The Citizen’s Charter has important implications for all citizens across the whole range of public services and in relation to the privatised public utilities. It is important, therefore, to examine the principles behind the Citizen’s Charter; to look at proposals of particular importance to surveyors (and those concerned with housing and real property); and to consider how the aims of the charter will be accomplished.
In July 1991 the Prime Minister set out his Government’s initiatives in the White Paper entitled The Citizen’s Charter — Raising the Standard. The avowed aim is to make public services answer better to the wishes of their users and to raise their quality. In his foreword John Major states that he has cherished these aims since his days as a Lambeth councillor.
The White Paper is a precursor of more detailed plans that will be brought forward, but it sets out the mechanics for improving choice, quality, value and accountability. It is clearly setting out an agenda for the lifetime of an entire Parliament and beyond. The charter is based on four main themes:
1. Quality — The White Paper expresses the aim of improving public services.
2. Choice — Wherever possible choice should be made available as this will, in itself, cause improvements in quality.
3. Standards — The citizen should be told what service to expect and should be able to act where service is unacceptable.
4. Value — Public services should give value for money.
Framework for implementation
The Government will publish standards for the delivery of quality in public services in a document entitled The Charter Standard. Those services which provide a service measuring up to the charter standard will be entitled to use the chartermark logo, indicating their excellence of service. The Government is pledged to bring forward legislation as a matter of urgency to implement the proposals in the charter. Furthermore, the charter is to be expanded by a series of mini-charters for British Rail, London Underground, each health authority etc.
Individual employees will be accountable and identifiable. In future anyone dealing with the public will have to identify themselves. While true competition in the public sector is not generally possible in the same way that it is in the private sector, comparative league tables of performance for health authorities, education authorities and local authorities will mean that under-performers will be obvious.
Furthermore, the encouragement of performance-related pay will provide a spur to the improvement of services. The Prime Minister took the unusual step of writing to civil servants to extol many of the characteristics of existing public services, but stressing the need to provide excellence for customers.
Tenants
The charter mentions action that has already been carried out to the benefit of tenants. In particular the “right-to-buy” legislation has been exercised by over 1.3m people in Great Britain since 1979-80. Tough action has been taken against recalcitrant authorities. At the same time reforms will be introduced. The present tenants’ charter (for local authority tenants) will be strengthened. This charter was first published in 1981 and it sets out tenants’ rights on such matters as security of tenure, succession to tenancies, exchanges, repairs and the freedom to take in lodgers.
The new tenants’ charter will be an updated and streamlined version of the old one, ensuring that tenants will be able to enforce their rights more readily. Also, the Government intends to improve the rights of local authority tenants to organise the repair of their own homes where the council has failed to do so. There is an existing right to do so where the repairs cost up to £200, which is now being reviewed to see how procedures can be simplified and strengthened for the most urgent types of minor repairs affecting health, safety or crime prevention. Information on the performance of local authority landlords will be provided directly to tenants. This will be the first time that this has happened and it will cover such key areas as rent arrears and management costs.
Local authorities will be encouraged to introduce refurbishment contracts in which contractors (and direct labour organisations) who exceed agreed completion dates will face financial penalties. There will be greater opportunities for tenants to transfer away from local authority control and compulsory tendering will be extended into the field of housing management. Housing Associations, which will be the principal providers of housing in the 1990s, will also have to take on extra responsibilities. The tenants’ guarantee will set out benchmarks for assessing the quality of services on rents, allocation, maintenance and repair.
Local government
Although, historically, local authorities have seen the direct provision of services to the public as one of their chief tasks, the charter heralds far more competition, allowing the private sector to compete for the provision of those services. The charter foresees a situation where local authorities will concentrate on setting priorities, determining the standards of service to which the public is entitled, and then finding the best way to deliver those services. In particular, the Government is considering ways of extending competitive tendering for services, embracing such professions as lawyers, accountants, architects and surveyors. The charter states that the widest possible application of competition is in the best interests of the local taxpayer and of the consumer of services too. Either the in-house workforce will improve its efficiency, to match the competition, or the private firm which is awarded the contract will provide better value for money.
At present, audits of local authorities are conducted by the Audit Commission. Under the charter programme it is proposed that the commission be given far greater powers so that it will be able to expose details of how local councils are performing. This will force local councils to respond (in public) to those recommendations made by their auditors. It is also proposed that the commission should publish comparative tables to show the relative performance of local authorities. The charter is also concerned that, in some cases, the recommendations of the Local Government Ombudsman are not being followed. If he continues to be ignored, powers of compulsion will be introduced.
It is also proposed to amend the law to allow the citizen to bring legal proceedings to stop unlawful industrial action affecting local government services and other services covered by the Citizen’s Charter. The present trend is away from the grant of statutory immunities to public authorities and the charter enshrines this principle. It is stated that public bodies must not be shielded from their obligations by special privileges and immunities. The only exception to this principle is where national security is concerned.
Complaints
One of the principal themes of the charter concerns effective complaints procedures — publicising them and making them easier to use. The charter recognises the very important role of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau in advising citizens on their rights. However, the Government believes that more needs to be done. Accordingly, consultation is promised on a new system of law ajudicators who will be appointed to deal with minor claims for redress if the body complained against has not settled them in a speedy and satisfactory way.
Key features
The successful implementation of the charter depends on several key points:
1. Audit
The charter states that all public services should have efficient, independent arrangements for audit. It is proposed that local authorities publish their response to auditors’ reports, and the Audit Commission will publish league tables of local authority performance.
2. Inspection
The main inspectorates cover prisons, the police, schools and social services. The charter recognises the need for professional representation on these inspectorates, but the Government is also firmly of the view that an independent element in the inspectorates is needed. Where there is no independent element at present it will be introduced.
3. Complaints
It is stated that it is fundamental to the operation of the charter that all public services, including local authorities, should have clear and well-publicised complaints procedures. Where complaints procedures fail there needs to be a route for taking matters to a higher level.
4. Regulators
In the context of privatised utilities where there is an element of monopoly, great reliance is placed on the role of the regulators. In the past, regulators have limited price increases. However, their role is also to regulate standards of service.
5. Redress
The charter states that “when public services fall well below the standard, and there is nowhere else to go, there must be some redress. It is not always compensation that the consumer wants”.
Legal changes
In the immediate future the Cabinet Office will review new “citizen’s charters” for patients, parents, railway passengers, tenants, taxpayers, job-seekers and social benefits claimants. There will be legislation to introduce new regulatory bodies for the Post Office, British Rail and London Underground. In addition, the powers of the regulatory bodies for water, gas, and telecommunications will be strengthened, so as to bring them into line with the greater powers of the electricity watchdog.
Legislation will be required to introduce the new lay ajudicators. Legislation will also be passed to require local authorities to publish their response to auditors’ reports and to empower the Audit Commission to publish league-tables of local authority performance, while similar provisions will be introduced for health authorities and education authorities.
Legislation will also be needed to introduce lay members to the Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Inspectorate of Schools, the Social Services Inspectorate and to those tribunals handling schools’ admissions, exclusions and so on.
Keystones of the plans to open up public services to accountability and to provide redress for the aggrieved citizen are the proposals to extend competitive tendering to the health service and in the field of housing and local government.
Controversial legislation on the privatisation of British Rail and London Buses is also promised.
The Citizen’s Charter represents a massive raft of different proposals extending choice, stressing accountability and providing the means of redress for poor services in the public arena.
The whole basis of the Citizen’s Charter is seeing the individual citizen as a consumer, just as much as if he were selecting a holiday or buying a suit. The whole philosophy is that, so far as possible, standards of service in the public sector (and in public utilities) should mirror the standards which are enforceable in the private sector.
