We interviewed a group of prominent APS thought leaders on how the APS could use the public service experience as a space for trust building. Informants were selected on the basis of their portfolio and track record in delivering high quality programs and services to Australian citizens, and engaging in service innovation. Informants were asked to review the key observations emerging from the Citizen Experience Survey and to reflect on the implications of the findings (see Box 10).
Box 10. Key observations from the Citizen Experience Survey
- Satisfaction (52%) with Australian public services is higher than trust (31%).
- Trust is significantly lower in regional (27%) in contrast to urban (32%) areas.
- Personal individual service delivery experiences drive overall trust.
- Perceptions of transparency affect trust.
- Service experience during significant life events affect trust in the APS.
- Citizens and/or residents who were born overseas have high levels of trust.
- Participants could not establish an independent view of the APS; they just see government.
- The APS can improve elements of service-delivery to drive higher levels of trust.
- The evidence points to the need to build collaboration across the APS, enhance service delivery reform, and ultimately, drive tailored responses that reflect the voices of Australians.
“What worries me is we keep on knowing what the problem is, we keep on articulating it and why are we not doing anything about it? That’s what worries me. So my question is, have we sufficiently articulated the barriers from a bureaucratic perspective to actually make change? We seem to know what the problems are but we actually don’t get out on the ground and try to do real solutions when we need to (KS8).”
APS leaders were not surprised by the results of the Citizen Experience Survey but did identify several mitigating factors that need to be taken into account in any response. First, constitutionally the APS cannot address the problem of declining political trust and by implication the perceived poor performance of politicians; although it evidently impacts on public perceptions of the quality of public service delivery. The focus of the APS effort should therefore be on improving the quality of service delivery; a task within the APS’s domain of responsibility. Second, citizens are less likely to trust services that form part of government policies that they disagree with; hence you will never be able to please everybody. Third, Australians have high expectations of service delivery that might be difficult to meet given budgetary constraints. They expect to have the same quality of experience with public and private sector service providers. It is therefore important to establish a public expectation thesis, i.e. given prevailing constraints what could the service provider reasonably be expected to achieve? Fourth, accessing complex services requires significant citizen effort due to legislative requirements, which is likely to lead to diminished trust. And, fifth, many services that Australians receive are in David Thodey’s terms “seamless” and “invisible” (e.g. PBS, Medicare) but, because they do not involve formal evaluation touch-points, go unrecognised by the citizen.9
9 Follow-up questions with our APS leaders included: what can the APS/your department do to help address these issues? Are there new capabilities and technologies that could make a difference? Are there other ways that the APS can help bridge the trust divide? And, how will the APS achieve David Thodey’s recommendation of “seamless services and local solutions designed and delivered with states, territories and partners”?