Despite differences among Member countries, and differing perspectives of the relationship between the State and citizens, there is considerable commonality of approach. Important issues to be addressed include determining who are the clients, consultation mechanisms, the setting of service standards, the provision of information to citizens and clients, the provision of choice and the development of complaint and redress mechanisms.
This publication addresses these issues, considers the nature and content of service quality, and offers comparisons between the approaches of different OECD countries as well as guidance on developing and implementing service quality initiatives. It is based on a symposium on Service Quality Initiatives in OECD Member countries held in Paris on 7Β±8 November 1994, which was intended to assist Member countries to better develop and implement service quality initiatives. To achieve this, the symposium focused on clarifying the concept of service quality and its relationship to other aspects of performance in the public sector, reviewing key issues, and identifying promising practice cases.
The collection, largely contributions from practitioners, contains cases on Belgium, Canada, France, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and the UK, with interesting commentaries on many of these by other experts/academics attending the symposium. A useful background paper is provided by David Shand (OECD) and Marten Arnberg. Unfortunately, no concluding section is provided, though in the concluding section of the background paper the authors argue that: