About the Institute
The award-winning, intergovernmental Citizen-Centred Service Network (CCSN) released a series of reports, tools, and recommendations aimed at improving citizen satisfaction with public-sector service delivery in Canada. These included:
- Citizens First: a national survey of citizen expectations, satisfaction levels, and priorities for service improvement;
- Taking Care of Business: a national survey of business clients' views of public sector service delivery and ways of improving service quality;
- The Common Measurements Tool (CMT): a survey tool for assessing client satisfaction;
- A database highlighting good practice in service delivery.
The CCSN also recommended the establishment of an Institute to sustain and further develop these efforts. The ICCS is the product of this vision. The federal, provincial, and territorial representatives of the Public Sector Service Delivery Council agreed to establish the ICCS as an ongoing centre of expertise in citizen-centred service. Supported by the Public Sector Chief Information Officers Council and incubated by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, the ICCS is working with governments across Canada (and around the world) to improve citizen satisfaction with public-sector service delivery.
In August of 2005, the ICCS was incorporated as a non-profit organization. The ICCS 's new Board of Directors is made up of leaders in service delivery and information technology from municipal, provincial and federal public sectors across Canada.
Board President - David Primmer, Government of Manitoba
Past President - Ardath Paxton-Mann, Government of Canada
Board Vice-President - Kevin Malloy, Government of Nova Scotia
Board Secretary - Roy Wiseman, MISA-ON (Region of Peel)
Board Treasurer - Guy Gordon, Government of Manitoba
Jim Alexander, Government of Canada
Holly Fancy, Government of Nova Scotia
Lois Fraser, Government of British Columbia
Siegfried Fuchsbichler, Government of Yukon
Lois Bain, Government of Ontario
Donna Achimov, Government of Canada
Melanie Goldhar, Government of Ontario
Serge Lord, City of Laval, Quebec
The incorporation will help to strengthen the ICCS, and will enable the Institute to continue serving as a center of expertise and a champion for citizen-centred service quality throughout the public sector.
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The Institute for Citizen-Centred Service is pleased to welcome Art Stevenson as Executive Director. Mr. Stevenson brings a wealth of experience from both the private and public sectors to the ICCS. Most recently, Art Stevenson was the founding Executive Director of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM), a non-governmental organization incorporated in 1994. We are delighted that he has chosen to take on such an important position with the Institute and look forward to a bright future under his leadership. Please join us in wishing him great success in this new and challenging role. Welcome aboard!
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Mission and Mandate
The mission of the ICCS is to promote high levels of citizen satisfaction with public-sector service delivery. The ICCS achieves its mission by undertaking research to identify citizens' service needs and expectations and by assisting the public sector in identifying and applying innovative, best practice service solutions which support quality service across all channels and respond effectively to citizens' service needs.
The Mandate of the ICCS is:
- To serve as a world-class centre of expertise and a champion for citizen-centred service across service channels and throughout the public sector.
- To undertake research into citizens' expectations, satisfaction, and priorities for service improvement, and to be a repository for knowledge about citizens' and clients' attitudes towards public-sector service.
- To measure and monitor the progress of the public sector in improving citizen satisfaction with public-sector service delivery, and develop the means to recognize excellence in citizen-centred service.
- To be the custodian of the Common Measurements Tool and electronic CMT in the public sector, and to provide a CMT data repository and benchmarking service for public-sector organizations.
- To be a centre of expertise in e-government and electronic service delivery.
- To become a centre for the development of publications, training modules and other management tools required by the public sector to promote the improvement of service delivery across the public sector.
The ICCS Citizen-Centred Service Improvement Model provides both a conceptual and a practical framework for continuous service improvement. Combined with the tools and methodologies of the Institute, it affords managers the opportunity to assess current services, to chart a future course, and to implement and assess improvement strategies.
Measure Citizen Satisfaction
Identifying and establishing benchmark reference points for citizen satisfaction with service delivery is a prerequisite for any improvement strategy. The Institute facilitates this objective through its biennial national Citizens First survey as well as through the Common Measurements Tool (CMT) that provides specific data from clients.
Analyze Findings
Using data collected through tools such as Citizens First and the CMT, the Institute supports research and analysis of service improvement. Focus is placed on understanding the drivers of satisfaction and identifying areas for service improvement. Comparative analysis with peer jurisdictions will also be possible using a forthcoming benchmarking service based on a cooperative data repository of CMT survey results. These analyses provide the opportunity to identify good practices and optimal areas for improvement.
Plan for Service Improvement
Sound analysis is the basis for crafting effective service improvement strategies. The identification of best practices provides potential models for planning and for partnering service improvements. The Institute's growing range of proven service guides, drawn from jurisdictions across the country, provides practical tools to assist in shaping effective strategies.
Implement Service Improvement
The ICCS supports the implementation of service improvement plans through a variety of means. Identifying opportunities to partner with best practice jurisdictions, providing service improvement guides, and sponsoring learning events are key elements of current support. Future services may also include service improvement consulting.
Evaluate Results
Any service improvement strategy is only as good as its ability to measure and evaluate results. The re-application of the CMT is the most effective means of tracking changes associated with key service drivers and of measuring success. At the same time, this reapplication closes the continuous improvement loop by allowing for the refinement of service improvement strategies over time.
Recognize Achievement
Any program of service improvement needs to recognize its achievement, celebrate its success, and tell its story. Recognition builds morale among those engaged in the effort and inspires those contemplating service improvement elsewhere. The ICCS will contribute to this imperative through the development of its own unique service excellence recognition award.
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Citizen-Centred Service
Why is it different from client centred service, and why the ICCS is founded upon this concept?
Since 1997, the Canadian approach to service improvement in the public sector has consistently described itself as "citizen-centred". The collaborative institution established by the Canadian service delivery community is now called the Institute for Citizen-Centred Service. Why should service delivery in the public sector be "citizen-centred," and why do we use this term? There are at least six reasons:
1. The delivery of government services should be conceived and executed from the "outside-in" - not inside-out - with the needs, perspectives, improvement priorities, and satisfaction of Canadians foremost in mind. An "outside-in" perspective will therefore lead us to pay attention to citizens' service improvement priorities and needs, and to their levels of satisfaction with individual services. In a citizen-centred approach, citizen satisfaction becomes the criterion for success, and the basis for results measurement in public sector service delivery.
2. A citizen-centred, "outside-in" approach also helps to highlight the challenge of "access": citizens have to work through the maze of public sector organizations and services to get what they need, and we can only truly meet citizens' complex service needs by working together across organizations and governments to provide seamless, integrated service to citizens.
3. Even more important, the clients of government services are not "just" clients, as they might be in the private sector. They are not just consumers of government services. They are usually also taxpayers and citizens, that is: bearers of rights and duties in a framework of democratic community. As taxpayers and members of a civic or democratic community, citizens "own" the organizations that provide public services, and have civic interests that go well beyond their own service needs. While clients of the Government of Canada are usually citizens of this country, they may also be potential citizens of Canada, or citizens of another country with a business, professional or personal interest in Canada.
4. Many of the clients of government are "involuntary clients," whose service relationship with government derives not from choice but rather from their obligations as citizens, or from the rights of other citizens. That is one reason why "fairness" is among the five top drivers of Canadians' satisfaction with the quality of government service delivery.
5. Those who deliver government services may have to balance the distinct interests and needs of different categories of citizens, within the broader framework of the public interest. They may also have to balance the interests of immediate or direct clients with those of the citizens of Canada as a whole. The satisfaction of immediate "clients" needs to go hand in hand with the confidence of all citizens in the institutions of government.
6. Perhaps most important, service delivery in the public sector should be citizen-centred because every act of service is a "moment of truth" in which Canadians form an impression - positive or negative - about the effectiveness of public institutions and about the potential of democratic government. The service experience either increases or decreases Canadians' confidence in public institutions, and in the degree to which they are capable of fulfilling their democratic missions. It thus enhances or diminishes Canadians' confidence in the potential of their own democratic citizenship. Those who deliver government services should always bear in mind that the quality of government service delivery can and should contribute to strengthen democratic citizenship, and the bonds of confidence and trust between citizens, and between citizens and their democratic institutions. Public sector "clients" are also citizens, whose pride and belief in their own democratic citizenship can be strengthened or weakened by the service experience.
What We Are Building
- The Common Measurements Tool (CMT), the most effective tool currently available for public-sector organizations to measure client satisfaction and to identify specific priorities for improving performance.
- A secure and confidential benchmarking service based on the CMT client survey results, enabling public-sector organizations to compare their performance against others in the same business line and to identify best practices.
- Citizens First, a biennial national survey of citizen expectations, satisfaction levels, and priorities for service improvement at all levels of government.
- A data base repository of leading practices in citizen-centred public-sector service delivery at all levels of government.
- Research, publications, training modules, service improvement guides, and other management tools to promote the improvement of citizen-centred service delivery. Specific areas of ICCS' citizen-centred re-search and support include:
- ESD (electronic service delivery);
- Phone, mail, and over-the-counter services;
- Single-window service delivery;
- Service improvement models;
- Customer surveying guides;
- "Outside-In" quality service approaches.
Articles
Canada recognized for its focus on citizen-centred service improvement
Canada’s public sector service community is recognized as an international leader for its innovative citizen-centred service improvement practices and inter-jurisdictional collaborations across three levels of government.
The Institute for Citizen Centred Service: Working Horizontally across the Canadian Public Sector
Canadian Government Executive (CGE) Magazine (2002, issue 6)
The Institute for Citizen Centred Service: Working Horizontally across the Canadian Public Sector, highlights the formation, mission, tools, strengths and challenges of providing a platform for horizontal collaboration between federal, provincial, and municipal governments with a focus on service quality.
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*Please contact us to find out what services and tools we have available today.
