CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Building Trust and Credibility TRUST US WE RE FROM CENTRELINK. SUE VARDON Chief Executive Officer, Centrelink

Transcription

1 Institute of Public Administration Australia Queensland Division Annual State Conference 24 August 2001 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE Building Trust and Credibility TRUST US WE RE FROM CENTRELINK by SUE VARDON Chief Executive Officer, Centrelink

2 It started out as a simple concept - making government relevant and accessible to citizens. Simple in concept but very challenging in practice. What is Centrelink doing about building citizen s trust? Firstly, we are engaging with our customers. We believe that simple democratic principles apply across the board. While we are here to serve the government of the day, ultimately we exist to serve the citizens who in turn elect governments. We cannot do that effectively unless we know their expectations of us. It means recognising the enormous diversity of our population and finding ways to engage with them. It means developing a shared vision and purpose and setting goals that reflect these. Importantly, it means being light on our feet so that the vision and goals keep pace with customer expectations. In listening, anticipating and responding to the views of all citizens we demonstrate that we are in touch with people s needs and wishes. In turn we gain their trust. The values and aspirations which underpinned Centrelink during its establishment were very much influenced by the views expressed by our citizens in response to questions about how they wanted to be served by us. Centrelink was launched in 1997 as a natural portal to remove the complexity for Australians accessing government services. The Australian Government had plans to substantially restructure the employment market place and at the same time wanted to take the opportunity to bring together referral services for job seekers with payment services. The plan was not about inventing a new Department this had been done before - rather the intention was to create an entirely new way of delivering Commonwealth services by creating a new statutory authority which would serve as the Commonwealth s shop front for many government departments. The new agency was to be the gateway to the employment market place, providing a single point of entry for information, assessment and referral. Thus the new agency would act as both service provider and broker whilst being an information integrator. Page 2

3 Centrelink now delivers a wide range of services, to a wide range of people on behalf of a wide range of client departments. These services are provided under a purchaser/provider arrangement on behalf of 23 different agencies across 3 levels of government. To give an idea of the breadth of our business, there are: We have 1000 points of service delivery, including 26 Call Centres 24,000 staff 6.4 million customers 70 different products and services 232 million payments each year ($47B) 100 million letters are sent to customers 6.5 million home visits to customers 20 million office appointments 28.9 million web site hits At Centrelink we have a range of ways in which we engage with citizens and we know how important it is to ensure that what people tell us is treated as valuable and impacts on the way we do business. Value Creation Workshops We listen to people through what we call value creation workshops. These are conducted in a similar way to focus groups in that participants are selected from the relevant sector of the community. We asked more than 15,000 customers in small groups of 15 with staff present (24,000 staff have attended) what they expect from government particularly us. Surveys We also undertake an annual survey program in which we ask people their perceptions of Centrelink s performance. The results of surveys are disseminated to all our customer service centres so that they all receive feedback. In this way these surveys help us evaluate specific areas of Centrelink s customer service and identify areas for service improvement. Working with the Community Sector We also work closely with many community groups. We share clients and it is both our interests to listen, understand each others businesses and cooperate to get the best outcomes for the people we are helping. In these ways Centrelink can contribute to community building and social capital. Page 3

4 Reference Groups We also have in place a range of consultative forums that enable the community to provide feedback and advice on all aspects of service delivery to customers. These include the National Multicultural reference Group a key forum that Centrelink uses to engage peak ethnic community participation and feedback from the multicultural community sector about our services. We also have a Disabilities Service Reference Group made up of representatives of peak disability and carer groups and community organisaitons to advise us on how to improve service for people with disabilities and carers. We are also developing relationships with groups representing young people and the child care sector. Our customer s priorities The information gathered from our customers, particularly through value creation workshops, boiled down to three key themes: Accurate information, easily accessible; Caring friendly staff and being treated with respect; Protection of personal information. Today I want to concentrate on the first of these three accurate information, easily accessible and to connect this to issues of governance. I have used our experience in Centrelink to define a model for public sector service agencies a model emerging over time and still unfolding. But first, let me spend a few minutes explaining some of the governance approaches in the Commonwealth. There are essentially two legislative models under which all Commonwealth entities fit. These are the Financial Management and Accountability Act (FMA), covered also by the Public Service Act and the covered by the CAC Act (Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997). Page 4

5 PUBLIC SECTOR PRIVATE SECTOR PS ACT & F.M.A ACT CAC ACT PRIVATISATION GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS BOARD CENTRELINK BOARD A.B.C BOARD BOARD CASA EN BOARD POST BOARD TELSTRA BOARD COMM BANK QANTAS BOARD TARMAC TO INDEPENDENCE Centrelink is in the first group ie. we are subject to the FMA Act, but from the beginning the agency was expected to have some of the characteristics of those in the second group - a Board of Management, a competitive environment for part of its business and to be somewhat entrepreneurial. Our Board is appointed by the Minister for Community Services. Because we are on the left hand side of the ledger, we have a close relationship to both the board and the Minister. The Board is accountable to the Minister in the same way as the Board of a public company is accountable to its shareholders. As the CEO I am accountable to both. We report to the Minister for Community Services who is within the portfolio of the senior Portfolio Minister - the Minister for Family and Community Services. The Board is made up of four people from the private sector, the Secretaries of our two major client departments and myself. We have a Chairman who has an enormous commitment to the well being of our customers and believes very much in the important role that Centrelink plays in delivering quality and ethical services to our citizens. Our Board members from the private sector bring with them a range of skills, experience and commitment that is incredibly valuable to us as a customer centric organisation. Page 5

6 The two purchasing Secretaries on the Board bring both challenges and opportunities. Having these departments represented on the Board is potentially a very positive thing. However, these members have their own accountabilities and responsibilities which may be in conflict with Centrelink s. One of the interesting debates that has been running ever since the formation of Centrelink is whether or not there is a conflict of interest in having the heads of purchasing departments sit on the Centrelink Board, even though they are non-voting members. The issue here is that the core clients, FaCS and DEWRSB, have little choice but to use Centrelink even though there is no legislation that ties them in this way. Under these circumstances they do not have the opportunity to test the market and hence an open book approach is desirable. In the event that these clients chose to go to the market-place for services that Centrelink is set up to deliver this would raise a genuine concern about these arrangements. For the time being the Government has confirmed that it does not wish to introduce contestability to Centrelink. It does, however, wish to see Centrelink continue the good work it has been doing on achieving efficiencies and hence lower prices for the delivery of services. Page 6

7 DEPARTMENTS DEPARTMENTS GOVERNMENT PUBLIC SECTOR PS ACT & F.M.A ACT CAC ACT KPI $ Board Board A.B.C CENTRELINK TV COMPETITION RADIO CASA NEWSPAPERS Board Board EN JOB NETWORK Board POST PRIVATE SECTOR PRIVATISATION Board Board TELSTRA COMM BANK QANTAS Board TARMAC TO INDEPENDENCE We are funded by contract unlike the Departments who are funded directly. This year we will sign 21 business partnership agreements with Commonwealth and State agencies and exchange KPIs for dollars. One of the challenges over time has been defining what is being purchased and at what cost. It has been a challenge for all parties to define outcomes - we are still substantially focusing on inputs, a legacy of the way the system operated before Centrelink - but we are now making progress towards shifting our focus and business arrangements to outputs. We are also dealing with legacy issues that affect the way we are resourced. The services we inherited were not costed in other than an incremental fashion. Inadequate strategic costings is one of our risks but we are working on it. Our business is primarily that of preferred supplier (monopoly) but it is mixed with business for which we compete. There are 15 Commonwealth Ministers whose business we do in either form. Page 7

8 Centrelink has a complex governance arrangement but it is the price we must pay for removing the complexity from the citizen and that is my major point today. To achieve accurate information accessible to the citizen, we have to operate on the principle that the citizen can find services to help in their transition through an event in their lives at the one place, wherever that is. It is our responsibility to arrange the back end to make this happen. But in the murkiness of the back end lie old governance arrangements often unclear; jealousies, tradition, excessive process, silos, and conflicting purposes at all levels of government. Our absolute responsibility is to shake these out and shine a light on them. Whilst there are some disadvantages to the purchaser-provider model in terms of perhaps lost policy opportunities, there are many more advantages. The greatest of these is transparency. We need to take the complexity (bureaucratic spaghetti) from in front of the counter to behind it and untangle it. I call this governance drag back. Using our experience as an example of bringing parts of service delivery of one level of government initially together we can identify steps. Page 8

9 Step 1 - Pre-Centrelink. The citizen handled complexity by going from one agency to another, especially for registration of employment and access to social security benefits. At the same time, Commonwealth agricultural subsidies were being handled by the States and so on. COMPLEXITY WITH CITIZEN DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT CUSTOMER DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT Page 9

10 Step 2 - Complexity was transferred to our customer service officers but the service offer was still streamed by program label. The customer still had to navigate through different parts of the organisation albeit on the one site. COMPLEXITY WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICER & CUSTOMER CENTRELINK AGED EMPLOYMENT FAMILIES DISABILITY PROGRAM/ CUSTOMER STREAMS ON ONE SITE DEPARTMENTAL CONTRACTS MINISTERS BOARD MINISTERS This puts a significant responsibility on customer service officers to know about the many different benefits and the thousands of rules and obligations which underpin these in circumstances where program change is constant. No one officer could know everything. For these reasons specialized streams based around customer groups still exist albeit on the same site. Old paper manuals were thrown out and reference material transferred to online reference suites so that information is more accessible. But we still have some way to go before every staff member is totally comfortable with getting information in this way especially when policy and the rules they need to understand are often changing. Other changes included huge improvements with extended open plan offices, customer service innovation and personalised service but it was only the start. Page 10

11 We have also had to take a good look at our processes. We found 70 different processes, created over time by history, idiosyncracity, lack of risk taking, different departmental ways of doing things and so on. OPPORTUNITY 1 COMPLEXITY WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICER & CUSTOMER PROCESSES CENTRELINK DEPARTMENTAL CONTRACTS MINISTERS BOARD MINISTERS The re-engineers started work on the principle that 2/3rds of all process is not value added. Inside the organisation we created the Services Integration Shop and they mapped the as is of the programs we were operating and developed simple to be s. The seventy different processes with their myriad steps were analysed to four parts of the one process - engage, assess, plan and refer and follow up. Subsequent work has brought these down to two -- engage and deliver. We will be negotiating with client departments to do their work using this model. Page 11

12 OPPORTUNITY 2 Working with different departments on similar customer groups we well placed to identify problems that might arise from conflicting rules and give consolidated feedback to more than one department to stimulate conversations. Page 12

13 Step 3 - Complexity with Business Owners & Technology Specialists By shifting the burden of complexity from the customer to our staff we have made our own world more complex. Training our staff and developing computer-based solutions to guide decision making are increasingly important areas in which we are investing. The Customer Service Officer works with a technologically enhanced front end and information is organised by customer experience. We are doing this through what we call a life events based service model which means that customers will only need to tell us honestly about their circumstances - it is our job to tell them what benefits and services they may be entitled to and to explain as simply as possible what obligations are expected of them in return, like telling us about changes in income and other circumstances. The life events are organized around 11 questions which we believe capture the broad range of circumstances in which people might find they need to approach Centrelink. These include becoming a parent, looking for work, caring for someone who is ill, becoming separated, retiring and moving to Australia. Page 13

14 When individuals access our website they are streamed into the correct channels by these life events rather than the traditional program silo, for example, Age Pension or Newstart Allowance. We are also making significant investments in technology which will both streamline business processing and provide decision support. Together, these innovations will deliver a consistently high standard of service to customers ensuring the correct payment is paid every time. These systems will also ensure improved and more consistent approaches to service delivery and documentation, resulting in increased levels of business and Program assurance. 1. Accessing Centrelink will be the front door for our staff. It is a streaming tool which will be used by network staff when the customer first contacts Centrelink. The system contains a logic that will direct customers into correct payment streams. It is not a decision making tool but it will give customers and our staff Page 14

15 a good indicator of the customer s likely entitlements based on their life event and ensure that the next step in the processes, the claim, proceeds smoothly. Each customer will be sent an acknowledgment letter and any additional forms that are required with a checklist of documents that need to be provided when attending for an interview at a CSC. Accessing Centrelink is also being linked with our e.reference suites. 2. e-reference is about helping Customer Service Officers easily and quickly find the correct way to process the many complex customer enquiries and transactions they are required to complete. We are converting over 170 current books of instructions into one consolidated suite of 11 Life Events based reference guides. These will be user friendly and have an excellent quick search capacity 3. Customer service officers will receive assistance with decision support though the EDGE system. Edge has been designed to reduce the complexity for staff and customers by modeling the thousands of policy rules and legislation underpinning the social security entitlements system, thereby freeing staff to concentrate on excellence in service delivery and lessening the potential for mistakes. Edge is currently be tested in a stand alone mode a some of our sites. We expect the connected version to be trialed for family tax benefit customers in October. We expect in time that Edge will be available to support all Centrelink pensions and benefits. Edge will also reduce the need for paper claim forms, speed up decision making and improve customers understanding of their entitlements and obligations. Edge also has potential to help with risk management and customer profiling. Page 15

16 Step 4 - Connecting all the levels of government. No wrong door. Multichannel gateways, anywhere, anytime. At this step, the citizen accesses all of government wherever they are - at home, at a refuge, over a phone, at a site. This will require huge co-operation between government agencies, not the least of which is collaboration on the technology level. There is a myriad of connections to various websites and systems which have to be made in order to make the citizen's access simple, easy to use, convenient, and seamless. This is not about control the emphasis needs to be on co-operation and sharing of channels. This creates wonderful challenges for governance. Tasmania provides one of the best examples of this emerging in Australia Service Tasmania was established by the State Government to improve access to services for people who want to do business with government and to provide customers with convenient choices when accessing those services. Services are delivered through 24 Service Tasmania shops around Tasmania, Page 16

17 through Service Tasmania over the phone using the one number for government and IVR billpay services, and through Service Tasmania over the Internet. The number of services delivered is over 300 on behalf of some 20 state agencies, local councils (inc payment of rates) and Commonwealth organizations (Centrelink, DVA, ATO, HIC). At Deloraine, on a local council site, the Service Tasmania staff do work for local government and the Commonwealth. A small office houses a Centrelink direct phone and another office is equipped with a video interactive machine which does face to face interviews with our staff in Launceston. A Health Insurance Commission self help machine accesses Medicare services. All this is done by agreement between agencies. Service Tasmania was established in 1997 as collaborative whole of government project to make it easier for people, particularly those in rural and regional Tasmania, to so their everyday business with government. Three channels are available: Over the counter through Service Tasmania Shops Over the phone though one number for government and interactive voice (IVR) bill payment services Over the Internet through Service Tasmania Online Staff from the three lead agencies are responsible each for managing and servicing one of the channels A small office houses a Centrelink direct phone and another office is equipped with a video interactive machine which does face to face interviews with our staff in Launceston. A Health Insurance Commission self help machine accesses Medicare services. Each Lead Agency entered into an agreement with State, Commonwealth and Local Governments and other Board-approved organizations for the delivery of services. The agency is governed by a steering committee consisting of the heads of the three agencies which founded it. The Steering Committee is supported by whole of government working groups and a project team within the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Page 17

18 Service Tasmania is oversighted by a Board which is responsible for the ongoing management of Service Tasmania. The Board is a whole of government body with members drawn from all agencies and local government. They are appointed by the Premier. The Board is supported by a business unit which is responsible for managing the delivery under the agreements. Service Tasmania is now working with local government and the Commonwealth to develop customer friendly bundles of service that ignore the boundaries of government in the interest of the customer. It is now working on a cross-jurisdictional service package that can be accessed through each of the service delivery channels shops, phone and Internet. In the future, four channels will be shared by all governments. These are: on line, on paper, on site, and on call. There is a fair bit of work needed to get the neutral front ends in place. This is where the competition is still a problem in Australia with every agency wanting its own logo up front. The developers of the British Government web site have developed a life events front end and have caused conversations between departments some of which have been very long and complicated while they try and put a cohesive position on the government services. They have found problems of definition, eligibility, language and so on. The point of reference must be the customer. Our web site was completely rewritten when it was found not to be customer friendly. Some of the changes include : using the life events model to provide the framework for locating the information the customer requires from the customers' perspective; adhering to usability guidelines to ensure accessibility for customers with disabilities and/or with low speed connectivity or other technical limitations (rural and remote); continuing to provide information in a wide variety of languages; increasing security for customer messaging back into Centrelink; providing more information generally, and particularly in the area privacy and security; Page 18

19 documenting content (AGLS meta data) in a way to help customers find the site more easily; testing the website in usability labs with real customers; publishing our policies, procedures, annual report etc, i.e. generally making Centrelink more visible to the customer Page 19

20 Who manages whole of government channels? Who manages whole of governments channels - these are the questions for the immediate future and we will need to explore the dimensions of distributed governance. We will move from structures to relationships, processes and capabilities. Step 5 - New ways of government intervention The social entrepreneurs now talk about the three sectors, government, business and community, looking at problems together and empowering the community for solutions. This is not a new concept, it ebbs and flows in Australia but there has been a rise in interest. The role of the civic entrepreneur is unfolding - someone with permission to commit to alternative solutions and open doors within all governments. This is going to be a challenge for conversations at another day. To return briefly to the beginning, I said trust for us has three customer elements. 1. Accurate and accessible information; Page 20

21 2. A caring staff; and 3. Protected information. I have spoken much of the first because I think it has the greatest governance challenges but it is not the only one. A CARING STAFF Many of the people who come to Centrelink for help are at a very vulnerable point of their lives - they might have been made redundant from a job they have had for 20 years or more, they may have just left a marriage that had provided a source of financial and emotional security for many years or they may have become carers for someone they love. Our staff need to be sensitive and understanding in these situations. They need to behave ethically and they need to respect the information and confidences our customers share with us. Being treated with respect is one of the most important issues for our customers, especially for those who are at a difficult point in their lives. People don t want to be treated like a number or a burden. They want eye contact and personalised service. Our customers expect to be treated as individuals and they don t want to have to tell their story over and over again every time they deal with us. When we get feed back from customers it is important that it be local. While we strive for consistency we are a big organisation spread over 450 sites. We also recognise that citizens needs and expectations are different in different localities and we need to be able to adapt to this. Building a relationship of trust with your customers is good for everyone. From time to time we need to call on our reserve of trust and we are very pleased to have it. For example, the ANAO recently highlighted some problems with accuracy which went to processes rather than outcomes. We thought that the older people in Australia would be concerned and we were prepared for a lot of telephone calls from people wanting to make sure their own entitlements were right. This didn t happen. In fact many rang to say they didn t believe the bad press. This trust was built over years of relationship management. We in Centrelink are now paying lots of attention to customer relationship management. For Page 21

22 example, who would have thought that one of Australia s most credible publications would be published by Centrelink. Our quarterly magazine Age Pension News For Seniors, now in its twelfth year, goes to over two million senior Australians some ninety five per cent of Australians of age and service pension age and above. It provides information on the latest government policy, benefits, services, concessions and news on lifestyle, health, financial information and other subjects of interest to our older community. In our latest market research, the vast majority of our readers gave a rating of ten out of ten in respect of satisfaction with the publication and regarded it as being the most credible, complete and current source of information available. This reflects an organisation listening to and responding to the needs of its customers PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION On the third point of privacy, this will be the most interesting of all the challenges to trust and we try to improve access without misusing data. We see the development of data vaults like that which is proposed in Ireland where citizens will have their personal data stored technologically but they will decide who gets access to it. There are continuing challenges the most important of which is not losing sight of the customer/citizen. On the days when it all seems too hard, this must be our reason for continuing. We have to untangle the spaghetti, not let it fall back on their heads. We have to learn that in bringing one face for service delivery, we need to understand policy opportunities and limitations. We need to better inform the community. In the future we need to shift from structural governance arrangements to relationships and shared channels. It requires an intellectual and emotional leap by all of us. Page 22