Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
517. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans to improve the customer service experience for members of the public making contact with Government Departments and State bodies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41696/22]
View answerThank you Deputy for the question. My Department has been responsible for a number of recent reform initiatives, including Civil Service Renewal 2030 and ‘Making Innovation Real’, the Public Service Innovation Strategy. These frameworks place a very strong emphasis on engaging with the public to consult on the design and delivery of public services.
In line our ambition, the Quality Customer Service Initiative (QCSI), which my Department coordinates, aims to continuously improve how we engage with our customers through supports we have developed, such as:
- Best practice guidelines for the preparation of customer action plans and charters for public service bodies;
- Excellence in customer service case studies;
- a customer communications toolkit
- a plain English style guide for public service bodies
My Department also manages the Quality Customer Service Network, which develops, promotes and implements the activities of the QCSI. The Network, which comprises of membership from circa 130 public service organisations, meets quarterly and provides opportunities for collaboration across the wider Public Service on customer service issues, as well as a platform to share experience, in order to improve service delivery for the public.
My Department also recently established a cross-sectoral working group, which consists of membership from public sector, private sector and academia to develop an overarching set of principles and actions that will support public sector bodies to adopt service design approaches to the delivery of public services.
In addition to improving service delivery by driving the digitalisation of public services and encouraging greater uptake of new and emerging technologies, such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence, my Department engages in customer sentiment analysis of Departments and major offices by conducting a number of surveys of both businesses and public customers. Furthermore, I am pleased to inform you that the evidence collected from the recently-launched Public Consultation on Digital Public Services will be used to gather views from individual users on digital public services and this will assist my Department in planning how we prioritise and deliver public services online in the future.
Finally, it is my intention to ensure that a strong emphasis will be placed on user-centred service design and delivery in the next phase of public service transformation, which is currently being developed.
