News Story

04 July 2009 14:44 BST

Public services need "service culture"

The performance of Britain's public services is not being assessed properly, a thinktank has claimed.

A report published today by Demos argues that existing measures used to measure the progress of schools, hospitals and other public services do not pay sufficient attention to customer service, which it says should be more widely emphasised in future public service reforms.

The report, launched last night by economic secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls, argues that "competition and contestability" should be relegated down the priority list below customer service.

"From patients to parents, service users need to play a more active part in shaping their experience of public services," said Sophia Parker, deputy director of Demos and co-author of the report.

"This means engaging people at the point of delivery. Citizens need to be able to shape services in the school hall as well as the town hall."

The Demos report, entitled The Journey to the Interface, lays out a series of recommendations which would help the government to realise its advice.

These include senior civil servants being made to resolve complaints regularly at ground level, the adoption of longer-term thinking by the Treasury and the establishment among local authorities of a "dedicated customer service team".

Observers have suggested that the report is likely to be taken very seriously by the Labour leadership thanks to their close sympathies with the political views of its sponsors.

Demos, which enjoyed considerable sympathy from the New Labour movement in the present government's early years after 1997, was originally founded by journalists from Marxism Today, while Mr Balls is known as a close ally of chancellor Gordon Brown.