Background

Governments across Canada are embracing a "citizen-centred" approach to service delivery and it is starting to make a difference.   The public sector has been shedding an internally-focused (or "inside-out") perspective and has been increasingly adopting an "outside-in" perspective when delivering service to the public - a perspective where the interests and opinions of citizens are instrumental in defining expectations, setting priorities, and establishing service standards.

The original Citizens First study (published in 1998) was a landmark step in this evolution. Through Citizens First, Canadians across the country were asked what they thought about the delivery of public services, what expectations they held, and what they saw as the priorities for improvement.  Sponsored by federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, Citizens First identified the drivers of satisfaction with service delivery, dispelled myths about the relative quality of public services, and highlighted the importance of service standards.  This series started to received both Canadian and international awards and recognition in the early 1990’s*.

Citizens First 2000 picked up where the original Citizens First report left off, confirming major findings of the 1998 project, tracking trends, and extending the discussion to new areas such the drivers of citizen satisfaction as they relate to specific delivery channels (face-to-face, telephone, and electronic service delivery).

Citizens First 3 (2002) continued to build on previous surveys.  Its particular focus was on the challenges associated with seamless service using multi-channel service delivery, and the relationships between the quality of services that citizens receive and their level of confidence in government institutions.

Citizens First 4 (2005) is the latest in this series of world-class research offering invaluable insights into what Canadians expect and experience with respect to public-sector service delivery.  It provides empirical evidence that Canadians have seen significant improvements in service performance by all levels of the public sector for the fourth survey in a row; it confirms that Canadians who receive high quality public services have more confidence in the public sector;  and it highlights how to further improve service quality by improving access to services, and by understanding Canadian’s concerns about the privacy and security of their personal information.

Citizens First 5 is expected to be available in the summer of 2008.   Please watch the ICCS homepage for updates.

To order these publications, please click here.

* Part of a broader initiative of the Citizen-Centred Service Network, Citizens First was recognized nationally and internationally when the CCSN won the coveted Gold Award for Innovative Management from the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) in 1999, and won the silver medal in the International Innovations Awards of the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) in the fall of 2000.