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 ParticipationIRM Review
IRM Report: Philippines End-of-Term Report 2015-2017, Philippines Mid-Term Progress Report 2015-2017
Starred: No
Early Results:
Major
Design i
Verifiable: Yes
Relevant to OGP Values: Public Accountability
Implementation i
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.
Commitments
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Citizen Participation in Local Government
PH0056, 2019, Capacity Building
-
Participation in Local Tourism Development
PH0057, 2019, Capacity Building
-
Basic Education Inputs Program
PH0058, 2019, Capacity Building
-
Open Data Portal
PH0059, 2019, Access to Information
-
Participatory Monitoring of Infrastructure Projects
PH0060, 2019, Capacity Building
-
Implement EITI
PH0061, 2019, Access to Information
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Passage of Freedom of Information Law
PH0062, 2019, Access to Information
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Labor Inclusivity and Dispute Resolution
PH0063, 2019, Access to Justice
-
Participatory Children's Health and Nutrition Program
PH0064, 2019, Gender
-
Indigenous Representation in Local Legislative Councils
PH0065, 2019, E-Government
-
Open Contracting Data Publication
PH0066, 2019, Access to Information
-
Civil Society Participation to Improve LGU Service Delivery
PH0042, 2017, Access to Information
-
Engage Communities in the Fight Against Corruption, Criminality and Illegal Drugs
PH0043, 2017, Capacity Building
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Ease of Doing Business:Competitiveness
PH0044, 2017, Legislation & Regulation
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Ease of Doing Business: Philippines’ Anti-Red Tape Challenge)
PH0045, 2017, Capacity Building
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Citizen Participatory Audit)
PH0046, 2017, Anti-Corruption
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8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center
PH0047, 2017, Public Participation
-
Government Feedback Mechanism
PH0048, 2017, Capacity Building
-
Access to Information Legislation
PH0049, 2017, Access to Information
-
e-Participation Through the National Government Portal
PH0050, 2017, Access to Information
-
Open Budget Index and Budget Reform Bill
PH0051, 2017, Access to Information
-
Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
PH0052, 2017, Anti-Corruption
-
Institutional Mechanisms for Disaster Response
PH0053, 2017, Access to Information
-
Shelter Development for Informal Settler Families
PH0054, 2017, Access to Information
-
Open Local Legislative Processes
PH0055, 2017, E-Government
-
Law on ATI
PH0029, 2015, Access to Information
-
Transparency of Local Govs Plans and Budgets
PH0030, 2015, Fiscal Openness
-
Open Data
PH0031, 2015, Access to Information
-
Extractive Industries' Transparency
PH0032, 2015, Anti-Corruption
-
CSO Engagement in Public Audit
PH0033, 2015, Anti-Corruption
-
Civic Enagement in Local Budget Planning
PH0034, 2015, Fiscal Openness
-
Civic Enagement in Local Budget Planning – Community Capacity-Building
PH0035, 2015, Capacity Building
-
Improving Public Service Delivery
PH0036, 2015, Public Participation
-
Improving Local Govs' Performance
PH0037, 2015, Capacity Building
-
Improve the Ease of Doing Business
PH0038, 2015, Private Sector
-
Local Government Competitiveness
PH0039, 2015, Access to Information
-
Public and Private Sector Dialogue
PH0040, 2015, Private Sector
-
Improving Corporate Accountability
PH0041, 2015, Private Sector
-
Sustain Transparency in National Government Plans and Budgets
PH0020, 2013, E-Government
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Support for the Passage of Legislations on Access to Information and Protection of Whistleblowers
PH0021, 2013, Access to Information
-
Engage Civil Society in Public Audit
PH0022, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Enhance Performance Benchmarks for Local Governance
PH0023, 2013, Capacity Building
-
Enhance the Government Procurement System
PH0024, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Strengthen Grassroots Participation in Local Planning and Budgeting
PH0025, 2013, Fiscal Openness
-
Provide More Accessible Government Data in a Single Portal and Open Format
PH0026, 2013, Access to Information
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Initiate Fiscal Transparency in the Extractive Industry
PH0027, 2013, Anti-Corruption
-
Improve the Ease of Doing Business
PH0028, 2013, Private Sector
-
Disclose Executive Budgets
PH0001, 2011, Fiscal Openness
-
Access to Information Initiative
PH0002, 2011, Access to Information
-
Broader CSO Engagement
PH0003, 2011, Public Participation
-
Participatory Budget Roadmap
PH0004, 2011, Fiscal Openness
-
Local Poverty Reduction
PH0005, 2011, Public Participation
-
Empowerment Fund
PH0006, 2011, Capacity Building
-
Social Audit
PH0007, 2011, Anti-Corruption
-
Results-Based Performance
PH0008, 2011, Capacity Building
-
Performance-Based Budgeting
PH0009, 2011, Capacity Building
-
Citizen’S Charters
PH0010, 2011, Capacity Building
-
Internal Audit
PH0011, 2011, Anti-Corruption
-
Single Portal for Information
PH0012, 2011, Access to Information
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Integrated Financial Management System
PH0013, 2011, E-Government
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Electronic Bidding
PH0014, 2011, Anti-Corruption
-
Procurement Cards
PH0015, 2011, Anti-Corruption
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Manpower Information System
PH0016, 2011, E-Government
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Expand the National Household Targeting System (NHTS)
PH0017, 2011, Public Participation
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e-TAILS
PH0018, 2011, E-Government
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Budget Ng Bayan
PH0019, 2011, Fiscal Openness