Service delivery frameworks as instruments of citizen empowerment: A tale of two experiences, India and South Africa

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative assessment of South Africa and India's service delivery improvement strategies, challenges, successes and lessons learnt in advancing their service delivery reform programmes. The cardinal argument in the paper is that the public administrative systems adopted and inherited in the post-democratic epochs in India and South Africa were incapable of meeting the service delivery needs of their respective citizens. They epitomised the traditional and hierarchical public administrative systems that were the object of reforms in the 1990s. The reform initiatives also coincided with global reforms on public administration systems taking place under the aegis of the new public management framework. A key feature of new public management is its application of private-sector ideas to the public sector, such as individual accountability. The paper further undertakes a comparative review of service delivery improvement frameworks of South Africa (Batho Pele) and India (Sevottam) in relation to their objectives and implementation modalities.

Keywords:

• Batho Pele
• Sevottam
• participation
• accountability
• new public management

1. Introduction

This paper presents a comparative assessment of South Africa and India's service delivery improvement strategies, challenges, successes and lessons learnt in advancing their service delivery reform programmes. The cardinal argument made here is that the public administrative systems adopted and inherited in the post-democratic epochs were incapable of meeting the service delivery needs of their constituencies. They epitomised the traditional and hierarchical public administrative systems that were the object of public service reforms in the 1990s. The reform initiatives also coincided with global reforms on public administration systems taking place under the aegis of the new public management (NPM) framework (Bertucci & Yolande, 2000).

The adoption of the NPM framework by various countries throughout the world during the 1980s and 1990s marked a paradigmatic shift from the previous traditional model of public administration based on theories and descriptions of bureaucratic structures developed by Max Weber and Woodrow Wilson (Hughes, 1998:58). The emergence of NMP was partially a reaction to the apparent limitations of the traditional bureaucratic model of public administration as it involved a ‘critique of monopolistic forms of service provision and an argument for a wider range of service providers and a more market-oriented approach to management’ (Stoker, 2006:45). NPM thus replaced the traditional model of organisation and delivery of public services, based on the principles of bureaucratic hierarchy, planning, centralisation, direct control and self-sufficiency, with a market-based public service management or enterprise culture. Key components of NPM include hands-on professional management, clearly defined standards and measures for performance, increased emphasis on output controls, greater competition in the public sector, more prudent use of resources, disaggregation of units in the public sector and private-sector models of management practice (Hood, 1991:4–5).

A frequently noted feature of NPM is its application of private-sector ideas to the public sector, such as individual accountability. There is an emphasis on citizens as clients or customers, and on the need for public agencies to provide their clients with an efficient service, a feature clearly reflected in the service delivery reforms undertaken by South Africa and India (O'Flynn, 2005). Citizen needs and rights should determine how services are to be delivered, and that the ‘voice’ of the citizen is a primary variable influencing how services should be provided. The key values can best be reflected by the ‘principles of reinventing government’ that regard customer needs as reigning supreme compared with those of the bureaucracy, decentralisation and results orientation with a focus on outputs and community participation in the service delivery chain.

As both the South African and Indian post-independence public service reforms were heavily influenced by the NPM paradigm, this paper undertakes a comparative review of the two countries' service delivery improvement frameworks, namely the Batho Pele initiative in South Africa and the Sevottam initiative in India, in relation to their objectives and implementation modalities. Upon evaluation, it becomes apparent that the widely cited limitations of the NPM model and its unintended negative effects are exhibited in both South Africa's and India's application of various components of the paradigm, most notably the undermining of public service values due to increased competition for resources between departments and the decreased accountability and responsibility of public officials as a result of fragmentation (Lawton, 1998, cited in Minogue, 2000).

While major cultural, demographic and economic differences exist between the two countries, South Africa and India share numerous commonalities that make them suitable cases for cross-national comparative analysis, especially when analysing their respective post-independence public administration reforms. Both countries are marked by a history of discrimination and exclusion (related to caste in India and race in South Africa) that has largely determined the structure of their societies and civil services. The two nations share interlinking anti-colonial (and anti-apartheid in South Africa) historical struggles that culminated in independence and transitions to democracy, yet the goal of advancing human rights and extending democracy to the majority population has proven to be quite elusive in both cases (Hofmeyer & Williams, 2011). While both South Africa and India are middle-ranking powers in the Global South, they are also characterised by high levels of inequality, poverty, violence, unemployment and illiteracy. Additionally, the populations of the two nations are marked by extreme linguistic, ethnic and religious diversity. Finally, and most importantly for the analysis at hand, both South Africa and India introduced service delivery frameworks in 1997 that signified attempts to significantly reform their public service sectors.

It will hence be possible to compare the varying contexts that define the emergence of public service systems across India and South Africa, and thus to ascertain the similarities and differences that exist between the various strategies undertaken to improve service delivery in both countries given that both frameworks were published in 1997. Using this technique, key service delivery improvement reform initiatives across both countries with regard to service delivery improvement initiatives as underpinned by their respective frameworks are identified, and the challenges, successes and lessons learnt from these initiatives are subsequently ascertained.

The study acknowledges the limitations inherent in cross-national research, however, such as raising more interpretative problems than it solves and being limited to circumscribed and analytical generalisations. These are symptomatic of the rigours and ‘infinite’ nature of cross-national comparative studies. India has a much older (known) history and a significantly larger population and land area than South Africa. More than 60 years have passed since India's transition to democracy, while South Africa has less than two decades of experience with democratic rule. In addition, the two nations are substantially different in their macroeconomic orientation and development trajectories (Hofmeyer & Williams, 2011). The conclusions of this analysis thus need to be taken in stride given the methodological limits often inherent in studies using cross-country analysis. This paper only extrapolates common themes/initiatives adopted across both countries regarding their service delivery improvement frameworks focusing on citizen input.

2. Historical and legislative context of service delivery improvement initiatives in South Africa and India

It is evident that democratic transitions in South Africa and India have been accompanied by wide-ranging reforms within their respective public sectors. These reforms were necessary given the heavily politicised nature of the two countries' public administration systems, which are embedded in their own colonial histories. Both countries' public administration systems had commonalities reminiscent of the typical features of a traditional bureaucratic administrative system in that they were bloated, inward looking, hierarchical, rigid and ineffective in meeting the service delivery needs of their constituencies given their ‘government-centric’ orientation.

2.1 South Africa

For instance, in South Africa the advent of multi-party democracy in April 1994 presented government with the twin challenges of institutional transformation and the introduction of new policies consistent with the democratic constitution. The public service inherited by the new government in many ways preserved the social and economic system of apartheid that, if left unchanged, could seriously compromise the ability of the new government to achieve the goals of reconstruction and development, nation-building, national reconciliation, community empowerment and democratic participation (DPSA, 1995:9).

Given the aforementioned, the inception of democracy in 1994 paved the way for revolutionary change in the public service in legislative and administrative terms. Pressure for change in the public service also came from citizens, many of whom had voted for the first time in 1994 and had expectations of improved conditions and a better life (DPSA, 1995:11–12). In addition, some authors argue that increasing global competition, the disappointing progress achieved by a centralised post-independence state, and the influential IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes heavily influenced the uptake of public service reform in South Africa (Bardill, 2000:103). The legislative reform agenda had its roots in the principles drawn from both the 1993 and 1996 Constitutions, which protect and promote a Bill of Rights (found in Chapter Two) (RSA, 1993, 1996). These reforms are intended to transform the inherited status of a public service that was essentially an apparatus used to advance the economic and political aims of the apartheid regime through racial oppression and extreme exploitation of the majority population (Cameron & Thornhill, 2009). The apartheid bureaucracy was not geared towards putting all people first (irrespective of race, ethnicity and class) and equitably providing them with quality services in order for them to have a better life.

In 1994 the new democratic government had to not only amalgamate the previous 11 former state administrations (included in these are the administrative systems of the six independent homelands and four self-governing territories), but also integrate the formerly racially divided national public service system, which was separated into four distinct administrations determined by racial group (white, coloured, Indian and African). Here, the Public Service Act of 1994 was promulgated to consolidate the highly fragmented system into one single civil service (Cameron, 2009).

2.2 India

While South Africa's experience with an organised state bureaucracy dates back a little over a century, some trace the existence of a civil service in India as far back as 313 BC (Mishra, 2001). Thus, by the time India was colonised, the Indian population was well acquainted with an established bureaucratic system (Mishra, 2001). With India winning independence from the British in 1947, framers of the country's new Constitution believed that the public administrative system inherited from the British was effective and therefore paid scant attention to instituting major public service reforms (Saxena, 2003). Yet, as was the case in South Africa, the advent of democracy in India brought major challenges as the new leaders promised the Indian people whole-scale social and economic transformation that would dramatically improve their lives (Saxena, 2003). A few years after independence it became painfully clear that the inherited bureaucracy was inadequate and democratic. India's first Five Year Plan (devised by the Planning Commission established in 1950) called for major public service reforms.

Thus, from a comparative view with South Africa, India's post-independence period had to grapple with the similar challenges of a pre-independence bureaucracy viewed as discriminatory, rigid, impersonal, pre-occupied with form and procedure, and with an inefficient officialdom (Haque, 1994). The role of the administrative machinery from the British Crown's perspective was confined primarily to revenue collection and maintenance of law and order. After independence, a strong network of civil servants was used for undertaking developmental activities and the monitoring thereof. To ensure the equitable distribution of the limited resources available at that time, control of all development activities in the public sector as well as in the private sector was centralised in the bureaucratic set up.

The Indian Constitution states: ‘ … the State [may make] any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State … ’ (Constitution of the Republic of India, Article 6, section 4). However, the evaluation of India's Five Year socio-economic plans (the third in particular) revealed recurring weaknesses in the implementation of policies. Policy implementation as the Achilles heel of Indian administration was universally agreed to lack political and powerful bureaucracy-dominated administrative reforms, which rendered them inefficient, riddled with corruption and of little help to the general population. In addition, most citizens remained unaware of their rights and of public servants' duties and responsibilities towards them (Saxena, 2003).

With the global economic crisis of the 1980s, India adopted a new macro-economic policy that called for reforms in public enterprises. By the early 1990s, emphasis was placed on the civil service to become the major facilitator of economic growth in the country, which meant bureaucratic operations needed to be much more organised and efficient (Mishra, 2001:4).

Rising levels of economic development with substantial increases in the population's literacy rate were also catalysts that led to a shift in focus towards a governance system that was more responsive to its citizens. The paradigm shift was towards a system where the citizen is at the centre and consulted at various stages of formulation and implementation of public policy. One of the principal causes for the inordinate delay in providing the requisite services to the citizen was the existence of a complex system of rules, regulations and procedures that were all inimical to the interests of seamless and timely service provision to the citizens.

With independence, the country clearly articulated a desire to bring much-needed access and openness in the public governance mechanism epitomised by people-centredness, transparency, accountability, measurable standards, efficiency and sustainability. These virtues are also in conformity with India's constitutional ideals that enshrine the principles of an open, egalitarian, democratic society and respect the rights of the governed to question arbitrary actions by the State. A clear focus on a citizen-centred service delivery is anchored on the fact that, over time, the increase in the number of services has led to a limited allocation of resources across the schemes and a decrease in the quality and sustainability of the services provided to people. The institutions that implement these schemes/services needed proper planning and implementation and a continuous flow of funds for their sustenance.

This brief historical review generally reflects three broad themes that have marked service delivery issues in the two countries:

• Pre-independence/pre-democratic phases were characterised by centralised public administrative systems that were rule bound and politicised, and whose service delivery record was appallingly poor and not citizen-centred.

• The public administrative systems inherited in the new democratic phase all attempted to devolve service delivery to their lowest tiers of governance, but these were often encumbered by a lack of resources and capacity to adequately provide services to their constituency.

• The reform initiatives implemented focused mainly on the development of an effective, outcome-based, accountable and citizen-centred service delivery machinery that was effective, efficient and equitable in the provision of services to its citizenry.

3. Underlying philosophy to service delivery improvement initiatives

This section highlights the philosophical foundations of South Africa's and India's public administration systems and the influence of the NPM imperatives. Introduction of the NPM perspective in the public sector brought about a totally different system of governance, which entailed the processes of planning, organising, staffing, directing, controlling and interacting with the external environment in order to ensure the efficient, effective and economic use of public service resources. As was discussed at the beginning of this paper, NPM is a management philosophy adopted by governments since the 1980s to modernise the public sector with accountability for performance as the essence (Bertucci & Yolande, 2000). Greater concern is placed on the rights of citizens to quality services, on measurable outcomes, and on allowing citizens to articulate ‘voice’ through participatory processes. The service provision chain is a marked feature that is traceable in both countries based on the service delivery improvement programmes initiated.

Using NPM as a theoretical prism to understand service delivery reform initiatives, it becomes clear from the country reviews in this study that the public-sector reforms implemented emphasised a management model able to offer public services that were of high quality, efficient and effective. This was essentially an outcome-based, accountable, measurable and citizen-centred approach to service delivery that was clearly embraced, as evident in the service delivery frameworks that South Africa and India adopted in their quest to improve service delivery in conformity with the key paradigmatic features of the NPM framework.

Worth acknowledging, however, is the fact that, despite supporting many elements found within the NPM paradigm, the support for a strong developmental state that is capable of directing social and economic development across the two countries is clearly discernible, albeit at varying degrees. In meeting these development objectives, it is argued that the public service or the administration of a developmental state has to be strong and capable of intervening, planning and channelling societal resources towards resolving national development challenges. For instance, South Africa's efforts to promote growth and development are being pursued within the context of building a developmental state. Such a broad developmental vision was predicated on the success of the service delivery improvement frameworks adopted in the respective countries (Cameron, 2009).

4. Service delivery improvement frameworks

4.1 South Africa: The White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery (Batho Pele)

The White Paper on Transforming Public Service Delivery (Batho Pele) was published in 1997.³ Its purpose was to provide a national policy framework and practical implementation strategy for the transformation of public service delivery. While many of Batho Pele's elements were closely aligned to ‘international best practice’, the document recommended precaution in adopting the NPM model (Cameron, 2010:685). Batho Pele, a Sesotho term meaning ‘People First’, is an initiative to transform the attitudes of public servants to be service oriented, to strive for excellence in service delivery and to commit to continuous service delivery improvement. It is a simple and transparent mechanism that allows citizens to hold public servants accountable for the level of services they deliver (RSA, 1997). In seeking to modernise the public sector, Batho Pele is inclined towards outcomes and efficiency through better management of the public budget. This must be done in terms of making the services more customer oriented by means of a national service delivery policy. The belief set ‘We Belong, We Care, We Serve’ clearly captures the Batho Pele culture.

One of the prime foci of the Batho Pele initiative is to provide a framework for making decisions about delivering public services to the many that do not have access to them. It also aims to rectify inequalities in the distribution of existing services. Accordingly, the initiative is premised on the fact that the public service in South Africa is faced with problems such as over-centralised operating systems and hierarchical and rule-bound systems inherited from the previous dispensation that make it difficult to hold public servants accountable (CDE, 2009). The Batho Pele initiative consists of the following eight principles:

• Consultation: citizens should be consulted about the level and quality of the public services they receive and, wherever possible, be given a choice about the services that are offered.

• Service standards: citizens should be told what level and quality of public services they will receive so that they know what to expect.

• Access: all citizens should have equal access to the services to which they are entitled.

• Courtesy: citizens should be treated with courtesy and consideration.

• Information: citizens should be given full, accurate information about the public services they are entitled to receive.

• Openness and transparency: citizens should be told how national and provincial departments are run, how much they cost and who is in charge.

• Redress: if the promised standard of service is not delivered, citizens should be offered an apology, a full explanation and a speedy and effective remedy; when complaints are made, citizens should receive a sympathetic, positive response.

• Value for money: public services should be provided economically and efficiently in order to give citizens the best possible value for money.

Before describing this framework further, it is important to note that while the NPM paradigm was highly influential in South Africa's development of the Batho Pele initiative, there are several ways in which the two frameworks diverge. Cameron (2009) presents a thorough assessment of the level to which NPM reforms made their way into the country's public service reforms, demonstrating that while their presence is clearly apparent, much of the NPM's initial thrust was weakened by the model's inherent limitations. For example, the NPM emphasis on the importance of decentralisation only went so far in the South Africa public service reforms because managers were left without authority and autonomy to decide upon matters that directly affected their respective departments (Cameron, 2009:9). Also, reforms that sought to cluster national and provincial public service departments with related functions together with the aim of cohesive governance coordination were at odds with the NPM model and more closely aligned with the ‘joined-up government’ approach advocated by the United Nations (Cameron, 2009:11). Thus, while components of the Batho Pele initiative described below are much in line with NPM recommendations, South Africa did not strictly adhere to all of its ideals.

4.2 South Africa: Service delivery improvement plans

What does a Batho Pele-compliant department look like to a service recipient? Such a department has a service charter in place with specific undertakings against every one of the eight principles that renders them measurable. Service delivery improvement plans (SDIPs) seek to ensure that service recipients are treated as customers. In this, they seek to protect customer's rights and to improve the relationship between the public service and citizens (Nel, 2006:106–9). The notion behind SDIPs is that you cannot improve what you cannot measure. A SDIP identifies areas requiring improvement, and gives departments the opportunity to undertake annual assessments of performance against the standards stipulated in the SDIPs (Tshandu, 2007:62–3).

The process of developing SDIPs is regarded as the first step in determining service standards against which service beneficiaries will be able to measure levels of service delivery by departments. It is evident that without credible, effective and realistic SDIPs with clear, measurable standards, the government will not be able to deliver improved services, and nor will citizens be able to perceive an improvement in the levels of service delivery (DPSA, 2007). Hence SDIPs also seek to transform the public service from a bureaucratic to a results-driven organisation. The SDIP caters to both internal clients (the different units within the organisation itself) and external clients (customers that are similarly catered for through a service charter).

Departments are required to publish their service standards in an annual Statement of Public Service Commitment, or Service Charter. These service standards must specify the level (quantity) and quality of services, and they may cover processes, outputs and outcomes. Service standards are required to be operational for one year, and are subject to an annual performance review. Service standards are indicators of the best level of service delivery a department can realistically provide, given the resources available. Good service standards are meaningful to citizens, and are developed with citizen expectations and input in mind. It is possible for each department to produce data that demonstrate it is meeting its service standards at a very high level (e.g. number of citizens receiving housing subsidies) and yet citizens may remain dissatisfied.

Evaluation of SIDP implementation across the public service in South Africa has shown compliance levels to be less than desirable (CDE, 2009). Departments have voluntarily adhered to the regulatory requirement stipulating the annual submission of SDIPs to the Department of Public Service and Administration only in cases where a concerted drive from the centre coupled with implementation support has been undertaken (DBSA, 2007). In some instances, the awareness of the requirement was lacking, pointing to a lack of knowledge of the basic legislative and regulatory fundamentals on the part of some public servants.

4.3 South Africa: Citizen satisfaction surveys

Consultation is one of the core principles of the Batho Pele framework and is a powerful tool that enriches and shapes government policies and the way it interfaces with the service recipients as it ‘helps to foster a more participative and co-operative relationship between the providers and users of public services’ (RSA, 1997:7). Democratic governments exist to serve their citizens, and a satisfaction survey is one of the many ways governments can listen to and incorporate the voice of the customer in their practices (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). More than one method of consultation will often be necessary to ensure comprehensiveness and representativeness. Across the South African public service, there is paucity of evidence on the existence of regular and consistent utilisation of consultation techniques and partnership building with citizens. Very few departments have institutionalised consultation arrangements with their clients on a regular and consistent basis (Cameron, 2009).

This void has been partially filled by the Public Service Commission, which conducted sectorally specific surveys (PSC, 2002, 2003, 2005a, 2006, 2007), a survey on selected provincial departments (PSC, 2007) and another on provincial agricultural services (PSC, 2008). While reported results of these surveys are generally positive on citizens' views of government services, there is no evidence that departments rigorously engage with the findings, particularly in areas where challenges and gaps have been identified. Given the weak evaluation capacity and lack of effective internal performance monitoring with departments, there are no foreseeable improvements in this undesirable scenario and the Public Service Commission's monitoring on its own higher level will remain insufficient.

Some have averred that the capital-intensive nature of the survey methodology is the main underlying factor for the absence of consultation. However, the point is given that the survey is one of a myriad of options with which to implement consultation, many of which are low cost and just as effective. A case in point is the Citizens' Forums pioneered by the Public Service Commission, which has faltered from the lack of uptake and rigorous implementation by line departments. This lack of ownership has occurred despite the development and dissemination of a toolkit (PSC, 2005b). The status quo prevailing is evidently discordant with the vision of the public service that is partnered with citizens, rendering the public service obdurately insular and turning to the self-serving machinations of bureaucratic dictates.

4.4 India: Benchmarking excellence in service delivery (Sevottam)

Initiated in 1997, the Government of India has developed a model for benchmarking excellence in service delivery (Sevottam, meaning excellence in service) in an attempt to make civil servants more client friendly, accountable and accessible to the general public. The model provides a framework to assess and improve the quality of service delivery to the citizen by government departments. This is an integrated model for assessing service delivery having three main schemes, namely:⁴

• the Citizen's Charter,

• public grievance redress, and

• service delivery capability.

The overarching objective of Sevottam is to improve the quality of service delivery, within which an intermediate outcome is expected from each of the three components. The first element of the Citizen's Charter requires effective charter implementation, thereby opening a channel for receiving citizens' feedback concerning the ways in which departments determine service delivery requirements. Citizen's Charters publicise Indian citizens' entitlements, keeping people better informed and hence empowering them to demand better services.

The second component, the public grievance redress mechanism rating model, requires a sound grievance redress system operating in a manner that leaves the citizen more satisfied with how organisations respond to citizen dissatisfaction. The assessment of the grievance redress mechanism requires that departments take into account three aspects of grievance handling: how they are received; how they are resolved; and how they will be prevented in the future. Within the Indian context, an organisational approach that is focused on the efficient handling of grievances received is emphasised, as well as the importance of acting appropriately to eliminate chronic grievance prone areas.

Lastly, the third component of Sevottam postulates that an organisation can perform excellently only if it can manage the key ingredients in service delivery in an efficient manner and can build its own capacity to continuously improve delivery. Sevottam criteria ascertain how well an organisation is tuned into the requirements of the Citizen Charter, public grievance redress and service delivery enabling parameters.

Based on this Indian framework for improved public service delivery, a quality standard (IS 15700:2005) has been formulated by the Bureau of Indian Standards and government departments shall be benchmarked on the above standard. Based on the standards developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards, the service provider will develop their own sector-based standards for improvement in service delivery. Once the sector standards are achieved through a systemic process, the organisations can apply for certification under IS 15700:2005. Periodic monitoring of organisations' compliance with the certification requirements serve to ensure that the improvements made by the departments are institutionalised and that a sustainable system for managing the quality of public service delivery is established.

4.5 India: Citizen's Charter

Similarly to South Africa, India has long acknowledged that public administration and public services should be more responsive to citizens' needs. The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, with the Government of India, has been coordinating, formulating and operationalising Citizen's Charters in the country since their inception in 1997. Drawing primarily from the UK model, the Indian Citizen's Charter Programme emphasises the involvement of the service users, consumer organisations, citizens groups, employees and other stakeholders in the preparation of the Charter (Public Affairs Centre, 2007:2). A Citizen's Charter represents the commitment of an organisation to quality, time-sensitive and consistent service delivery, actively instituting grievance redress mechanisms and operating under transparency and accountability. Based on the anticipated expectations and aspirations of the public, Citizens' Charters are to be drafted with in careful consideration of the concerned service users (Transparency International India, 2005).

Similar to the South African Service Charters, the Indian Citizen's Charter essentially elaborates on the standards of services that citizens should expect, projected time limits of services, avenues of grievance redress and a provision for independent scrutiny. Both countries' charters place emphasis on the consultative process that must go into the drafting of the document, particularly through involvement of other stakeholders such as consumer groups, citizens and relevant citizen groups.

Evaluation of performance against the set objectives reveals that the charters have not lived up to their intended improvements in public service delivery, although some signs were encouraging given the nascency of the process. On the positive side, the level of institutional uptake of the initiative in India was laudable. As of 2001, 68 central government institutions and 318 other state agencies had charters in place (Sharma & Agnihotri, 2001). However, the majority of these charters exhibited serious design flaws, thereby calling into question their efficacy and contractual status between service providers and recipients (Haque, 2005). Standards for service delivery were vaguely defined and poorly constructed, and nor was there any apparent evidence of improved service delivery in institutions with charters in place (Public Affairs Centre, 2007). This raised suspicions of purely formalistic as opposed to substantive compliance on the part of departments.

Feasibility of implementation of standards was also an oversight, signifying a lack of multi-layered consultation across the institutions, especially in front offices given their public interface responsibilities. Furthermore, charters were envisioned to be dynamic documents whereby standards are constantly reviewed on the basis of environmental considerations. In the Indian case, charters were viewed as static entities in which the standards were constant throughout despite environmental feedback. This inadvertently resulted in a disjuncture whereby services were not delivered in line with standards outlined in the majority of cases (Public Affairs Centre, 2007).

5. Lessons learnt from the implementation of service delivery improvement plans, South Africa and Citizens’ Charters, India

The following lessons have been learnt from the experience to date of implementing the SIDPs and Citizen's Charter initiative:

• As with any new effort, the Citizen's Charter in India and the South African SDIPs, as new concepts or ways of delivering services, should be predicated on the development of an intensive awareness campaign to sensitise government bureaucrats regarding the role of charters. The awareness campaigns should be designed and delivered innovatively and effectively. In both countries it was evident that the underlying ideology of developing service/citizen charters in the respective countries was insufficiently understood during the embryonic stages of the programme. Changing the attitude of government bureaucrats takes time and must be effected through training that will hopefully increase the capacity and support needed to develop these charters. From these two case studies, it is evident that the level of institutional preparedness to absorb this change was put to question, especially during the infancy phase of the programme.

• Awareness campaigns among service users was found lacking, despite the implicit aim of sensitising service users to the standards of service they are entitled. This means that the objective of holding government officials to account for under-achievement with regard to service delivery has largely been unfulfilled.

• Limited impact on actual improvement of service delivery was noted in both countries. At times, service standards defined were unrealistic or rigid in definition given the resource and capacity constraints that departments faced.

• Defining service standards outside the scope of developing actual service delivery improvement strategies encumbered some of the intended objectives. For instance, a key question here is: how does one sensitise front-line staff who are at the coalface of service delivery to actualise the aspirations of the charter in the manner they deliver services to the user?

• Clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms should be set within a given time frame to allow for an objective assessment of whether the charter aspirations have been fulfilled.

• Another question that needs to be addressed is what happens if the service standards are not met. Are there systems in place to ensure that service standards are submitted and acting on them is embedded in how institutions/officials are evaluated?

• Both cases are characterised by the non-specification of punitive measures to address non-compliance, in whose absence the will to comply is weakened significantly, as evidenced by the merely above-average compliance levels in both cases.

5.1 India: Citizen report cards

In India, citizen report cards are the equivalent of South Africa's citizen satisfaction survey. Citizen report cards originated from initiatives instituted from below prior to their formalisation. In South Africa, citizen satisfaction surveys are based on the consultation pillar of the Batho Pele initiative. The citizen report card initiative started in 1994 in Bangalore, India (Public Affairs Centre, 2007). Public-sector agencies were rated by citizens with regard to delivery of services in terms of public satisfaction, corruption and responsiveness. Steps to improve service delivery follow based on the report card, with visible results. This assisted service providers to put much effort into improving their performance (Transparency International India, 2005). The citizen report card was built on a foundation of ‘voice’ as articulated by citizens through feedback surveys.

While ‘voice’ alone is inadequate to improve services, citizen report cards provided something that was hitherto absent – the basis for systematic civic engagement by city governments and civil society, as well as benchmarks for monitoring performance. It is this form of sustained and robust systematic engagement that South Africa can learn from India's experience with the citizen report card process in so far as consultative processes with service users are concerned (see Sekhar & Rout, 2005).

The Public Affairs Centre's experience provides important lessons for civil society and public service providers who wish to use ‘voice’ as the starting point for improving service delivery. Among other things, it highlights a variety of enabling conditions for ‘voice’ to make a substantive impact. The space provided by the state for engagement, the identity it provides for civil society institutions, the extent to which prevailing political agendas allow particular groups to operate and the power of the client lobby all have an important role to play. This experience offers insights into how civil society articulated ‘voice’ and engaged local government, and into how the state proactively responded to make best use of such initiatives. The public character of this process moved the focus of dialogue to specific issues and improvements, along with an acceptance of public accountability (see Sekhar & Rout, 2005).

While the strengths have been extensively documented, equally important to highlight are some of the weaknesses associated with the citizen report card methodology. The first is the perennial question of the influence of subjective factors on responses (this defect being no less true of the South African equivalent, the citizen satisfaction surveys) (Ravindra, 2004). The relationship between services and perceptions of the quality thereof is mediated by a myriad of factors including household characteristics, peer group effect and equality of access to services. A case in point is the results of the citizen report card exercise consistently finding the proportion of poor households expressing satisfaction with the quality of services being far higher than that of general households (Ravindra, 2004). While this is an inherent weakness that merits concern and warrants circumspection with respect to the interpretation of the results, the feedback based on perceptions nevertheless indicates the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction therewith.

A methodological defect of the administration of the citizen report card process relates to the fact that the focus was restricted to customers or citizens as survey respondents, to the exclusion of the views and opinions of public administration officials. This omission creates a problem from the attributional perspective of what are the underlying causes and sources of the presenting service delivery deficiencies. In the absence of the public administration officials' perspective, deficiencies are in all likelihood, and potentially erroneously so, attributed to lack of performance and bureaucratic mismanagement and/or incompetence of public servants.

6. Conclusion

The cumulative effect of the assessment raised above is that while there are commonalities amongst our two case studies, there are significant differences that account for the experiential variations. While reforms in both countries were responses to specific institutional distortions that rendered them impotent to the serving of the universal needs of the larger populace, the content of their programmes were uniformly inspired by the NPM framework given their adaptation of the UK Charter Mark model (RSA, 1997; Sharma & Agnihotri, 2001), signifying convergence with dominant global public administration reforms (McGuire, 2002). Despite the infrastructural similarities, however, it is apparent that across both models the gap between policy and implementation has hindered progress, albeit to varying degrees.

One advantage of the Sevottam model is its emphasis on training that is part of the multi-stakeholder implementation process. This is accomplished through the involvement of bodies like the Bureau of Indian Standards, the Quality Council of India and Tata Consulting Services (in addition to other training institutes). Periodic surveillance is also commissioned as part of the certification system to ensure the institutionalisation of improvements and gains made. This then puts formidable capacity at the disposal of departments for assistance purposes. This is nowhere evident in the South African context. Departments are expected to be self-sufficient, although the Department of Public Service and Administration and the respective Premiers' Offices in the Provinces can render come level of implementation capacity. Worth noting is that these units have capacity constraints of their own and are able to offer very limited support at best. This accounts for the laxity in implementation, resulting in a laissez-faire situation characterised by a lack of monitoring of implementation despite the expectation on ‘Departments to measure and report regularly the impact of Batho-Pele based service delivery on the lives of the citizens’ (Office of the Premier, 2005:11). Compliance has only been attained with strong coordination and support from the centre (Tshandu, 2010), with the lack thereof being attributed to the lack of capacity. In short, the implementation support infrastructure in the form of training and monitoring is stronger in India than it is in South Africa, substantiating the higher compliance levels in formalistic and substantive terms.

Another significant difference is the presence of civil society participation. The citizen report card process is a quintessential representation of a process that signifies the ‘agency’ of citizens and the space for ‘voice’. Intermittent evaluations of agencies have pointed to the virtue of this approach as it has resulted in improvements in the service delivery processes of the agencies concerned. The situation in South Africa is characterised by the view of citizens as objects of exclusively state-led service delivery with no discernible examples of partnerships with communities (CDE, 2009). This in direct contrast to the provisions of the Batho Pele White Paper, which is extremely supportive of the formation of such partnerships.

Given the restrictive emphasis on service quality at the service delivery point in India and South Africa, this article does not address the fundamental issues of lack of access brought about by issues of socio-economic and structural inequality that impacts on whether or not services are accessible in the first instance. Apart from the need to expand the nature and scope of citizen consultation, charters also need to move in the direction of ensuring that the entitlement of the poor to basic public services are asserted and turned into reality. This can only be attained in the context of wider and systemic socio-economic and political redistribution of resources that would improve the very access that the service charters regard as a taken-for-granted reality.

Notes

³For more information, see The White Paper on Transforming the Public Service Delivery (Batho Pele White Paper), Government Gazette, General Notice 1459, 1997; and DPSA (n.d.).

⁴This section draws from Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (2003).