WRITTEN ON October 26th, 2004 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board
…a wibbipedia?
By this I mean we collate a structured compendium of user views of what administrative dealings with government would ideally be like. Perhaps with user views of what they’re like now. We can then spend as long as we have any energy trying to persuade our MPs. the CIO, or the media to explore the differences with the parts of government responsible for delivering these services. I really havent thought this through. Stop me if I’m going off the rails here.
Excellent idea, though it might have to allow anonymity…the most telling experiences might be withheld for fear of retribution! In fairness, government does try this kind of consultation from time to time, but rarely seems to uncover much other than obvious generalities. Think of all the campaigns and initiatives intended to allow SMEs to get a bigger share of the public procurement pot.
FOI is of course going to heavily impact this area: for example, a big test of commitment to the 1997 principles and promises which led to the Act will be the degree to which “commercial confidence” is used as a justification to withhold information post Jan 1 2005. So a corollary to your proposal might be how “users” hope FOI will work in practice.
Watching/listening to the Standing Committee which is looking at preparedness for FOI is throwing up some very interesting attitudes. FOI is potentially going to stretch government departments’ responses to “service” in the extreme. As one MP on the Committee remarked, if a local authority can’t make up its mind where accountability lies for responding to a fairly straightforward question from an MP, it’s difficult to have confidence that the public will be well-served.
Back to the core theme of this whole brainstorm: We may be looking for the “ideal” service, but as anyone responsible for a service-oriented business will know, your customers tend to assess you not on the cleverness of the one or two great things you do, but on the WORST experience they have in dealing with you!
So yes, your wibbipedia does sound like a good approach…