THE RATIONALE FOR CITIZENS’ SERVICE DELIVERY CHARTERS: Kenyan Experience Juster Nkoroi Performance Contracting Department Nairobi Kenya

Importance of Citizens’ Service Delivery Charters Empowers citizens to hold institutions and individual officers accountable for quality, timely and responsive services- value addition to taxes Reduces corruption Changes culture and attitude at work place by focusing efforts to customer satisfaction Ensures public officers are conscious about quality of services offered Enables systems to continuously re-engineer service processes

Objective of the Presentation Share experience on importance of Service Charters.

WHAT IS IT? The Citizens’ Charter is a brief public document that provides the essential information that citizen and stakeholders need to know about the services or functions of a public agency/department of the government the manner in which they can assess the services efficiently. The underlying principle is that when people are empowered with such information they will be able to hold the State and its agencies accountable.

PURPOSE OF THE CHARTER The purpose of the service charters is to continually improve the quality of public services for the people and other consumers of public services in Kenya. The Citizens’ Charter sees public services through the eyes of those who use them. The Citizens’ Charter is meant to raise quality, secure better value and extend accountability. Thus, the basic thrust of Citizens’ Charter is to bring the citizen to the fore and see public services from service users’ angle.

RATIONALE The rationale of Citizens’ Charter emanates from the necessity of ensuring accountability of the providers of public services to the service users. Its justification is based on the following factors;

RATIONALE… On the recognition of the fact that all public services are paid for by the citizens, either directly or indirectly. Therefore, they are entitled to quality and standard services. The citizens must be able to secure better value for their money. make services more responsive and the service providers more accountable to the service users.

Basic components of Citizens’ Charter 1.Details of Business Transacted by the Service Provider In its Citizens’ Charter, the organization must state clearly what subjects it deals with and service areas it broadly covers. This helps the users to decide what type of services they can expect form a particular service provider. On the other hand, a Charter must be realistic to incorporate commitments, which are achievable.

2. Expectations from the Users/ Clients The services in the charter should be the most frequently sought or demanded On the other hand, there are certain obligations on the part of the service users, which help in providing better services. Expectations of the service users must be genuine and according to the list of services enunciated in the Charter.

3.Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities A charter must clearly define what are the rights and responsibilities of the citizens in regard to a particular service. The citizens or service users are also responsible to furnish information, which are essential for delivery of public services.

4. Agreed and Published Standards for Service Delivery The Citizens’ Charter must set explicit standards of service so that the users are aware of the quality or standard of service they can reasonably expect form each service. It must contain provisions for effective monitoring and publication of actual performance against the set standards. Service standards must conform to the following 5 essential requirements:

TRAMS Time bound Relevant Accurate Measurable Specific

6. Openness and Information The objectives of Citizens’ Charter will be fulfilled only if the organization reaches out to all of its service users. The service users must be provided with comprehensive information at the right time and at the right place. Full and accurate information published in a simple language must be readily available to the stakeholders.

Openness… Regular publication of handouts, posters, newsletters, updated information on website and information through popular modes of communication can be used to reach out to the target user groups. The organization must be open to queries and tell the citizens about the goals as well as the means it would like to adopt to achieve those goals.

7. Courtesy and Helpfulness The organization should imbibe a culture of providing courteous and helpful services to the service users and the charter must imbed it. It must form part of behavior of the public service providers. The public service providers must be helpful and courteous towards the citizens while providing services.

Courtesy… Courtesy and helpfulness must be guided by the fact that it the service users or the citizens for which the Organization and the service providers exist and not the vise versa. Thus, personnel involved in delivering public services must be courteous and helpful to the best possible extent, which is enumerated in the following tabular form;

Courtesy… To be courteous Receive the citizen/service user who visits Govt. office with a smile and request him to take a seat. Assure him of help from the organization Apologize for delay in service delivery. Say ‘sorry’ if unable to help. Express thanks for visiting and cooperating for providing better services. To be Helpful Know his problem/cause of visit and give advice on what is needed. Provide relevant information and do what is really needed. Explain the causes of delay and sincerely try to solve his problem. Refer the citizen to a person in the organization who can help him. If work is not done during the visit, communicate him soon after it is accomplished.

8. Value for Public Money It is yet another important component of Citizens’ Charter. It implies efficiency and economy in delivering public service within the limit of the available resources. The users must get satisfaction in terms of service standard and value for their money

9. Complaints handling and Grievance Redress There has to be published and easy to use complaint mechanism available to the service users at a nearest possible point. A service user must not run from pillar to post to lodge a complaint or for redress of his grievances. There must be reasonable time limits set for each stage of the complaint processing and its outcome. Detailed information about a complaint should include its type/nature, complainant's name, location and date, responsible officer, and referrals. Genuine complaints must be seen as a means of getting feedback, which can be used to improve services in several ways:

Complaints… It will reduce the causes of complaint in future. It will help the service provider to understand clearly when and where it is failing. The information generated by complaints will assist the service provider to put matters right. A trend analysis of complaints will help the organization to resolve systemic and recurring problems.

Complaints… There is little point in complaint handling unless appropriate grievance redress is affected. A major reason why most service users do not complain is their apprehension whether it would make any difference. There must be an effective grievance redress mechanism and detailed information about how to access it. Effective grievance redress would require fixing of responsibility in cases, where commitments have not been fulfilled. The nature and form of redress would depend on the nature of complaint:

Complaints… For small mistakes, which can be rectified immediately, an apology may be all that is needed. If quick remedy is possible, things must be corrected without delay. In matters of blatant violation of the declared commitment and loss to the service user, compensation should be appropriate

10. Accessibility of Accountable Officials Complaints by the service users should be considered as opportunities to improve services. Therefore, complaints should be always treated courteously. There should be an easy to access and user-friendly complaint mechanism. A Charter must contain names, postal and addresses and telephone numbers of the Officer as well as all other personnel involved in delivery of services at different levels.

11. Putting Things Right If things go wrong, the service provider should try to put them right, in terms of a quick and effective remedy. This is the hallmark of citizens’ charter.

12. Responsiveness and Commitment Highly motivated and trained frontline staff should be given the responsibility to deal with users’ grievances. They should be empowered to redress grievances at the first contact. Commitment for quick and appropriate redress of grievances is required at each level of the Organization for the following purpose;

Complaints… There is a need to set up an Integrated Performance Monitoring System in the Organization. It is to be ensured that all complaints and inquiries are logged. The data acquired can be then analyzed to ascertain whether or not the Organization is able to meet its published standards. This would require measurable targets to be set for objective assessment of performance, which must be reviewed on a regular basis.

Complaints… The service delivery system should be subject to regular review to ensure that it is delivering the desired outcomes. Feedback on performance could be acquired from a trend analysis of recorded complainants. The concerned officer must furnish regular reports to the Core Group on performance of service standards.

Complaints… A comparative analysis of nature, type and volume of complaints with the published standards of performance can help in assessing actual performance of the Organization. Public reporting of the outcomes of performance monitoring will further enhance the credibility of the service provider.

CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS Remember formulating a Citizens’ Charter is just the beginning of a journey to arrive at the goal! i. Creating Motivation Motivate the service delivery personnel or officials to sincerely implement the mandates of the Charter. ii. Creating Awareness Create awareness among the citizens about the benefits of the Charter.

Conditions… iii. Win Confidence Win citizens’ confidence by doing, not merely by saying. iv. Efficient Service Delivery Establish an efficient service delivery system. v. Effective Grievance Redress Establish an effective grievance redress system.

Conditions… vi. Efficient Feedback Establish an efficient feedback mechanism and feedback loop. vii. Monitoring Conduct regular review and monitoring of its implementation. viii. Independent audit and evaluation Independent audit an evaluation of implementation of the Citizens’ Charter is essential for its success.

End Thank you for your attention