Introduction - What is Consumer Focus?

When we published the Modernising Government White Paper we said we would provide responsive public services. Simply put, means focus for every provider of public service should be the customer. Businessmen know that, and so should we in government. It means giving people – individuals, groups and businesses - the services they want, when they want them and in the way they want them.

Consumer focus is not finger wagging by Government or criticism of state of public services as a whole. Happy to acknowledge on every public occasion that the best of British public services compare with services provided by anybody, anywhere.

But, it is about cultural change and a key vehicle in our drive for change and modernisation.

Know there is a perception that the centre generates new initiatives for the sake of it. We don’t do that: but we will keep up the drive towards better services.

Consumer focus is designed to build on the best of what is there already. This is a forum for the exchange of ideas: it is about learning from one another, bringing all services up to the standards of the best, and then improving further.

Consumer focus will also build on how central government is listening to people:

• For example we have held 10 Listening to Older People events across the UK to give older people opportunities to tell ministers directly about their needs and priorities for action. We will announce the bulk of the results at a national event next month. But here are some examples of action taken as a result of listening to the views of older people:

• Bolton – an audit of council services has resulted in a new community care centre targeted on the needs of Asian elders
• Hartlepool – a fleet of kneeling buses has been introduced together with a preferential rate for pensioners using local taxi firms
• East Devon East Devon - social services and the local Benefits Agency office provide a single financial assessment for older people entering residential care
• Waverley – a new "handyman" service has been launched to provide help with minor repairs and adaptations and more help is provided with applying for renovation grants

• The Women’s Unit in the Cabinet Office has carried out a Listening to Women exercise. There were three elements to campaign: focus groups conducted using the People’s Panel, free post postcard questionnaires and a series of 12 ministerial regional roadshows. Over 30,000 women took part. Women's top priority was for a better work/home balance and for more support in striking that balance. Hence Government’s commitment to promote family-friendly initiatives, including through the Fairness at Work White Paper, and to implement the Working Time, Part-Time Work and Parental Leave Directives

• The Listen-Up CampaignThe Listen-Up Campaign, joint Cabinet Office/Home Office initiative to encourage constructive dialogue between Government and Young people. We worked with voluntary organisations to consult over 500 young people from all over the country and from a variety of backgrounds. The consultation was the first time government has consulted young people on developing Government policy. It dealt with range of subjects including drugs, racism, gender stereotypes, the pressure to be thin, teenage pregnancy and policing. As a direct result of Listen-up, exciting new work experience opportunities for young women and over £500,000 of funding for organisations working with young men and fathers, were announced.

• The Charter Mark award scheme has been in existence since 1991, and has encouraged public services to look at the way they deliver services to their users. A key requirement for successful organisations is to consult and work with users about the services they expect. The scheme has grown by more than 50% in the last two years. Concrete results of the scheme include:

• A job centre creating a play area to encourage single parents to use their services. Local employers now give prizes to the kids playing there.
• A hospital has introduced Saturday appointments exclusively for children. This has dramatically improved the attendance rate, which helped reduce waiting lists.

Who Benefits?

The consumer – both individuals and businesses will benefit as their views will be used to help design and improve the quality of their public services. Outcome should be happier customers which will mean more satisfactory working environment.

Will also encourage providers with similar user groups to work together, both when seeking consumers’ views and shaping the way services are accessed and delivered.

Key challenges over the next six month include:

• making an impact making an impact in your organisation so everyone knows you are your organisations consumer champion and what you are aiming to achieve;
• getting across the message that the consumer focus is not just a process, but a key management tool;
• drawing-up a programme of how you will implement consumer focus in your organisation; and
• using the spending review to agree meaningful, consumer focused targets for Service Delivery Agreements.

In meeting these challenges, your key role will be to:

• ask people ask people about the service you provide, what they expect from it and what their priorities for improvement are;
• take account of consumer views take account of consumer views at every level in your organisation in the design and delivery of services;
• Communicate findings Communicate findings from consumer research throughout your organisation in a way that they are easily understandable by staff: if staff do not understand them, they will not act on them, or worse they will be misinterpreted.
• Consumers also need to be told what action took place as a result of their investing time to provide feedback or take part in a consumer satisfaction survey. Perception that no action took place is often seen as worse than if you hadn’t sought users’ views in the first place.

Modern government is about providing opportunities to the many, not the few. It is about tackling people’s aspirations in a practical way. This is why we have published a new code on how to effectively involve the public in written consultation exercises.

The code is about:

• Building consultation as early as possible into the decision making process

• Getting out to the widest possible range of people;

• While making clear who is being consulted, about what questions, in what timescale and for what purpose

• Reducing the burden on people consulted: documents should be clear, concise and focussed with a two page summary;
  
• The need for documents to be easy to respond to, for example by using questionnaires and e-mail;
  
• The need to give sufficient time to respond: 12 weeks is the preferred limit, 8 weeks the general minimum;
  
• That all responses should be analysed carefully, in an open minded way, with a full record, and feedback given.

Departments should monitor consultations regularly, to ensure the code, and good practice generally, are being followed.

And this one of the areas where you can make a difference: you are ideally placed to do this and produce annual assessments of how well your organisation is doing.

So we need you to provide the impetus to change, where it is missing, and make the consumer focus a success. Sometimes that is about encouraging promising developments that are already in train.

And some of the things that you can do are very simple, like providing free transport, translators and signers, a crèche, or foods and drinks to encourage small groups of users to come and talk to you.

Don’t forget, complaints are a major source of information about what consumers think of the service they receive, where things are going wrong and the improvements they want. The information you get from complaints should be part of your approach for identifying consumer priorities and examining satisfaction.

Many public services have gone through transformation, to respond to their consumers’ needs better.

For example:

• Employment Service already fully committed to measuring their service to customers and acting on the results. One of their values is ‘we will ask customers how we could improve what we do": what the consumer focus is all about. Have satisfaction target, backed by objective data from Mystery Shopping. Also externally validates quality of services through Charter Mark and the Excellence Model. Leigh Lewis (Chief Executive) will be saying more about this later on this morning.
  
• DSS regularly commission research to help shape new policies. Last year published report ‘Attitudes to Welfare Reform’ which brought together a whole raft of consumer research which has informed policy development. DSS also seek customer views as a matter of course in evaluating polices and delivery,

• One local authority realised that numbers of older people admitted into hospital were rising because of domestic accidents. Working in partnership with the local social services department and NHS trust, the local authority introduced a free home safety inspection for the over-65s. The service is designed to reduce the frequency of home accidents, particularly falls. It includes a basic repair service to fix safety faults and improve security. I think that this is the kind of initiative that can make a real difference to people’s lives. And this is what consumer focus is about.

• Many services are now also contemplating extending service hours, if they have not already done so. We have identified through the People's Panel the five areas where there is most demand for this, and are producing an action plan to deliver improvements. But public demand is likely to be widespread, and your responsibility will be to identify it and ensure there is a response. It is a key element of modernising service

But your role is more than acting as voice of the consumer. Also about changing attitudes. We all know that in large parts of the public sector, the wishes and needs of consumers are not always at the top of people’s agenda.

Incidentally, that applies to internal customers as well as external. Pointless getting bogged down in definition of the word consumer– if someone uses the service you provide (the public, business, or internal) then they are a consumer.

People at all levels in People at all levels in your organisation have a valuable part to play and will need to become skilled at generating and analysing a wide range of types of research and consumer information and will have to know how to make changes as a result. In essence, you will need a network of people in your organisation who are implementing what are championing and committed to improving the service your organisation provides.

And we need to recognise and improve skills of those involved in front-line delivery. Recognising and rewarding those who do it well. And training all parts of the organisation in the importance of responding to the customer voice.

And if we do not continuously improve, we all know the risks we run. The rationale for unresponsive services to be in the public sector will be challenged. Must not give the enemies of public service ammunition to use against us. Must show, and go on showing, that we can respond as flexibly and as fully as any good private sector organisation.

Spending Review will be used to set specific targets and objectives in Service Delivery Agreements. Targets will be scrutinised to make sure they properly reflect the aims of the consumer focus and that consumers’ views are built in business planning to improve quality and responsiveness of service delivery.

The Cabinet Office and Treasury will produce joint report on the consumer focus: first report in the autumn.

We also want to encourage organisations to share best practice and experiences in implementing the consumer focus so are exploring the possibility of setting up a consumer champions’ discussion forum on the Internet.

This is a simple idea. It’s putting yourself in your customer’s shoes and seeing what it feels like to be on the receiving end of public services. You should concentrate on areas where you can make a difference:

• Standards Standards of service
• Consulting and involving
• Being open and providing full information
• Putting things right Putting things right when they have gone wrong
• Widening Access and tailoring it to customer’s needs
• Treating all fairly
• Working together

In short, you will be advocates for citizens, and ambassadors for your service.

Back to speeches homepage