Service Transformation : A Better Service for Citizens and Businesses, a Better Deal for the Taxpayer

The focus of this report, "Service Transformation: A Better Service for Citizens and Businesses, A Better Deal for the Taxpayer", is how to save government, citizen and business time and money by examining the scope of integrating front-line service delivery.

The Service Sector is an important economic bulwark in a modern society, with technology revolutionising the way service providers interact with customers.

Yet, with the continued pace of social, demographic and technological change, public service delivery is facing an increasing challenge with a gap developing between public and private service delivery.Central Government delivers such services through departments whilst departments make use of agents or agencies alone or in co-operation with local government.

Such a system develops a transactional relationship, that is, the department focuses on the specific customer need, but does not take account of the overview, that is the Government's relationship with the citizen, who may need multiple services, but has to contact the various but separate helplines, call centres, front-line offices and websites to obtain the relevant service they require. A similar situation seems to apply to business, with the need to provide the same data to different parts of government, for different services.The report believes that a much more fundamental and widespread change is necessary if the public service economy is to match the performance of the best service providers.

The Service Sector should follow international developments and learn from other countries' experiences of creating a more responsive and integrated public service.

This report focuses on the opportunities for change in the channels through which services are delivered to citizens and business, especially the development of single points of contact with government to meet a range of their needs and those of business.

This report builds on those published by Sir Peter Gershon (ISBN 1845320328) and Sir Michael Lyons (ISBN 1845320093) in 2004, both of which are available from the HM Treasury website.