CITIZEN’S CHARTER ‘A Background Note Problems Faced in Implementing the 1 2. Citizen’s Charter is Response Charters 3, Concept First Articulated 9. How to Make the Charters a Success 4. Objectives of Citizen's Charter 10. Sevottam Model 5. Rationale of A Citizen’s Charter Il. The ARC-II Seven Step Model for 6. Citizen Charter and Total Quality Citizen Centricity, Management 12. Previous Years’ Questions 7. The Indian Scenario 4)" A’Background Note Ithas been recognised the world over that good gdvernance is essential for sustainable development, both economic and social. The three essential aspects emphasised in good governance are transparency, accountability and responsiveness of the administration. 2 Citizen Charter is Response to : The “Citizen's Charters initiative’“is a response to the quest for solving the problems which a citizen encounters, day in and day out, while, dealing with organisations providing public services, The concept of Citizen's Charter enshrines the trust between the service provider and its users. 3.” ‘Concept first articulated The concept was first articulated and implemented in the United Kingdom by the Conservative Gavernment-of John Major in 1991. as a national programme with a simple aim: to continuously improve the quality of public services for the people of the country so that these services respond to the needs and wishes of the users. The programme was re-launched in 1998 by the Labour Government of Tony Blair which rechristened it “Services First”. 4. Objectives of Citizen’s Charter The basic objective of the Citizen’s Charter is to empower the citizen in relation to public service detivery, The six principles of the Citizen’s Charter movement as originally framed were: * Quality: Improving the quality of services; * Choice: Wherever possible; * Standards: Specifying what to expect and how t * Value: For the taxpayers’ money; ‘* Accountability: Individuals and. Organisations; and * Transparency: Rules/Procedures/Schemes/Grievances. ‘0 act if standards are not met;These were later elaborated by the Labour Government as the nine principles of Service (1998), which are as follows:- Delive # Sct standards of service + Be Open and provide full information ¢ Consult and involve courage access and the promotion of choice © Treat all fairly «Put things right when they go wrong + Use resources effectively Innovate and improve * Work with other provider 5. Rationale for Citizen Charter ‘A Citizen's Charter isthe statement of promises made by the provider of a public service with respect to the quantity and quality of services itis providing for the citizens/users of the service. ‘As public services are funded by citizens through their taxes. Hence, they have every right to expect delivery of quality service at least cost. The Citizen's Charter is a written, voluntary declaration by service providers about service standards, It should recognise needs/expectations of citizens. Therefore, it is a useful way of defining for the customers the nature of service provision and explicit standards of service delivery. Z ‘A further rationale for the Charters is to help change the mindset of the public official from someone with power over the public to someone with the right sense of duty in spending public money collected through taxes and in providing citizens with riecessary services. However, the Citizen's Charter should not simply be a document of assurances or a formula which imposes a uniform pattern on every service. It is meant to be a tool kit of initiatives and ideas to raise the level of standards and service delivery and increase public participation, in the most appropriate way. . / ‘The Charter should be an effective tool to ensure transparency and accountability and should help deliver good governance if implemented vigorously by the government departments. If successfully implemented, the charter can enable the following: + Improved service delivery; * Greater responsiveness of officials towards the public; and * Greater public satisfaction with services 6. Citizen Charter and Total Quality Management A perusal of these four major Citizen’s Charter initiatives shows that the service quality approach is embedded in all of them in different degrees. Once a decision is taken to make public services citizen- centric, the customer focus of the ‘Total Quality Management’ (TQM) variety cannot be far behind. In fact, the Citizen's Charter approach has several things in common with TQM. Both begin by focusing on meeting customer/citizen requirements. Other key common elements are conformance to standards, stakeholder involvement and continuous improvement. 7. ‘The Indian Scenario Over the years, in India, significant progress has been made in the field of economic development. This, along with a substantial increase in the literacy rate, has made Indian citizens increasingly aware of their rights, Citizens have become more articulate and expect the administration not merely to respond to their demands but also to anticipate them,1. The First Major Breakthrough 1. inthis climate that a consensus began to evalve, since 1 eva it ea , since 1996, eponsive administration, Ate Conference of Chief Ministers of various States and Union Territories Felton 24 May 1997 in Now clhi, presided over by the Prime Minister of India, an “Action Plan for We ective and Responsive Government” atthe Centre and State levels was adopted. 2 of te mor sectens at that Conference was that the Central and State Governments would itizen’s Charters, starting with those ic formulate Ci 8 ose sectors that have a large public interface (e-8 loways Telecom, Posts, Public Distribution Systems an! the ke) ee a ese Charters were to include fits, standards of service as well as te time limits thatthe public can Trcanably expect for service delivery, avenues of grievance redressal and a provision for Tejependent scrutiny through the involvement of citizen and consumer groups, she Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in Government of India (DARPG) Jrtated the task of coordinating, formulating and operationalizing Citizen’s Charters. ‘hese Charters are expected! to incorporate the following elements: Vision and Mission Statements; Details of business transacted by the organization; Details of clients; Details of services provided to each client group; Details of grievance redressal mechanism and how.to access it; and. Expectations from the clients. @ ¢ Primarily an adaptation of the UK model, the\Indian Citizen’s Charter has an additional component of‘expectations from the clients’ or in other words ‘obligations of the users’, 72, Case study of Citizens’ Charter of the Income Tax Department (Government of India): Itstates that: “The Citizens’ Charter (March, 2007) aims at promoting compliance with Direct Tax Laws through quality taxpayer services encouraging voluntary compliance and firm administration.” The objectives laid down by the Department for itself include 18 action points. These are aimed at improving service delivery on matters ranging from dissemination of information and. generating awareness to the issue of refunds, giving effect to orders, disposal of rectification and other applications and redressal of grievances. Out of these 18 action points, 16 mention specific time frames for providing respective services. To mention a few: + Refund should be issued along with interest, if any, within 9 months from the end of the month in. which the return, complete in all respects, is received. + Effect to appellate/ revision order should be given within 45 days from the date of receipt of the appellate/revision order by the Assessing. Officer. + Rectification application should be disposed of within 2 months from the end of the month in which the application is received. The Charter also stresses on certain expectations on the part of the taxpayers. These include obtaining and quoting correct PAN/TAN in all returns, challans and communications, filing corrected returns ‘on time, quoting correct bank details etc.1, Concerns: actions are not provided. . . This charter applicable to all field units in een UNiformy, across the country differ on account of workloa fie. number of ase, human resources siting Income Tax offices are not se ties to the citizens ¥4 t targets adhered to. ‘Time frame for all the Uniform applicatio However, field units complexity involved), Service standards of basic facili No mechanisms to ascertain whether the set ‘Charters 7 and most of the Charters formulated nw concepts is always difficult t of Citizen’s Charter in the ‘ic set up/ procedures and the 8, Problems Taced|In Implementing | the d in 199 in India had starte' : f implementation. Introduction of ne "P jmplementation of the conceP! ue to the old bureaucrat ‘The Citizen's Charters initiative i thereupon are in a nascent stage of in any organization. Introduction an a tecnment of India was much more difficult rigid attitudes of the workforce. ‘The major obstacles encountered in this initiative were= «The general perception of organisations which formulated Citizen's Charters eee the exercise was to be carried out because there was @ direction from above. The consultation process vas f the routine activities of the organisation and jninimal or largely absent. It, thus, became one © had no focus; «For any Charter to succeed the employees resPo! 7 training and orientation, aS ‘commitments of the Charter cannot be expected t > in many cases, the aie pce that is unaware of the spirit and. content of the Charter. However, Concerned staff were not adequately trained and sensitised; « Somatimes, transfers and reshuffles of concerned officers. at formulation/implementation of the sitizen’s Charter in an organisation strategic processes which were put in place and ‘hampered the progress 0! «Awareness campaigns to educate clients about the Charter were not conducted systematicall « Insome cases, the standards, ces mentioned in Citizen’s Charter were either too lax or too tight and were, therefore, favourable impression on the clients of the Charter; «The concept behind the Citizen’s Charter was not properly understood. Information brochures, publicity materials, pamphlets produced earlier by the organisations were mistaken for Citizen's Charters should have proper insible for its implementation 10 be delivered by a the crucial stages of severely undermined the f the initiative: ,/time norms of servi unrealistic, thereby creating an w 9) ‘How to make charters a Success a . vstrati , Fenn of Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR & PG) 7 bees citizens and staf tobe consulted at every stage of formulation of the Charter, Neo cio of at about the salient features and goals/ objectives of the Charter; vision mission statement of the department, and skills such as tear building, problem solvi tin ing evaces nd communication skills, ~ . for wider publicity of the Charter thr i i n : ‘ough print media, posters, banners, leaflets. ills trots eaten etc. and also through electronic ‘nei es n ° fic budgets for awa et f ff Rephaten a ope mn tee Ps generation and orientation of staff Crvating guarantees and redress policies Service Delivery: : A. Burl servce standard a Puldions : Wo the performance management syster isati one i and coompaing performance against the stand vrs Sila aa aaa sor meeting tough customer service standard,Framing structure for obtaining feedback and e¢ Frsjewing the Charter every six months at leas, pete Eeparate Charters can be framed for disti i pee cayman inct services and for organizations/ agencies attached oF and. fix a schedule for jo sevottam Model” covottam=seva *uttamy meaning service and excellence respective! Main moto of this model is improving the quality of public service delivery in the country. ‘The Sevottam model assesses an organization on the following parameters 1 implementation of the Citizens’ Charter ereanee >. Implementation of grievances redressal mechanism 3. Capacity to delivery the service Why there should be Sevottam Model: Citizens’ Charters are mere statement of commitments and are by themselves can not achieve the desired results in improving the quality of public services. 4 Absence of a credible grievance redressal mechanism + Absence of capacity building mechanisms Sevottam model provides an evaluation framework to assess the quality of internal processes and their impact on the quality of service delivery. ‘The Sevottam model includes: L ‘CAPACITY |__ENHANCEMENT | Capability Service Delivery “INTEGRATED APPROACH *eualty os defined by User (and NOT Defiverer of the Services * Effective implementation of Citizen Charter: For this, Organizations should receive inputs from the public and provide suitable mechanisms for receiving inputs from them and integrate those inputs into service delivery mechanisms. © Citizens! Charters should publicly declare the information on citizens’ entitlements thereby ‘making citizens better informed and hence empowering them to demand better services. ©. Public Grievance Redressal requires a system which operates in such a manner that leaves the ‘itizen more satisfied with how the organization responds to complaints/ grievances, irrespective of the final decision.~ «Excellence in Service Delivery: efficiently managing the key components of good service and building its own capacity to continuously improve service delivery. elivery 11. The ARC-II Seven Step Model for Citizen Centricity: “This model inspired from the principles of the IS 15700:2005, the Sevottam model and the Custom er id Kingdom ts/ministries/organizations become citizen centric, this ards that end. fh top management and field offices of the concerneg Service Excellence Model of the U In order to help government departmen model provides a step by step approach tows This framework has to be followed by bot! department or ministry or organization. “The top management has the dual responsiblity of setting standards for itself as well as guiding the subordinate offices in setting their own standards. Besides, all supervisory levels should ensure that the standards set by the subordinate offices are realistic and are in synergy with the broad organizational goals. Thus, though each office would have the autonomy (0 set standards, these ince with the organizational policies. would have to be in consonat Define all services which you provide and identify your clients. 1 2. Set standards and norms for each service. 3. Develop capability to meet the set standards. 4. Perform to achieve the standards 5, Monitor performance against the set standards. 6. Evaluate the impact through an independent mechanism. 7. Continuous improvement based on monitoring and evaluation results. Step 1: Define Services y . 2 vail organizational units should clearly identify the Services they provide, + Any legitimate expectations of a citizen should define the term ‘service’ id help the staff in an organization understand the genuine expectations «Defining the services wou! of the organization as well as the citizens. Step 2: Set Standards it is said that what cannot be measured is never gets done. Once the various services have been identified and defined, the next step isto set standards for these services. Breed om the citizen's expectations and based on organizations’ capability, overall goals/standards should be set. «These standards should be realistic and achievable. © Complaints/grievance redressal mechanism should be provided. the organization's Step 3: Develop Capacity: sere iddition to defining the services and setting standards for them organizations should ensure that each unit has the capability for achieving the set standards. ; ; «Since the standards are to be upgraded periodically, it is necessary that capacity building also becomes a continuous process. that each individual and Step 4: Perform: + Next logical step would be internal mechanisms have to set up to ensure unt in the organization pertorming according to the set standards Having # sound performance management system ensures that th performance and organizational goals were is a syne in individuals, Monitor: oer oe implementation standards /benchmark for monitoring or evaluation should be set. ach organization should develop a monitoring process to ensure that the services provided + Roig to the pre-set standards. Compliance 10 standards should be supported by a system of rewards and punishments. step 6 Evaluate Fed party evaluation of the customer satisfaction i a necessity. ome possible means for obtaining feedback from citizens can be random surveys; citizens’ report eons, or even an assessment by a professional body. Guch an evaluation would provide crucial information which can be included in the policy raping so as to ensure citizen centric administration or agency. qtivould aso highlight the areas of improvements and those which require further improvement, sep 7: Continuous Improvement: P7iwerinental services should be responsive to the needs ofthe people. As the aspirations ofthe people keeps growing, the government should try to match with their legitimate expectations. Tae requires continuous updating andl improvements, 42 Previous Years’ Questions 1, Citizens’ Charter is an ideal instrument of organizational transparency and accountability, but. it has its own limitations, Mdentify the limitations and suggest measures for greater effectiveness oF the Citizens Charter. act 2. Though Citizen’s charters have been formulated by. miany public service delivery organizations, there is no corresponding improvement in the level of citizens’ satisfaction and quality of services being, provided? Analyze. 2013