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Philippines

Improving public service delivery (PH0036)

Overview

At-a-Glance

Action Plan: Philippines National Action Plan 2015 – 2017

Action Plan Cycle: 2015

Status: Inactive

Institutions

Lead Institution: Civil Service Commission

Support Institution(s): Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology Office. Bantay.PH, United Nations Development Programme, Integrity for Investments Initiative (i3)/USAID

Policy Areas

Public Participation, Public Service Delivery

IRM Review

IRM Report: Philippines End-of-Term Report 2015-2017

Starred: No

Early Results: Major Major

Design i

Verifiable: Yes

Relevant to OGP Values: Public Accountability

Potential Impact:

Implementation i

Completion:

Description

Status quo - Government agencies do not follow or have poor service commitments to the public. One-way government frontline service approach which does not consider customer insight. Main objective - The Integrated Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) Program’s main objective is to improve public service delivery by making government agencies responsive to their customers’ insights. The program also aims to increase transparency, citizen participation, and accountability. By doing so, the Integrated ARTA Program responds to the societal goal, Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction.
Performance Target by 2017:
 90% of public reports lodged via Contact Center ng Bayan
(CCB), acted upon by CSC
 10% increase in the percentage of offices surveyed under
the Report Card Survey (RCS) obtaining the Citizen’s Satisfaction Center Seal of Excellence Award (CSC-SEA) (2015 baseline). Relevance - The program promotes transparency and access to information by making sure that frontline government agencies post Citizens Charters informing clients and stakeholders of their service commitments.
The program also capitalizes on technology to advance civic participation with the Contact Center ng Bayan which created a national public feedback system. Through multiple access modes, a quick action team from the Civil Service Commission collects and responds to public – customer complaints, suggestions, and
other feedback, and link these to agencies concerned.
Likewise, the program furthers public accountability, access to information, and civic participation through the Report Card Survey. The initiative transforms the feedback process through the active collection of clients’ insights on agencies’ compliance with ARTA and on the quality of service they just received. It introduces a metric-based approach that enables government agencies and the public to easily and objectively track the progress of public service performance. Above all, the RCS grants citizens the power to quantitatively evaluate the performance of government offices, and to an extent, determine if and how much performance incentive a government office gets. Ambition - As the program empowers both the public and government agencies, an espousal of a culture of customer service and continuous public service improvement is envisioned. With the program, government agencies will hopefully open up and view the public clients as their partners, and public feedback as constructive and valuable inputs for genuine public service delivery enhancement.

IRM Midterm Status Summary

For Commitment details, see https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/philippines-mid-term-progress-report-2015-2017.

IRM End of Term Status Summary

8. Feedback mechanism to improve public delivery

Commitment Text:

· Government agencies do not follow or have poor service commitments to the public.

· One-way government frontline service approach which does not consider customer insight.

Main objective - The Integrated Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) Program’s main objective is to improve public service delivery by making government agencies responsive to their customers’ insights. The program also aims to increase transparency, citizen participation, and accountability. By doing so, the Integrated ARTA Program responds to the societal goal, Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction. Performance Target by 2017:

· 90% of public reports lodged via Contact Center ng Bayan (CCB), acted upon by CSC

· 10% increase in the percentage of offices surveyed under the Report Card Survey (RCS) obtaining the Citizen’s Satisfaction Center Seal of Excellence Award (CSC-SEA) (2015 baseline).

Ambition - As the program empowers both the public and government agencies, an espousal of a culture of customer service and continuous public service improvement is envisioned. With the program, government agencies will hopefully open up and view the public clients as their partners, and public feedback as constructive and valuable inputs for genuine public service delivery enhancement.

Responsible institution: Civil Service Commission

Supporting institutions: Department of Science and Technology-Information and Communications Technology Office. Bantay.PH, United Nations Development Programme, Integrity for Investments Initiative (i3)/USAID

Start date: 2015

End date: 2017

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to improve public service delivery through an effective government feedback and monitoring mechanism, particularly the Integrated Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) Program of the Civil Service Commission (CSC). The Contact Center ng Bayan is a national public feedback system that can be contacted via SMS, phone, and email, and responds to feedback. The commitment set targets for the percentage of reports generated through Contact Center ng Bayan that must have been acted upon (80 percent and 85 percent for 2015 and 2016, respectively). The commitment also aimed to increase the number of offices that receive the Citizens’ Satisfaction Center-Seal of Excellence Award (CSC-SEA), from 2015 baseline.[Note: See the Progress Report for more details. Aceron, Joy. 2017. Philippines Progress Report, 2015-2017. Open Government Partnership Independent Reporting Mechanism. ]

Status

Midterm: Substantial

The progress report marked this commitment’s level of completion as “substantial.” 100 percent of the complaints lodged via CNC were acted upon in 2015 and 2016.[Note: Ibid. ] The feedback was forwarded to concerned agencies for action. CNC reported that 87 percent of complaints had been resolved by the end of December 2015, while the remainder were to be resolved in January 2016.[Note: Civil Service Commission. CCB 2015 Terminal Report. Unpublished document. ]

The completion level of the commitment on Seal of Excellence Awards recipients was limited because the 2016 Report Card Survey was still ongoing at the time of writing the progress report. CSC expected that the number of agencies awarded the Seal would go down because of changes to the criteria. In the past, the presence of strike out questions, which are questions on standards that are either present or absent, were graded. These were changed to possibly automatically disqualify certain offices, making it harder to qualify for the seal.[Note: Ibid.]

End of term: Complete

All the deliverables for this commitment have now been completed. The number of recipients of CSC-Seal of Excellence Award has increased by 16 percent.[Note: Civil Service Commission, response to the questionnaire of the IRM Researcher for the End of Term Report. Sent on October 9, 2017.] Nine more agencies were awarded the Seal in 2016, in addition to the 55 recipients in 2015.[Note: Ibid.]

Did It Open Government?

Public Accountability: Major

Civic Participation: Minor

Government agencies have a history of poor service delivery and have not used customer feedback to improve performance in the past. The commitment has demonstrated the effectiveness using incentive (awards) and feedback to improve the delivery of front-line services. XX[Note: G-Watch/ PODER-Ateneo School of Government (2015). Monitoring and Assessment of the Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) Report Card Survey. Ateneo School of Government. Unpublished report.]XX This is evidenced by the increasing number of agencies improving their performance in the ARTA-Report Card Survey and the increase in the number of recipients of the Seal. The increasing number of frontline agencies with improved performance[Note: CSC, Integrated Anti-Red Tape Program, Accessed on Nov. 12, 2016, http://www.gov.ph/governance/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Q1-Q2-2015-ANTI-RED-TAPE.pdf. ] indicates a growing awareness of the need for frontline services to improve and be citizen-oriented. As reported by CSC: “because of the results of the RCS and feedback through the Contact Center ng Bayan, many government offices have initiated concrete improvements. Among these are the HDMF’s ‘One Look Service Offices’, SSS’ ARTA Corner, GSIS’ internal survey on client satisfaction, and PhilHealth’s Queuing System in all its branches in NCR wherein the response time/performance of frontliners could also be checked.”[Note: Civil Service Commission, response to the questionnaire of the IRM Researcher for the End of Term Report. Sent on October 9, 2017.] However, there are a number of frontline agencies whose performance are yet to improve despite being subjected to ARTA-RCS and there are critical agencies (e.g. Bureau of Customs) that have yet to be covered by ARTA-RCS.

There is also room to improve the citizen participation component. Though Contact Center ng Bayan provides a space for citizens to give feedback, the use of the platforms and mechanisms by citizens could be improved, including the feedback mechanisms available at the frontline services, to make government responsive and accountable and avoid inefficiency and corruption.

Carried Forward?

This commitment has not been carried forward into the next action plan. Executive Order six (passed on 14 October 2016) established a new feedback mechanism called 8888 Citizens’ Complaint Hotline. This new mechanism has been included in the next PH-OGP action plan.

Philippines's Commitments

  1. Civil society participation to improve LGU service delivery

    PH0042, 2017, Capacity Building

  2. Engage communities in the fight against corruption, criminality and illegal drugs

    PH0043, 2017, Capacity Building

  3. Ease of Doing Business:Competitiveness

    PH0044, 2017, Legislation & Regulation

  4. Ease of doing business: Philippines’ Anti-Red Tape Challenge)

    PH0045, 2017, Capacity Building

  5. Citizen Participatory Audit)

    PH0046, 2017, Audits and Controls

  6. 8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center

    PH0047, 2017, Public Participation

  7. Government feedback mechanism

    PH0048, 2017, Capacity Building

  8. Access to Information Legislation

    PH0049, 2017, Capacity Building

  9. E-Participation through the National Government Portal

    PH0050, 2017, Citizenship and Immigration

  10. Open Budget Index and Budget Reform Bill

    PH0051, 2017, E-Government

  11. Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

    PH0052, 2017, Beneficial Ownership

  12. Institutional Mechanisms for Disaster Response

    PH0053, 2017, E-Government

  13. Shelter Development for Informal Settler Families

    PH0054, 2017, E-Government

  14. Open Local Legislative Processes

    PH0055, 2017, E-Government

  15. Law on ATI

    PH0029, 2015, Right to Information

  16. Transparency of local govs plans and budgets

    PH0030, 2015, Fiscal Transparency

  17. Open Data

    PH0031, 2015, Open Data

  18. Extractive Industries' Transparency

    PH0032, 2015, Extractive Industries

  19. CSO engagement in public audit

    PH0033, 2015,

  20. Civic enagement in local budget planning

    PH0034, 2015, Participation in Budget Processes

  21. Civic Enagement in Local Budget Planning – Community Capacity-Building

    PH0035, 2015, Capacity Building

  22. Improving public service delivery

    PH0036, 2015, Public Participation

  23. Improving local govs' performance

    PH0037, 2015, Capacity Building

  24. Improve the ease of doing business

    PH0038, 2015, Private Sector

  25. local government competitiveness

    PH0039, 2015, Capacity Building

  26. Public and private sector dialogue

    PH0040, 2015, Private Sector

  27. Improving corporate accountability

    PH0041, 2015, Private Sector

  28. Sustain transparency in national government plans and budgets

    PH0020, 2013, E-Government

  29. Support for the passage of legislations on access to information and protection of whistleblowers

    PH0021, 2013, Legislation & Regulation

  30. Engage civil society in public audit

    PH0022, 2013, Public Participation

  31. Enhance performance benchmarks for local governance

    PH0023, 2013, Capacity Building

  32. Enhance the government procurement system

    PH0024, 2013, E-Government

  33. Strengthen grassroots participation in local planning and budgeting

    PH0025, 2013, Participation in Budget Processes

  34. Provide more accessible government data in a single portal and open format

    PH0026, 2013, E-Government

  35. Starred commitment Initiate fiscal transparency in the extractive industry

    PH0027, 2013, Extractive Industries

  36. Starred commitment Improve the ease of doing business

    PH0028, 2013, Private Sector

  37. Disclose Executive Budgets

    PH0001, 2011, Fiscal Transparency

  38. Access to Information Initiative

    PH0002, 2011, Right to Information

  39. Broader CSO Engagement

    PH0003, 2011, OGP

  40. Participatory Budget Roadmap

    PH0004, 2011, Participation in Budget Processes

  41. Local Poverty Reduction

    PH0005, 2011, Subnational

  42. Empowerment Fund

    PH0006, 2011, Capacity Building

  43. Social Audit

    PH0007, 2011, Public Participation

  44. Results-Based Performance

    PH0008, 2011, Capacity Building

  45. Performance-Based Budgeting

    PH0009, 2011, Capacity Building

  46. Citizen’s Charters

    PH0010, 2011, Capacity Building

  47. Internal Audit

    PH0011, 2011, Audits and Controls

  48. Single Portal for Information

    PH0012, 2011, E-Government

  49. Integrated Financial Management System

    PH0013, 2011, E-Government

  50. Electronic Bidding

    PH0014, 2011, E-Government

  51. Procurement Cards

    PH0015, 2011, Open Contracting and Procurement

  52. Manpower Information System

    PH0016, 2011, E-Government

  53. Expand the National Household Targeting System (NHTS)

    PH0017, 2011, Public Participation

  54. e-TAILS

    PH0018, 2011, E-Government

  55. Budget ng Bayan

    PH0019, 2011, Fiscal Transparency