2008 Irish Civil Service Customer Satisfaction Survey

1. Introduction

Ipsos MORI was commissioned by the Public Service Modernisation (PSM) Division of the Department of the Taoiseach in February 2008 to conduct a survey of members of the general public to determine levels of satisfaction with the customer services provided by Civil Service Departments and Offices, and attitudes to the Civil Service among the general public. This study was designed to be benchmarked against previous surveys conducted in 2005, 2002 and 1997 to assess progress since then and forms part of the Irish Civil Service's continuing commitment to improving the quality of its service delivery to its customers.

While the analysis of experience requires consultation with users of individual Departments and services, the measurement of attitudes does not preclude members of the general public who have not had contact with the Civil Service fromparticipating in the research. Indeed, their contribution as citizens, rather than as customers, provides valuable context to the interpretation of customer attitudes to service delivery.

1.1 Measuring Public Sector Customer Satisfaction

The survey is concerned with the measurement of customer satisfaction rather than citizen satisfaction. For customers, the questions are about their satisfaction with the delivery of services at an operational level. However, citizen surveys may assess issues such as whether certain services should be provided by the public sector at all.Secondly, for customers and users, their priorities are for a better service, even though, as citizens, they may also recognise that resources may be better used elsewhere. The challenge for the Civil Service is to balance the two distinct, and often competing, factors of value for money for citizens with high quality, accessible services for clients.

There are also a number of features of public services that make them different from private sector services, and which reduce the usefulness of direct comparison between the public and private sectors. Many commercial models of service quality focus on the aim of increasing consumption of services and/or increasing customer loyalty whereas, for certain public services (e.g. health and social welfare), these considerations are in theory less relevant, as they are monopoly suppliers, customers are required to consume the services (such as regulatory services) or they are in fact the opposite of the aims of the service, where a reduction in consumption would be preferred (such as health and social services).

An important consideration in evaluating customer satisfaction in the Civil Service is that the range of impacts on the image of public services is likely to be wider than for private services. In particular, it is argued that expectations of public services can be influenced by perceptions of Government and politicians. Expectations of public services are not only influenced by direct communications from the service, or even what the media says about the service, but also the reputation of the Government as a whole. While it is generally agreed that the impact of this factor may be relatively minor when asking about very specific service elements, it is likely to have an impact on aggregate ratings.

1.2 Structure of Report

The report begins with a discussion of the methodology employed for the survey before turning to a description of the results. The report concludes with a review of the main findings of the research and recommendations arising from the research. Throughout the report, results are presented firstly at an overall aggregate level before highlighting significant differences between particular subgroups. Generally, results of individual subgroups are not reported where no significant differences exist between the attitudes, opinions or other results of groups. Results of individual subgroups are also not reported where subgroup sample sizes are insufficiently large to permit reliable inferences to be drawn.