Key Principles

• Understand Customers
• Design Services
• Consult Users
• Develop Services
• Employ Capable Staff
• Learn Lessons
• Provide Redress
• Publicise Performance
• Safeguard Public Money
• Deliver Consistently

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Understand Customers
Identify the potential customers including the different groups within this potential population
Undertake reliable research on potential user needs and try to understand the characteristics of those people who are eligible, but do not use the services, so as to better target efforts to encourage use
Identify the needs and rights of groups with special needs
Be proactive in assessing the needs of hard to reach groups, for example, by linking up with voluntary bodies and others doing outreach work

Design Services
Make sure that services reflect the needs of users, including special needs and local conditions
Design ways of giving customers reasonable choice and provide customers with information about these choices
Avoid a ‘postcode lottery’, whereby the quality of service received depends on where someone lives, by compiling information on the full extent of the problem and using resources to overcome it
Tackle barriers to use through better communication and by introducing measures to encourage participation
Be proactive in approaching hard to reach groups, for example, by linking up with voluntary bodies and others doing outreach work

Consult Users
Gather information on user expectations of the service they will receive
Look for innovative ways of communicating with customers
Publicise service and performance information to users, including estimates of the costs which users are likely to incur
Design ways of giving customers reasonable choice and provide customers with information about these choices
Undertake and make use of careful forecasting and managing of customer demand
Make sure customers’ and providers’ perceptions of whether communication has taken place are the same

Develop Services
Make sure that services reflect the needs of users, including special needs and local conditions
Use innovative ways of increasing the ability to deliver, including altering roles and purchasing additional capacity
Look outwards for sources of innovative ideas
Make greater use of incentives and partnership working with suppliers where appropriate
Design streamlined and straightforward administration and management systems
Identify and tackle blockages to effective public service delivery
Use appropriate incentives and targets to drive up standards in public services
Maximise resources directed to the frontline by minimising unnecessary bureaucracy at management level
Take steps to reduce the cost of compliance, for example, by minimising information demands on customers
Reduce duplication of activities to prevent wasted effort and resources
Ensure that there are fall-backs to sustain service delivery when things go wrong

Employ Capable Staff
Recognise the value of staff
Recruits staff with the expertise that the organisation lacks
Energises the staff engaging with customers to deliver high quality service
Ensure that staff are appropriately trained and motivated
Reward staff to motivate staff and retain high performance

Learn Lessons
Establish suitable and credible performance measurement mechanisms
Improve services by monitoring and analysing service performance, and applying the lessons learned

Provide Redress
Aim to ‘get it right first time’; consider pre-checking some decisions where the risk of error is high
Establishes systems that acknowledge the complaint, investigates and makes amendments where necessary – quickly and effectively
Establishes complaint and compensation channels that are accessible to all

Publicise Performance
Publicise service and performance information to users, including estimates of the costs which users are likely to incur
Understand and manage the particular risks of communicating with customers via new technology or contact centres
Review literature on services regularly to ensure that it is easy to understand and obtain, as well as accurate and complete
Look for innovative ways of communicating with customers

Safeguard Public Money
Establish checks to safeguard public money
Ensure that the checks are cost-effective as reasonably possible given the need to safeguard both data and funds
Strike a balance between the need to safeguard public money and the need to simplify the systems so as to provide a cost effective service

Deliver Consistently
Understand what the organisation is capable of and what it is not
Recognise that poor performance in delivery can undermine confidence in the fairness of the service as a whole
Only promise what can realistically be delivered