of equality

• Improvement in Responsibility & accountability levels

Case 3: ISO 9001 implementation by Rajasthan Police

The Success of the Cyberabad Police inspired several other State police departments to adopt ISO 9001 as the model for improvement. Rajasthan (a state in north India) Police not only up-scaled the coverage but also excelled in terms of the changes introduced. Some of the highlights of their improvement initiatives included:

• Up-scaling Community Policing to include 200 000 members out of which 4000 were drafted in as ‘community police officers’

• Setting up of Alternate Dispute resolution to resolve petty and domestic disputes, that are resolved by village level Community Liaison Groups and Beat constables

• Capacity Building

– Training in professional and soft skills

– Performance based incentives

– Upgrading infrastructure

• ISO 9001 certification

– 41 Police stations certified, 165 in waiting

The improvements were so visibly noticeable that they drew wide ranging applause and one of the Police Stations (Shiprapth) received the ‘Best Police Station in the World’ award by Altus Global International, The Hague, Netherlands.

STANDARDIZATION APPROACH

Even though India adopted the scheme for declaration of Citizen’s Charter by Government agencies in 1997, and launched it with big fan-fare, it did not achieve the desired result, due to several reasons,. These prompted the Government to initiate a study by a professional agency in 2003 to study the impact of the Citizen’s Charters, the reasons for their non- adherence and the ways through which a framework could be created for their effective implementation. The results of this study revealed the primary causes to be a lack of commitment by organization leadership, lack of people’s involvement among others, and more importantly lack of accountability in respect of the declared standards. In many cases, the Standards themselves were unrealistic. It recommended the following changes in approach:

a) An effective awareness campaign amongst all the stakeholders at the initial stage

b) Regular, untiring and persistent efforts are required to bring about the attitudinal changes

c) Involving and consulting staff at all the levels in formulation and implementation of Citizens’ Charters

d) A built-in mechanism for monitoring, evaluating and reviewing the working of the Charters, preferably through an outside agency

Indian Standard IS 15700:2005

In order to overcome the scheme drawbacks and create an accountability mechanism, the Government of India requested the Bureau of Indian Standards to develop a Quality Management Systems Standard specifically for public Services. The BIS set up a committee of several quality management experts and published in 2005 a unique Standard IS 15700 that lays down Quality Management performance requirements for Public Service Organizations. with focus on Service Quality, Public Grievance redress and Citizen interface.

A panel of 15 experts from 11 organizations including Govt Departments, Industry associations, Public Sector Organizations, DARPG, Quality Council of India, BIS, in its 3 meetings, prepared the draft Standard. The draft Standard was widely circulated for comments amongst 250 stakeholders, including the Secretaries of Govt Departments, all major industry associations & others. The comments received were scrutinized by the Panel and taken into account for preparing the Final Standard, which was published in October 2005.

Salient Features of IS 15700

The Indian Standard has been structured around the Quality Management Systems Principles, and is applicable to all public service organizations, irrespective of size or type of service. It is a Certifiable standard, which means that the department / organization can be assessed by independent audit teams to determine whether they comply to the various requirements specified in the Standard and if they do, then a certificate of compliance can be awarded to them. The Key features of the Standard are as under:

1. Requirements for an effective and efficient management system which includes:

• Top management commitment & responsibilities for effective control and provision of resources

• Periodic review of system including monitoring of measurable objectives , customer feedback indices

• Training of employees, sensitization for handling customers

• Internal quality audits

• Continual improvement

• Designation of Nodal officer at Apex office and each unit where public services are offered

2. Focus on citizen

• Identification of requirements

• Participation of Stakeholders in Preparation of citizen charter

• Measurement of customer satisfaction

• Wider publicity

• Review of outcome

• Single window public contact

3. Service delivery

• Process approach for interface processes and those immediately supporting these

• Taking account of customer expectations

• Standards of service provision

• Control on outsourced / purchased processes

• Focus on service at customer interface

• Standardization of processes involved in service delivery

• Availability of information at relevant locations

• Availability of suitable equipment including monitoring and measuring devices

• Safeguarding customer property/ information

4. Complaints Handling

• Establishing specific complaints handling measurable objectives including time norms

• Designating Public Grievance officer

• Identification of Complaint prone areas

• Categorization of complaints as Critical, Major and Minor

• Transparency in Complaint Handling

• Investigation commensurate with category of complaint

• Communication of Justifiable decision

• Setting up an appeals mechanism

• Appointing an Ombudsman

4. Monitoring and Analysis of Data

Measurement of customer satisfaction to determine current level of performance and opportunities for continual improvement

Analyzing the data collected during monitoring and measurement, particularly where non-conformities are recurring

5. Other requirements

• Single-window system at points of public contact to facilitate disposal of applications

• Information and facilitation centers and help-lines for information on procedures, application status, etc.

• Widely publicizing citizens’ charter through organization’s website, media with copies to all stakeholders

• Prominently displaying citizens’ charter in the organization;

• Publishing annually the data relating to performance, vis-a-vis, commitment relating to citizens’ charter in the annual report or by some other suitable means.

Some of the important considerations kept in mind during the drafting of the Standard were:

a) While the structure of the Standard was tailored around the 8 QMS principles and the traditional system requirements, conscious changes were made in the structure and contents, keeping in view that it may be difficult to equate public services with the commercial sector as public services need to balance the interests of different customer groups and also have to uphold the statutes at all times.

b) As the emphasis was on service delivery and customer satisfaction, process standardization was restricted to interface processes and those supporting them directly, coupled with training and sensitization of staff dealing with the public. However ‘measurement’ of customer satisfaction was made mandatory to serve as the reference for improvement.

c) As public services are directly linked to the public exchequer, the ‘efficiency’ dimension was added to the Standard which is normally absent in QMS normative standards.

d) User involvement was brought in through multi stakeholder working group for Citizen’s Charter development and review.

e) Element of organizational accountability was brought in through publication of annual data on performance of the Quality system and Citizen’s Charter. The institution of ‘ombudsman’ was specified to provide an external dispute settlement mechanism.

f) In order to improve transparency, several provisions were added to proactively provide relevant information to client groups.

The BIS later published a Guidance Standard IS 15800: 2007 to help in implementing the normative standard.

Survey by Transparency International

Even while the process of formulation of the Indian Standard was underway, an independent survey was coincidentally carried out by the Transparency International in India for various public services. While the main emphasis of the study was to evaluate the degree of corruption, it also examined the possible causes and the expectations of the public for making improvements. The report was published in 2005 and classified Public services in two categories – Basic (essential services) and Need Based. On the one hand it highlighted the problems faced by the Service providers and on the other it captured the needs and suggestions of customers / clients that would help improve the quality of services. Some of the key problems faced by Service providers, as per the report were:

• Basic Services:

– Heavy Work load : Increasing load without addition of personnel

– Outdated infrastructure : e.g electricity / water distribution

– Lack of Incentive (linked to customer satisfaction)

– Political interference

• Need Based Services:

– Citizens do not abide by law

– Citizens do not complain

– Pressure of influential people

– Lack of training to staff to cope with increased customer expectations

– Centralized decision making : layers of bureaucracy

Remarkably the expectations of the citizens captured by the Survey and their suggestions for improvements were to a very large extent addressed by the Standard IS 15700, thus validating its full applicability in the context of the prevailing social environment. The following tables provide a comparison of the citizens’ expectations from Public Services and the corresponding requirement of the Standard.

Table 1 Comparison of Customer Expectations with requirements provided in

IS 15700 : Citizen’s Interface

| |Improvements suggested by Citizens in ‘Transparency |Requirement laid down in IS 15700 |

| |International’ Survey | |

| |Should be drafted in consultation with all |Constitute a mutli-stakeholder working group for formulation of|

| |stakeholders |the citizens’ charter. Selection should be transparent |

| | | |

| | | |

| | | |

|Citizen’s Charter | | |

| |Should have realistic and measurable action standards|The citizens’ charter shall contain: |

| |– not just statement of intent |list of key services being offered |

| | |measurable service standards for the services provided |

| |Penal provisions for failures against declared |The citizens’ charter shall contain: |

| |standards |remedies available to customers for non-compliance to the |

| | |standards |

| |Should be properly displayed and easily available to |Widely publicize citizens’ charter through organization’s |

| |users |website, media with copies to all stakeholders |

| | |Prominently display citizens’ charter |

| |Should be periodically reported upon by independent |Publish annually the data relating to performance, vis-a-vis, |

| |agency |commitment relating to citizens’ charter in the annual report |

| | |or by some other suitable means |

| |Should be faster |Prompt acknowledgement of each complaint giving the complaint |

| | |number along with an indication of redressal time |

| | | |

|Grievance Redress | | |

|Mechanism | | |

| |To improve confidence, service provider should |The organization shall monitor and measure working of |

| |display information on complaints received, resolved |complaints handling machinery through random checks |

| |and pending | |

| |Information should be available on whom to approach |In case the decision is not favourable to complainant, the |

| |if grievances are not attended in normal course |justification along with recourse available for appeal shall be|

| | |intimated |

| |Periodical, Independent surveys to benchmark, measure|Organization shall establish & implement a system for measuring|

|Satisfaction |and track quality of service. Findings should be made|customer satisfaction through suitably designed methodology. |

|Surveys |public |This information shall be used for continual improvement |

| |Generate greater awareness about various standards of|Widely publicize citizens’ charter through organization’s |

|Public Awareness |services, procedures and initiatives |website, media with copies to all stakeholders |

| |Appoint Ombudsman for holding periodic public |Nominate `Ombudsman’ who could be approached if normal service |

| |hearings with stake holders |delivery mechanism does not respond |

Table 2 Comparison of Customer Expectations with requirements provided in

IS 15700 : Internal Systems

| |Improvements suggested by Citizens in ‘Transparency |Requirement laid down in IS 15700 |

| |International’ Survey | |

| |Make Rules, forms simple & user friendly |Ensure that services provided by the organization take into |

| | |account expectations of the customer and applicable regulatory |

| | |requirements; |

|Procedures | | |

| |Provide more assistance to users |Establish single-window system at points of public contact to |

| | |facilitate disposal of applications |

| | |Set up information and facilitation centers and help-lines for |

| | |information on procedures, application status, etc. |

| |Work to reduce dependence on middlemen / touts | |

| |Display samples of filled forms / agreements | |

|Transparency |Publish reports on public expenditure | |

| |Use ICT (Information & Communication Technology) |Determine and provide resources for effective implementation of|

|Use of Technology |Enabled Services to reduce personal interaction |management systems for service quality, citizens’ charter and |

| | |complaints handling |

|Outsource |Outsource certain services based on Service Level |Assure the quality of products and services purchased and/or |

| |Agreement |outsourced, which affects its service quality |

| |Should be empowered to seek accountability of | |

|Users Committees |deficient services | |

| |a) Introduce fixed and performance based components |(The Pay panel for Government employees has recently |

| |in staff compensation package |recommended a variable component in departments that adopt |

| |b) Link variable component to objectives and |certification) |

|Staff compensation|measurable outcomes e.g customer satisfaction | |

| |a) How to deal with citizens |Ensure that the personnel are |

|Training of Staff |b) How to manage stress |sensitized to treat customers in a courteous manner |

| |c)Technology aids |respond promptly to customer’s enquiry/complaint |

| | |provide accurate, updated and complete information |

| | |possess good interpersonal and communication skills |

| |Separate Regulations and Service functions |(Being done at implementation stage) |

| | | |

|Service Delivery | | |

| |Involve Resident Societies in delivery processes | |

Implementation of the Standard

The Standard IS 15700 is open for voluntary adoption by any Public Service Organization. Presently Certification services are being provided by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Following the publication of the Standard, the Indian Government identified 10 key departments having large public interface for adoption of the Standard and also provided to them hand-holding support to achieve certification. The first among these, the Department of Posts, has been recently awarded certification and others, including Department of Direct Taxes and Department of Customs and Excise are in different stages of progress. Following are the experiences and methodologies adopted by two organizations in implementing the Standard.

Case 1 : India Post- Bringing all-round change by focusing on Quality of Service

Like the postal sector the world over, the key challenges faced by India Post are competition, substitution, change in customer behaviour and increasing expectations of the Government and the society for it to be self sufficient even as the basic costs of maintaining the operations are increasing. In this backdrop, the Department discovered that a singular focus on Quality of Service could rally the strategic imperative for all round change in the organization. While discrete steps towards quality of service implementation and monitoring have been a part of post office operations since the very beginning, the focused approach to quality management and improvement required a systematic step by step process.

The project commenced with a general body meeting involving staff of the identified post offices, facilitated by representatives from higher offices and outside experts, in which the importance and focus on quality of service was discussed. Once everyone could reach the same level of understanding about the importance and benefits of the quality focused approach, they were advised on the further steps that were needed to implement it.

The approach revolved around building of teams with specific roles and responsibilities for achievement of the objectives. The teams formed at the post office level were in four categories, depending on the size of the post office: - mail service team, counter service team, financial services team, maintenance and customer care team. The teams had the responsibility to monitor the quality of service in the area assigned to them with the objective of finding out the present standard of service, the expectations of the customers, the opportunities for improvement and the steps to be taken to implement those improvements in order to meet the expectations of customers. The observation by the team of employees and the interaction with the customer, therefore, were the key inputs involved in the process. This process also helped in identifying the standards of service being achieved by the post office in the beginning of the process and the standards that are aspired for keeping customer expectations in view. Once the aspired standards of service were identified, the team worked backwards to standardize the necessary supporting procedures to achieve those standards. The composition of the teams, their roles and responsibilities and the performance measurement parameters to be followed by them were enumerated in sufficient detail in the beginning to ensure that the objectives of quality improvement were efficiently achieved by the teams at the post office. Apart from the initial effort in which awareness was created and specification of roles and processes was communicated, the quality improvement process was largely decentralised to the teams involved at the post office level. The successful engagement and involvement of the ground level staff was therefore the key to success of the programme.

Right from the beginning, the dialogue with customers in the form of formal and informal feedback was compiled and analysed. Data collection on the basis of observations as well as surveys was taken as a primary activity. This ensured that the understanding of customer expectations and perception of service quality was accurately captured. This process also generated awareness among regular customers of the post office on the focus for quality which inspired them to contribute to the process. Rigorous analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data thus generated followed and the specific areas of improvement and the specific targets thereof were identified. Action plan to bring about the identified improvement were worked out by the teams and specific responsibilities allocated to all team members. Action points on which support of higher offices was required was shared with the senior field level manager (Divisional Heads) by the post office team. In fact an institutional mechanism of a meeting of the post office staff with the Divisional Head was provided to aid the communication process and forward movement on the action plan. This not only improved the interface with the higher management but also became a big motivating factor for the post office teams and kept all levels of management involved in the process. The higher management tracked the progress made by the post office through internal quality audits and management reviews. Once the higher management were satisfied that the requirements of the Quality Management System standard IS 15700: 2005 were being met by the units concerned they invited the external audit team of the BIS for auditing of the post office and certification for quality system compliance.

One of the key factors in the success of the project was empowerment of the local teams to take decisions on the process changes and fixing Standards of service delivery, at the ground level based on their evaluation of the customer expectations. It was observed that the empowerment coupled with the sharing of ideas and experiences generated a very positive environment that became self sustaining for continual improvement. Within a few weeks of initiating the process it was seen that the service environment at the post office, including the counter services and other customer touch points underwent a positive transformation. There was a marked reduction in instances of service failure due to the mix of proactive and corrective steps taken by the post office. Initial reports show that the level of customer satisfaction has increased on several counts.

Case 2 : Central Board of Customs & Excise

Unlike the Department of Posts, the CBEC is a regulatory body responsible for collection of State revenues – Custom duties, Excise duties and the recently introduced Service Tax. The main challenge is to meet the stiff revenue targets, which often acts contrary to customer orientation. One of the first actions taken up in the service improvement programme was identifying the multitude of functions and services being performed and segregating these into regulatory and service functions. For example receiving tax returns, statutory audits, search & seizure operations, adjudication proceedings are regulatory services whereas information dissemination such as tariff notifications, handling enquiries are pure service functions. The categorization is essential, because in the case of regulatory services, the service standards are to built around and keeping in view the statutory standards, where no discretion is allowed. The Board set up an Implementing Committee and designated a Nodal officer reporting to the Board. The implementation committee members attended a sensitization workshop on the requirements of the Standard. (This author provided the facilitation support for implementing IS 15700 to CBEC )

Initial steps involved collecting feedback from the key customer groups such as Industry and Trade Associations through meetings and questionnaires on the difficulties experienced by them in interacting with the Department. This was followed by a Workshop of public dealing staff for identifying the major bottlenecks in service provision and the possible solutions for overcoming these. A site survey of the offices, specially the public contact points was made for recording first hand problems being experienced by customers. The inputs collected were shared with the multi-stakeholder group set up for reviewing the Citizen’s Charter. As a result the revised Citizen’s charter developed by the Working Group after several rounds of consultation and external circulation contained a clear description of the Regulatory and other services with realistic and implementable standards. A special feature added in the charter was a compliance level for the Standards taking into account the variability of the service conditions and practical handicaps. In the first year, a compliance level of 80 % was proposed. The inputs from the workshops and site surveys were also collated to identify the improvement actions.

A task Group of middle level officers drawn from all three wings, was set up to develop the system documentation. A Service Quality Policy and the corresponding Service Objectives were framed. Process mapping of interface processes for Customs (example - Bill of Entry), Excise and Service Tax (example - filing of return) was carried out identifying the existing and proposed controls.

The procedure for handling of complaints was prepared after mapping the nature of complaints being received, their frequency and their criticality. Looking into the nature of duties performed by the Officials of the Department, some of which attract complaints on their ethical conduct, the first step of the complaints handling process was designed to segregate the complaint into service deficiency component for immediate redress and the ethical issues that require internal investigations. The entire complaint handling process was mapped over a work flowchart with time norms at each stage. A new provision was made for filing appeals which did not pre-exist.

Customer facilitation was being done through help desks set up in industrial belts. However the feedback of their utilization was poor. Accordingly the revised procedure for Customer facilitation was revised to include the provision of a national telephone helpline to be manned by specially trained staff, while retaining the existing help desks by relocating them to the offices where people normally visit to interact with the officers dealing with their files. In the long term the call center and helpdesks would be integrated with real time application status on the department web site.

While the initial decision was to run pilot implementation scheme in one office for each of the wings in Delhi, the Board later decided to seek volunteers from all its offices. This move generated good response. In order to facilitate the process, the Training Institute of CBEC has recently organized a comprehensive training of the Chiefs of the field formations across the country.

While the department already has detailed operational procedures, it is planned to cover the system requirements through a common quality manual and procedures for uniform implementation.

The Implementation programme for the Department has been laid down structured around 12 steps as given in Table 3.

Table 3: Implementation 12 Step Methodology

|Step 1 |Internal assessment |

| |Identifying & Listing products & services, internal & external customers, partners & stakeholders, frontline & |

| |support processes |

|Step 2 |Assessing current perceptions |

| |Customer key expectations, Degree of customer satisfaction, priority areas, expected standards of services |

|Step 3 |Scope of QMS |

| |Identifying Services to be covered, Service Units, Chain of command |

| |Appointing Steering Committees, Nodal officers, task forces |

|Step 4 |Mobilizing Staff Support |

| |Consensus on Service Standards, Improvement areas, Improvement Actions – Interactive meetings |

|Step 5 |Reviewing Citizen’s Charter |

| |Setting up Working Group, organizing meetings, consensus based standards, compliance levels, wide circulation, |

| |approval |

|Step 6 |Training |

| |Training of trainers, training of pilot unit staff, developing internal training modules, developing organization |

| |wide training calendar |

|Step 7 |Deployment |

| |Formulating Quality Policy, Establishing annual objectives for compliance levels, improvement levels, satisfaction|

| |levels |

| |Converting objectives into measurable targets at unit level |

|Step 8 |Documentation |

| |Service Quality Manual, process maps : front line & support processes, Identifying & integrating existing SOPs |

| |Developing documentation for high risk processes |

|Step 9 |Improvement planning |

| |Setting up internal improvement committees, risk analysis, service quality gap analysis, cause & effect analysis |

| |Reviewing existing controls & resources |

|Step 10 |Improvement Actions |

| |Resource augmentation planning, improvement meetings, Setting up monitors, controls and measures, making people |

| |responsible, establishing customer survey methodology, reporting mechanisms |

|Step 11 |Implementation |

| |Activity Time chart : System elements, revised standards, improvement actions. Periodical reviews |

|Step 12 |System Checks |

| |Feedback of measurements, audits, management reviews |

Lessons learned

Implementing a quality improvement programme in Government organizations in a developing country is a unique experience and requires persevering effort. Some of the major handicaps encountered are:

a) Most of the senior and middle level officials are not acquainted with the quality management principles and approaches, unlike industry. General developments taking place such as technology acquisitions, and existing operating procedures are considered as adequate quality initiatives. Most officials think they are over-burdened with work with no time to invest in change programmes. Hence buy-in takes a much longer time and sustained effort. However the India Post Case study reveals, once the buy-in by the Top management is achieved, all levels quickly get involved and start contributing.

b) The willingness to change / innovate is lacking in senior management, except a few. There is frequent and active ‘passing on’ of responsibility. On the other hand the Maharashtra Stamps & Registrars Case study demonstrate that innovative changes (combining technology with outsourcing) could be implemented and institutionalized through a joint quality management effort initiated by top management.

c) The existing framework of Rules and procedures provides a comfort zone to the service providers as it seeks little accountability except to the internal hierarchy. There is little effort to test the validity of statutes and rules even when they are grossly outdated.

d) Lack of complaints is taken as evidence of customer satisfaction. There is great motivation to presume customer needs, as reflected in the earlier Citizen’s Charters through very lax service standards. A strong reluctance is displayed in proactively collecting the customer’s feedback / perceptions.

e) A false impression exists that staff will not cooperate in the change process. In fact, the interventions in the two case studies presented reveals that staff who face customers directly are the most vocal and active in suggesting and implementing change. Also the middle management officials who are pursuing a long term career with the organization, envision and actively articulate changes that would lead to internal and external improvements.

f) Allowing Rules to predominate over service orientation and reluctance to discover improvements in delivery processes while complying with the Rules. However the case study of the Cyberabad Police district, cited earlier in this paper demonstrated that even enforcement laws can be implemented with tremendous amount of customer focus to yield a spurt in satisfaction levels as well as credibility of the service provider.

g) Frequent changes in assignments of key officials particularly those involved in the change process presents serious handicaps and sometimes regresses the achievements.

h) Internal inspections generate a lot of account seeking from individuals responsible, but there is practically no analysis of record to identify root causes for holistic problem solving

i) Infrastructure is often inadequate to match with increasing customer needs both in terms of volume as well as quality. Financial empowerment is minimal at the service delivery outlet level. Resource acquisition planning is mostly centralized and realization is through a maze of bureaucratic procedures leading to inordinate delays.

j) A specific experience observed in the case of Customs and Excise was the lack of customer response to invitations on interactive forums and written questionnaires. It may be early to generalize, but apparently this could be due to the fact that enforcement officials instill some degree of fear or mistrust among the clientele. Perhaps the answer would lie in the initiatives of the Police in initiating Community dialogues over a sustained period which eventually lead to confidence building among the citizens.

CONCLUSION

As on date, few countries have successfully adopted the Quality Management route for improvement of public services. It is yet to be proven that adoption of a QMS system would bring around all the necessary improvements in all set ups. However based on the experiences so far, it can be said that as compared to large scale administrative reforms, and legal reforms, quality management offers a short term but extremely effective route to dramatically improve the service standards and delivery processes leading to enhanced public satisfaction as well the image and credibility of the organization. While a QMS system may not be able to directly address, fundamental deficiencies in law or resources, it certainly provides a road map of optimizing their use in the most effective and efficient manner. An important aspect for successful implementation of quality management programmes is the sensitization of the top managers in realizing the merit and power of these systems. This need is more acute in developing countries, where account seeking by public is still in nascent stages, hence the drivers for improvements are limited to self motivation of a few individuals, or less successfully, when mandated through policy programmes.

REFERENCES

Chand, V. (1979), Reinventing Public Services in India, World Bank and Sage Publications, New Delhi

India Corruption Study : 2005, Transparency International, New Delhi

IS 15700:2005, Quality Management Systems for Service Delivery by Public Service Organizations, Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi

SHORT BIOGTAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Mr Anupam Kaul is a Senior Counsellor with the Institute of Quality, CII. He is the former Head of National Institute of Training for Standardization (BIS) and was actively involved as a panelist in the development of Indian Standard IS 15700 and later in the development of the Guidance Standard. With more than 28 years of experience in Standards and quality implementation schemes, he has been deeply involved in various conformity assessment practices both from assessment as well as training perspectives. Based on his extensive personal experience of handling public services and backed by extensive research on improvement programmes worldwide, he has developed the Training Course Document for IS 15700 for the Quality Council of India and has also assisted in developing the Accreditation Criteria for IS 15700 Certification Bodies as well as for Training Course Providers. He is a consultant for implementing IS 15700 to the Central Board for Excise and Customs, Govt of India and the Indian Railways. He is a member of the ISO Committee for revision of ISO 9004, member of the Technical Committee of BIS for Management Systems Standards, Member of the National Registration Board for Personnel and Training

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