By Dr. (Mrs) Christiana Famro
1ST NATIONAL POLICY DIALOGUE ON STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING SERVICE DELIVERY
Christiana Famro
27 March 2017
PRESENTATION OUTLINE
1. Background and Genesis
– Context
– The Roadmap
– The Compact
2. Operationalising the Compact
– The SERVICOM Office
– SERVICOM Method Channels and Instruments
– Public Awareness Strategy
3. Key Milestones
4. Key Achievements
5. Challenges
6. Prospects
7. Going Forward…
THE CONTEXT
Problems
• Four years into the then-new democratic dispensation, during which it had embarked on a gale of reforms, the FGN finally recognized that no reform process will be credible and sustainable if Government cannot demonstrate that it is serious about service delivery, so that while longer-term reforms take place services are actually improving in practice.
• It was recognized that a failure of service delivery is a failure in government.
• In any event, the World Bank advised in its World Development Report 2004 that developing countries can accelerate progress towards the MDGs by making services work for the poor.
• Constitutional issues:
• Ambiguities resulting in overlaps, duplication, conflict of responsibility and lack of co-ordination in key service sectors like health and education
• Problematic fiscal system
• Budget not effective for resource allocating or use; over-dependence on oil obviating taxation accountability, oil prices fluctuation, distortion in payroll and overheads consuming up to 75% of expenditure budget
• Legal and institutional complexities
• Proliferation of FGN agencies, contributing to fragmentation, blurred accountability, duplication and wasted. Frequent changes and summersaults affect programmes, leading to project abandonment
• Weak Incentives
• Low remuneration without effective performance management
• Poor information
• Available information is unreliable, reliable information is inaccessible
• The problems were systemic in nature. How?
• Oil had made government a dispensing machine; because government no longer thought it needed revenue from the people, it started to think that it was doing people a favour, not delivering services.
• As a result of these problems, public service delivery in most sectors has effectively broken down, or at best, fragile.
• Human development indicators in Nigeria were generally below the average for Sub- Saharan Africa.
Government’s Response
• Government responded with a comprehensive reform strategy that aligns national expediencies with international (MDGs) and regional (NEPAD) imperatives, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS-1and later, NEEDS-2).
• As an overarching macroeconomic framework, NEEDS had four main domains, namely: Microeconomic Reforms, Structural Reforms, Public Sector Reforms, and Institutional and Governance Reform.
The Challenge
• With NEEDS came the realisation of the need to build ownership with key stakeholders towards achieving the articulated goals.
• The need underscored a fundamental challenge – that of ensuring improvement in services delivered to ordinary Nigerians – especially the poor; ensuring that services do not serve special interests, but that they’re accountable, honest and sensitive to what people really want.
• Having realised that ‘no reform process will be credible and sustainable if Government cannot demonstrate that it is serious about service delivery, and even while longer-term reforms take place, that services are actually improving in practice’
• And that Service delivery is the object and subject of all reform efforts,
• Government determined that only a comprehensive Service Delivery Initiative was adequate to meet this challenge.
DIAGNOSTIC SURVEY
The Brief
• In December 2003, FGN commissioned a team of experts to undertake a rapid ‘diagnostic audit’ of service delivery in Nigeria. They were to:
• examine institutional environment for service delivery,
• reflect on people’s views and experiences and
• draw a road map for service delivery programme.
• The team interviewed ministers, senior officials, service managers, development workers, and front-line staff, examining the delivery of government policy and programmes in five case studies (Police, PHCN, Passport Office, GOPD, CAC)
• It also commissioned independent market research, to find out what Nigerians and front-line staff think about these services.
Findings
• The diagnostic audit found that
• Services are not serving people. Instead they are
• inaccessible,
• poor in quality and
• indifferent to customer needs.
• Public confidence is poor, inequalities are high and institutional arrangements are confusing and wasteful.
Conclusions
• Shortages of service capacity and accessibility for most Nigerians;
• Poor service quality and customer care;
• Support services (finance, audit, ICT, procurement and personnel) that neither support nor serve delivery
• A lack of real levers for ministers to deliver or monitor the outcome of their policy pledges, nor hold anyone to account for delivery;
• Central departments have little information with which to monitor performance or intervene to tackle failure.
Recommendations
• Need for a far-reaching transformation of Nigerian society through a Service Delivery Programme as a step in the process of moving to a government that is more in touch with the people.
• The Service Delivery Programme should:
• Create ‘citizens’ and ‘customers’ demand;
• Instill higher expectations of public services;
• Communicate service entitlements and rights,
• Publish information about performance
• Redesign the services around customer requirements;
• Committed leadership from the top to ensure success of the Programme
• Government should demonstrate leadership commitment with a public declaration about Service Delivery.
THE ROADMAP
The Roadmap basically outlines a 3-pronged approach to implementing the Service Delivery Initiative, namely:
• Creating citizens’ and customers’ demand
• Demonstrating the real possibility of Service Improvement
• Building wider support for service delivery
Creating citizens’ and customers’ demand
This entails:
• Raising citizens’ expectations of public services through Service Charters
• Equipping service providers with Customer skills; incentivizing them through Challenge Funding
• Making Service Delivery a subject of national discourse through monitoring and reporting on service delivery, including annual reporting to the National Assembly
Demonstrating the real possibility of Service improvement
This entails:
• Setting up of Demonstration Pilots, along identified criteria
• Establishment of a Service Delivery Unit (the SERVICOM Office);
• Setting up of Public Awareness and Pilot Technical Teams
Building wider support for service delivery
This entails:
• Requiring ministers’ Cabinet submissions to include costed delivery plans
• Requiring ministers to complete mission statements and set objectives;
• Requiring ministers to make transparent the budget allocated to specific services and element for each front-line unit;
• Overhauling existing managerial systems so they support service delivery
• Extending the initiative to services provided to those most in need by involving the states and LGAs
THE SERVICE COMPACT
• FGN accepted the Roadmap, its findings and recommendations
• To deliberate upon its findings and recommendations, a “Special Presidential Retreat on Service Delivery in Nigeria” was held in March 2004.
• At the end of the retreat, the President, Vice President, Ministers Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Presidential Advisers and Permanent Secretaries signed the “SERVIce COMpact with all Nigerians” which became the basis for the SERVICOM initiative. The Compact stated:
“We dedicate ourselves to providing the basic services to which each citizen is entitled in a timely, fair, honest, effective and transparent manner… “
• Thus SERVICOM was born.
Implications for MDAs
By signing the Compact, it was also agreed that all MDAs, including Parastatals will prepare and publish, not later than 1July 2004, SERVICE CHARTERS whose provisions will include:
• Quality services designed around customers’ requirements;
• Set out citizens’ entitlements in ways they can readily understand;
• List of fees payable and prohibit illegal demands;
• Commitment to provision of services within realistic time-frames;
• Specify officials to whom complaints may be addressed;
• Publish these details in conspicuous places accessible to the public;
• Conduct and publish surveys of customer satisfaction.
Role of Service Charter
• The goal of service delivery improvement is to empower the demand side while equipping the supply side to enhance the customer’s satisfaction.
• Satisfaction is the outcome of the equation:
• Satisfaction = Experience – Expectation
• That is, if a person’s experience exceeds his expectation, he is easily satisfied, and vice versa. However, where peoples’ expectation is low, improved service delivery requires their expectations be raised and their experience improved so they can be satisfied.
• This essentially is the role that Service Charters are meant to play in the engagement between the citizen and the service provider. They help to raise a person’s expectation who then demands quality service to gain satisfaction.
Implications for Citizens
Every visitor to a government establishment has a right to expect:
• To be treated with courtesy, respect, honesty and professionalism.
• That the staff attending to them will listen to their request or question, ask for clarification if necessary and provide complete, accurate and precise information
• That the staff attending to them will ensure that they receive services related to the functions of the establishment, fairly, efficiently and promptly
• To be told in advance, how much the service will cost, what standard of service to expect and how long it will take to be served
Implications for Citizens – 2
Every visitor to a government establishment has a right to expect:
• Accurate financial transactions with a receipt or verification of the transaction
• To be told how to obtain redress for poor service, especially where the standards of service are not met
• To receive appropriate directions, via signs, notices or other means, on how to obtain service or information
• A timely and courteous acknowledgement of their presence when they arrive at a staffed information point
OPERATIONALISING THE COMPACT
The SERVICOM Office
The key functions of the SERVICOM Office are:
• To co-ordinate the formulation and operation of SERVICE Charters and Service Improvement Plans in MDAs
• To monitor and report progress and performance of MDAs under SERVICOM obligations through Compliance Evaluations using the SERVICOM Index
• To carry out surveys of services and customers’ satisfaction
• To publicize charters and sensitize the citizenry to demand quality service as a right at all times
The Ministerial SERVICOM Units
• SERVICOM ’foot soldiers’ in every Ministry, Department and Agency (MDA)
• Responsible for promoting service delivery improvements in their MDAs
• Headed by a Deputy Director – the Nodal Officer, with 3 other staff:
• Customer Care/Complaints Desk Officer,
• Charter Desk Officer, and
• Service Improvement Desk Officer
• Belong to a virile network which maintains regular interaction with the SERVICOM Office through:
• A National Council of Nodal Officers
• Resource Centre Interactive Sessions
• MSC Networking Meetings
• Other MSU Activities (inaugurations, trainings, sensitizations, networking events, etc)
Demonstration Pilots
• Police Communications
• Passport Office
• Out patients Department
• Road Safety
• Cross River State
• SERVICOM Institute
The pilots have been designed to:
• introduce service delivery improvements which are:
Demonstrable
Real
Replicable
Sustainable
• Find out what works
• Document how it was achieved
• Prepare for roll-out to relevant agencies
SERVICOM Instruments
• The SERVICOM Index
• Charter Evaluation Checklist
• MSU Evaluation Matrix
• Reception Area Inspection Matrix
• Complaints Escalation Framework
• The SERVICOM Customer Relations Activities Register (SCRAR)
• The SERVICOM Charter Mark
The SERVICOM Index
• A yardstick for measuring the quality of service as delivered by Government through its various Ministries, departments, parastatals and agencies.
• The result of rigorous assessment for SERVICOM Compliance Evaluation of Service Frontlines within Ministries and Parastatals.
• SERVICOM Index is predicated on the facts that:
• The ultimate purpose of governance is to serve the citizens
• Citizens have the right to be served right
• Service is well delivered only when the citizens are satisfied
• The Federal Government’s commitment to the provisions of SERVICOM
PUBLIC AWARENESS STRATEGY
• A key recommendation of the Roadmap is to create citizens’ and customers’ demand by communicating service entitlements and rights to citizens.
• SERVICOM promotes and facilitates constructive engagement between service provider and taker by encouraging customers to challenge service failure, make complaints and seek redress for grievances.
• By doing this, service providers are more likely to establish complaints systems that enable them to listen to their customers, identify problems and adapt services to be more customer focused.
• SERVICOM public awareness strategy involves:
• Coverage of SERVICOM activities: through Press releases (News and Features)
• E-Newsletter: published weekly/fortnightly
• Above-the-line advertisement: on radio and television
• Below the line advertisement: e.g. Badges, stickers, flyers, posters etc
• Web Update: Maintaining SERVICOM web site (www.servenigeria.gov.ng)
• ServiceWatch TV Programme: This aired weekly on NTA Network.
• Radio programmes and jingles
KEY MILESTONES
DATE EVENT
March 2004 Establishment of SERVICOM Office
June 2004 Adoption of SERVICOM Index by FEC
December 2005 All MDAs directed by FEC to establish MSUs
January 2006 Capacity Building for MSU Staff
DATE EVENT
March 2006 Presidential launch of SERVICOM Public Awareness Campaign
May 2006 Commencement of SERVICOM Compliance Evaluation
May 2006 Commencement of Service Delivery Pilots
August 2006 Capacity building for MSU Staff
September 2006 Take off of SERVICOM Institute
February 2007 1st Series of Networking Seminars for MSU staff
September 2007 DFID OPR Team scores SERVICOM Excellent
December 2007 First OSCAR Claim paid
April 2008 2nd Series of Networking Seminars
May 2008 Handover of SERVICOM Pilot to Ministry of Justice (Legal Aid Council)
August 2008 Roll Out of GOPD Pilot to Ministry of Health
September 2008 DFID EPR Team scores SERVICOM A+
September 2008 End of DFID Support to SERVICOM (Phase1)
December 2010 House Committee on Governmental Affairs organised public hearing on SERVICOM
Bill
February 2012 FEC Committee established to review and revitalize SERVICOM Mandate
2012 SERVICOM Index Revised
2013 Commence development of National Guidelines on Service Charter
2016 Commenced nationwide public awareness campaigns
ACHIEVEMENTS
• Creating nation-wide awareness of citizens’ rights to public service
• Establishment of Ministerial SERVICOM Units (MSUs) in 84 MDAs
• Supported development of service charters in over 80% of MDAs
• Training of over 10000 civil servants in various aspects of service delivery by the SERVICOM Institute
• On-going development of the National Guidelines on Service Charters
• Development and revision of the SERVICOM Index
• Undertaking SERVICOM Compliance Evaluation in over 200 MDAs
• Establishment of complaints mechanism in all MDAs.
• Establishment and maintenance of virile network of foot soldiers in MDAs, constituting the National Council of Nodal Officers
CHALLENGES
• Executive sponsorship and commitment
• Ownership and credibility crises
• Quality leadership and staffing
• Dwindling acceptance and gravitas among public servants
• Perennial lack of funding
PROSPECTS
Back in 2003, the Roadmap document had declared:
• There is need for “a far-reaching transformation of Nigerian society that involves government and other stakeholders’. The Service Delivery Initiative is but one step in that process of moving to a government more in touch with its people, but potentially an important one to create momentum on the part of government, and a culture of demand among Nigerians.
• Well, if ever Nigeria needed a ’far-reaching transformation’, a change, it is today, now, March 2017. And if ever a lever is required to catalyse a societal change process, it is a Service Delivery Initiative. Reason being, ‘service delivery is both the object and the subject of government and governance’.
The logic should be obvious from foregoing discourse
• But SERVICOM will not achieve the desired goals unless and until successive governments recognise that SERVICOM is a COMPACT, a social contract that demands recommitment and reaffirmation.
• If fully supported and funded, SERVICOM had demonstrated its potential not only to awaken people’s awareness to their rights to quality public services, it helps galvanise the people and draws them closer to government and its activities.
• SERVICOM can work, as it had done in the past. And we can make it work.
• Yes, we can!
Thanks for your attention.
Dr. (Mrs) Christiana Famro is a former Head of SERVICOM Institute and Lead Consultant to EU on Governance and Reform.
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