Citizen feedback as a tool for continuous improvement in local bodies

• Pages: 46-64
• Published date: 08 January 2018
• Date: 08 January 2018
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-01-2017-0010
• Author: Alessandro Minelli,Renato Ruffini
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Citizen feedback as a tool for

continuous improvement

in local bodies

Alessandro Minelli

Universita Carlo Cattaneo, Castellanza, Italy, and

Renato Ruffini

Università Statale di Milano, Milan, Italy

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the feedback discourse by exploring how public

managers and politicians use complaints from citizens to improve the overall and specific performance of

public services. The main research questions are: Can citizen complaints analysis be a useful planning tool in

the public sector? What can public managers learn from citizen feedback?

Design/methodology/approach –Applying an empirical approach (Yin, 2005), the multiple case studies

treated in the paper aim t o clarify a series of dec isions ( particular ly, why feedback is not use d to its

maximum potential). Th e overall design inclu des a defined set of questio ns, and the research pro tocol

includes data retriev al, collection and ana lysis. A new cataloging mo del is proposed to homoge nize the

spectrum of analysis. This model is intended to c reate a parallel between two local bodi es different in size,

mission, and complexi ty, but which have front office facilities and ar e in the same territory and have the

same potential target p opulation.

Findings –In total, 698 complaints and 183 corrective or preventive actionswere analyzed. Public managers’

attention seems to focus on technical or normative issues rather than on aspects of public services. This may

be explained by the lack of funds for training, the scarce use of relational and human capital development

leverage, and the concomitant necessity to guarantee at least the same level of services as provided in

previous years, confirming the “Blame the rich and credit the poor”mantra.

Originality/value –This paper offers a strategic approach to learning from citizen’s feedback that other

scholars or practitioners have not yet provided. There are many academic studies on customer feedback as a

continuous improvement tool for the private sector, but few for public administration.

Keywords Continuous improvement, Policy making, Accountability, Citizen complaints handling,

Citizen feedback

Paper type Case study

Introduction

Legitimizing choices in public administration (PA) assume complex contours in concomitance

with an ongoing financial crisis, forcing public institutions to maintain current service levels

while facing reduced economic and human resources. Acting consistently with respect to users’

expectations and needscan promote the development of an imageof PA as a transparentactor

and careful listener to citizens’desires and needs, particularlythose conveyed as of complaints

derived from personal or collective inconvenience or harmed interests.

In considering the passage of the public sector in the last 30 years, from New Public

Administration to New Public Management (NPM) one has to recognize management

attempts to move onto private enterprise models, while still involved in producing or

contracting public services. This has resulted in changes of perspective in the way scholars

deal with the topic of Public Management, and consequently it is not easy to summarize the

pros and cons of each approach on the specific theme of “learning from complaints and from

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 31 No. 1, 2018

pp. 46-64

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-01-2017-0010

Received 4 January 2017

Revised 22 May 2017

10 July 2017

Accepted 16 July 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

Alessandro Minelli would like to thank his parents, his daughter Gaia and Mr. Rossini, Deputy City

Manager of Toronto, for their support. Both authors would like to thank the peer reviewers for helping

to add more value to the paper.

46

IJPSM

31,1

listening to citizens (e.g. conflict intensification, increased indirect costs, non-professional

influence connected to uninformed or not qualified individuals).”

This paper proposes an approach to the issue of citizens’complaints not related to

co-production. The approach intends to harness the ability of several distinct groups of

actors to produce together something that equally guarantees specific interests. It is a

citizen-oriented, listening-amplification approach, in which the acquired feedback is used to

improve services, thus, reducing discomfort, diseconomies of scale and integrating more

functions in fewer operations. Its implementation with more effective policies in terms of

human and financial resources management would also ensure a safe and pleasant working

atmosphere in front offices. This approach is reflected in the proposed “complaints

cataloging model,”where five sub-areas are evaluated in order to produce inputs for

planning from citizens’feedback.

The multifaceted image of the citizen (as voter, taxpayer and user) should be kept in

mind to establish which component is preponderant while the listening strategy is

implemented. This can lead to a classification of active citizens, including bad citizens,

professional citizens, silent citizens and citizens aware of sphere of interests, both their own

and that of other individuals or groups. Therefore, the public manager acts in the context of

a“blame the rich and credit the poor”regime in which, to overcome this potential trust gap,

one risks to allow an “excess of democracy”(Crozier et al., 1975).

Varying the perspective of observati on from bureaucrats listening to citize ns

(Lukensmeyer, 2013) to politicians listening to citizens (Chen, 2016) can help distinguish

administrators who are already part of the majority (frontbenchers) and do not use the

feedback input well, and administrators who have recently entered politics or are not part of

the majority (backbenchers) and have a high need of information from citizens. Therefore,

relevant input is the interpretative capacity of politicians (Askim and Hanseen, 2008).

Complaints are a non-conveyed or stimulated signal to be used by administrators and

public managers. Koontz (1999) poses questions on how to measure the input of the impact

of citizens on public policies through interviews with public officials. He distinguishes

between those who consider it a training opportunity, and those who instead believe it is an

opportunity to promote the local body’s policies and then protect it from possible future

reductions in size. A third typology includes those guided by moral obligation, but

disconnected from instrumental benefits unlike the first two kinds.

Last, but not least, customer orientation (Bini, 2008) in quality management, even in PA,

is now a basis for ISO 9001, ISO 9004 and Common Assessment Framework (CAF) 2013.

The new ISO 9001: 2015 foresees continuous improvement bound to custom ers’

expectations as a fundamental planning element.

This paper aims to contributing to this discourse, offering an explorative look at the way

in which public managers and politicians use complaints to improve the overall and specific

performance of public services. The main research question is:

RQ1. Can citizen complaints analysis be a useful planning tool in the public sector?

The focus of the study is on how PA treats complaints, including corrective and preventive

actions (PA) deriving directly from complaining and anticipating criticalities. Empirical

results of this study suggest that public administrators and managers are reluctant to use

feedback from citizens. A cataloging model is proposed in order to understand and explain

planning inputs derived from citizens’feedback. The model is applied in the homogeneous

analysis of two new case studies. Evidence from the case studies confirmed the original idea

that analyzing complaints can lead to a more valuable planning activity. However, several

corrective actions (CA) should be applied in order to supplant resistance both from citizens

and civil servants in engaging in dialogs, which are the basic input for services continuous

improvement (Hobbs, 2014).

47

Citizen feedback

as a tool for

continuous

improvement