Benjamin Franklin, one of the USA’s founding fathers, famously claimed that only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. His words hold true today – but the administrative burden associated with either event is changing rapidly.

Since HM Revenue & Customs’ introduction of an online self-assessment tax system, the annual struggle to hit the submission deadline has become less of a struggle for many people. Meanwhile, the government’s ‘Tell Us Once’ programme aims to reduce the number of times that people have to inform various arms of government about a birth or death. Death and taxes may be just as serious and as important, but they’re becoming less complicated.

With the growth of web access and new media, the government is developing the ability to convey information and services through a vast swathe of channels – from the internet to mobile phones. The flagship transformational government agenda, for example, aims to transform delivery by “harnessing technology to best advantage and best value for the citizen”.

But what difficulties do government departments and other public bodies face when harnessing these technologies? And should such advances mean that more traditional contact points (such as phone lines and face-to-face services) are radically downsized? At a recent roundtable event, organised by Whitehall & Westminster World and supported by public sector online transactional specialists EzGov, the panel discussed the best ways to use different media in fostering contact between citizens and the state.

Why good contact matters Before discussing the merits of various means of communication, participants sought to define what that contact with the citizen needs to achieve. Sharon Cooper, director of strategy and product development at Directgov – the government’s all-in-one website for citizens – said the focus has to be on “being there when other facilities are not”.

Whenever citizens’ lives change, she explained, they need to be able to access clear information that tells them: “‘This is what you need to do; these are the steps you need to take in order to do it; and this is why you need to do it.’ Then they can feel very happy that they’ve got things sorted.”

No-one dissented from that description – but it’s a complicated task, as EzGov Europe chief executive Frank Moyer noted. “In banking, for example, you can personalise information [to customers’ needs],” Moyer said; the bank is always dealing with a banking customer, and its systems can reflect that. “But with Directgov, the user might be [making queries as] a taxpayer one day, and the next day they might be seeking benefits. So their needs change all the time, and that’s a challenge to government that the private sector doesn’t have.”

Siobhan Coughlan, service transformation manager at the Improvement and Development Agency (Idea), which works to improve practice in local government, commented that citizens’ contact with government tends to fall into two broad categories, and this has to be reflected in information provision.

One type is transaction-based, covering specific actions such as paying car tax; while the other is the more complex area of support services. “These are complicated issues, like: ‘I’ve just become unemployed’, or ‘my partner has been struck with a long term illness’ or ‘my child has been diagnosed with special educational needs’,” Coughlan said. “That’s when government should be an entirely different experience [from transactional services], and how we cater for those two – one transaction-based, the other support service-based – has to reflect that.”

Avoidable contact
One department that has to cope with vast amounts of both kinds of contact is the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which was represented at the table by Paul Land, change programme manager. The DWP, said Land, has to deal with a vast weight of unproductive interactions – a problem that makes a clear case for the better management of “avoidable contact”. “In 2008, DWP received 75 million phone calls, but 26 million of those added no value whatsoever to the customer or DWP,” he said. “We are running a huge number of pilots and tests looking at ways of reducing the amount of wasted contact.”

Avoiding unnecessary contact did not simply mean pushing all activities online, Land insisted, but instead improving every point of contact from the perspective of the users. One unfortunate tendency displayed by government in the past, he added, was the habit of placing as much information as possible online in the belief that this was the most transparent and democratic way of dispensing information.

“We could create a website which includes every single detail about the DWP, but actually it’s not going to be relevant to the majority of people,” he argued. “The more information you try to give people, the more confusing it is for them to receive it, so it’s about making communication as effective as possible.”

Gerald Power, a service transformation manager at the Cabinet Office, offered a practical example of the benefits of contact reduction in the delivery of services. “Twenty years ago I had a lot of contact with my bank, because there were lots of services I had to do at the counter,” he said. But this had since changed thanks to internet banking. “Nowadays my contact with my bank is virtually nil,” he added.

However, some of the participants questioned having too great a focus on managing avoidable contact. Gavin Jeffries, head of customer information at another customer- facing department, HMRC, warned that attempts to steer contact into one particular channel – usually online – can alienate users and lead to more telephone contact with irritated and confused citizens flummoxed by websites. “I think sometimes there’s a sense that we push contact towards the lowest cost solution without thinking about what is really best and most appropriate,” Jeffries said.

“The reality is that people will only use something if it is better, or if you chop off all the other options and don’t give them any choice – and then you have the risk of backlash.” Siobhan Coughlan agreed, pointing to the example of utilities companies; some, she said, have taken a conscious decision to make contacting them “virtually impossible” by phone.

Oliver Morley, director of customer and business development at the National Archives, recalled prior experience in the commercial sector – where, he said, the  phrase ‘avoidable contact’ “would never be used”.

The focus, he said, must be on achieving customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, while recognising that the public is a diverse and often unpredictable mass of individuals. “I think you can have some paralysis in terms of implementation if you’re looking for that perfect contact, that perfect route, and to know exactly where everything isgoing to go,” he warned. “Because  as we have repeatedly found, the public are very unpredictable.”

Feedback concerns
All agreed that mapping citizens’ contact with state information – and measuring its effectiveness – is extremely difficult in an age of fragmented media. Sharon Cooper said that, although Directgov conducts surveys and runs focus groups, it is unable to get good feedback on the services received after users are redirected from its website to other government sites.

“We can’t measure how many people complete their car tax, for example, because we only get them to the front door of the service; we don’t actually see them inside and pick them up at the end, and that’s one of the things that we are working on at Directgov,” she said. More joining up between departments and Directgov is needed to improve feedback on the overall service, Cooper said – but she added that “some bodies are keener on this than others”.

Getting the feedback system right is crucial, EzGov’s Frank Moyer claimed. “If you look at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, they measure feedback that says 91 per cent of users will return [to their website]; HMRC reports 95 per cent,” Moyer said. “Just the fact that they’re reporting makes you realise they’re measuring it, and taking that feedback and making a better process.”

The Cabinet Office’s transformation team has responsibility for measuring the agenda’s success across government: not an easy task, according to Gerald Power. Returning to the problem of joining-up, Power said that websites such as Directgov and Businesslink (an equivalent website for businesses) sometimes actually make monitoring overall service delivery more difficult. Unlike clearing housestyle help lines, he said, it can be difficult to track users’ onward journeys from the main website to those of other agencies, making it hard to monitor the ‘journeys’ of citizens accessing services.

Philosophical dilemma
Measuring effectiveness is a big issue, but one participant said there are some bigger philosophical dilemmas to be dealt with before the government pursues some of its ambitions in relation to online communications.

Ren Reynolds of the Virtual Policy Network, a not-for-profit think tank, has advised government on the public policy implications of technology. Using social networking sites such as Facebook to reach the public and disseminate information raises questions about the role of the state in the lives of citizens, he said.

“You’ve got the state moving into a non-state, private space owned by an American company – so is it appropriate to do that?” Pointing to some of the proposals made by the government’s Power of Information taskforce, including that for greater use of social media, Reynolds added: “[Citizens] may say: ‘I don’t want you instant messaging me, being on Facebook or telephoning me – I simply want to come to you.’ Shouldn’t we want government out of our lives a little more?”

Some people, however, are happy to welcome a virtual government into their lives – and Chris Ezekiel of technology company Creative Virtual claimed that a more proactive approach can deliver benefits in online data provision.

Ezekiel’s company builds “virtual assistants” – often animated on-screen characters – that provide information to customers as an alternative to call centres or email-based help desks. In the private sector, he said, virtual assistants have delivered massive cost savings as well as customer satisfaction – with lifelike avatars often being programmed to engage in small talk with users.

Moreover, the system provides excellent feedback, with enquiries being constantly processed to give a picture of users’ preferences. “Even if the virtual system can’t answer the question, if you’ve got a virtual face there to help you, people do interact with that and give a really valuable insight into what might be wrong with the website,” he said.

Difficulties in measuring feedback  and philosophical concerns notwithstanding, there are no signs that the government’s enthusiasm for new methods of interacting with citizens is waning; quite the opposite, in fact. The latest public sector reform document promises that citizens will be able to put eBaystyle ratings of services such as local police forces and GP surgeries on government-sponsored websites.

Put simply, EzGov’s Frank Moyer said, government information tools are bound to be judged against the best in the online world: providers such as eBay and Amazon. Although the citizen’s relationship to the state is, by definition, different from that of a customer to a company, expectations are still “driven [by experience] of the private sector”, agreed Sharon Cooper.

Just like a commercial company, government has to build the trust of users over time, Paul Land concluded. “It’s about really making the customers feel they are part of an ongoing process, so that they know where they started, and where they are going to get to.”

Around the table

Sharon Cooper director of strategy and product design, Directgov
 
Siobhan Coughlan programme manager – service transformation, Improvement & Development Agency

Chris Ezekiel managing director, Creative Virtual

Gavin Jefferies head of the customer information team, HM Revenue & Customs

Paul Land change programme manager, Department for Work and Pensions

Oliver Morley director of customer and business development, National Archives

Frank Moyer chief executive, EzGov Europe

Gerald Power service transformation manager, Cabinet Office

Ren Reynolds Virtual Policy Network
 
Kevin Sorkin chair