Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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The development, promotion and implementation of the quality customer service, QCS, initiative has been driven in recent years mainly by two groups, the QCS officers' network and the QCS research group, both of which meet four or five times each year. The QCS officers' network continues to work intensively on the development and implementation of a range of customer service issues, including promotion of the customer charter approach. This is an important initiative whereby public service organisations publicly commit to service standards and then measure and report on progress made.

Arising from the recent review of customer charters, revised guidelines for the preparation of charters and customer action plans have been produced and will be published shortly. The QCS research group has recently been involved in the development of a major survey of customer satisfaction levels and attitudes towards the Civil Service. Such surveys will now be conducted on an annual basis beginning with a survey of general public customers to commence in the coming weeks. A similar survey of business customers will be undertaken later this year.

A new task force on customer service has also been established to consider and bring forward proposals on how best to enhance and deepen the quality of customer service in key front line areas of the Civil Service and wider public service, as well as to consider the various commitments to customer service made in the programme for Government. This task force, which is made up of senior officials from Departments, offices and agencies, is chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The task force has met four times since it was set up last September and will submit its final report in early 2009.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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In regard to accessibility, both in terms of hours and physical accessibility, the Office of Public Works has been working on that issue for the past 15 years. The OPW is responsible for physical access to 2,000 properties and it has campaigned actively on making them more accessible. This took up a lot of its efforts and resources over many years. That programme is fairly complete except for some very difficult offices.

A large number of public offices are opening longer, particularly during lunchtimes. I pressed hard on this over the years and, whatever about evenings or mornings, I do not think there is an argument in respect of lunchtime. It is easy to organise access to offices at lunchtime by leaving a staff member on duty.

The increasing use of information technology has meant that information and, in some cases, transactions can be provided over the internet outside of office hours. The Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and farm payments are now available on a 24-seven basis and are being used extensively. The increase in the level of use of on-line systems in all of these offices is quite dramatic, although this needs to be extended further.

There are new initiatives in many Departments across the system which are trying to use the best practice developed in Revenue, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and to open up these services. Two years ago, I announced a package of new initiatives for the implementation group, which is leading the modernisation agenda and is mainly being driven at Secretary General level. The overall objective of this is to ensure that the right people are in the right place at the right time to service the needs of citizens.

There has been dramatic improvement. Approximately 200 staff have been put forward this year for the public service awards, which acknowledge new initiatives, and these come mainly from among staff internally examining the modernisation process and where they can improve services. To be fair to our public and civil servants, they are dealing with that aspect. It is also important that, where some Departments bring forward these initiatives, they are then taken as best practice and implemented in other Departments. Many of these initiatives are the work of one or two people who then win support within a section of a Department. A substantial amount of work and activity is taking place, and not just in the technology area.

The idea of physically opening up in the evening is not one that receives support. Most of the other offices across these areas are not open on Saturdays and the public service unions are, by and large, not in favour of it. However, to their credit, they have supported the initiatives in the technology area, which can probably satisfy most of the requirements.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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I must confess I use 11811. It gets me everywhere very quickly.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are amazingly fast at finding everywhere. The issue is hugely complex, which is probably why people use other services. On the Deputy's first point, whatever about a date for everybody, all of the groups, which are mainly being driven by the senior civil servants and public servants in Revenue, have done much work on this in terms of pressing the reforms and their customer service initiatives which are considered to be probably the best in Europe. Many Departments are trying to build on this. For five or six years the Department of Finance has given Departments very good financial assistance in developing on-line services. Access to many of the services has been enhanced through information technology. The benefit of that is it allows 24-hour access to information and services in the Civil Service and public service. That is the way we are going and should continue to go.

The motor tax on-line system did not exist five or six years ago and now a large part of this business is done at weekends and at night time. I referred to the e-services operated by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. There was a time when Members were constantly raising in the House the delays in grant payments and whether they would be paid by Christmas. All of these issues have long been put on-line. Livestock registration, identification and movement are on-line and are being used extensively by the agriculture sector.

All of these systems have facilitated easier and more efficient compliance as well. For example, for the past five years the business sector has had the benefit of the Revenue on-line service, which is outstanding. It has speeded up and dealt with tax compliance in a way that was not possible previously. In excess of 90% of revenue business is dealt with through the on-line service. All of the major companies deal with Revenue exclusively through the use of information technology. The on-line system has gone from having very low figures to a situation where all of the corporation tax regime is on-line with the exception of a small number of companies. The on-line service has been rolled out recently to PAYE workers. A range of services are available, including the claiming of credits and allowances, the on-line receipt for reviews of one's tax position and the on-line reviewing of one's tax record, with the later ones being rolled out as well.

Regarding opening hours and examining the continuation of the services, there is the General Register Office and the visa office in the Department of Foreign Affairs and also the single payment issues in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. More and more of the State agencies should be pulled together to deal with these issues. An initiative I have tried to press myself, which I hope will be continued, is to try to cut down the administration in Departments' payroll areas. With modern technology there is no need for every Department or agency of the public service to have its own personnel department and payments records. My Department's entire payroll is done on the payroll system of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Massive savings are possible within a Department through being able to use the services of other Departments. From an administrative point of view, the more we can use bigger systems the more we will cut down on the deployment of staff.

In spite of all the worries and concerns, when one brings in these systems they work out fine and one never hears about them again. It is just a matter of making a decision to do them. We have been doing that and it has worked most effectively in my Department.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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On the first question, the customer charters are all about providing friendly, efficient and courteous service to customers. Departmental officials continually inform me at meetings that this is the function of charters. Annual surveys are carried out to monitor performance against these and other commitments. My Department has been conducting these surveys for a long time based on customer groups and the use of other evaluation methods, including mystery shopping, customer feedback, focus groups and all kinds of great ideas — although I am not sure how great they are. This is the modern way to check all these issues. While I have seen results for Revenue, Social and Family Affairs and my Department, I would not claim to be an expert on other Departments and offices. However, the surveys constantly show high customer satisfaction ratings and identify sharply areas where improvements can be made.

The Deputy mentioned that it is always nice to see a human face or hear a human voice and find someone to whom one can get back. This is an important part of the process, as has been made clear.

I am not the world's greatest expert in technology by a long shot but those who push information technology and e-Government state that the more one deals with ordinary data collection through technology, the more one is able to use front-line staff to engage with the public. Departments are making efforts in this regard. I have long held the view that it saves offices a great deal of trouble to have good people on the telephones and on the front line because they can competently deal with a case from start to finish, whereas junior staff providing front-line services will refer the matter to somebody else. It is far better to have senior people to do this job. Offices where this is done provide a far better service to the public because someone who comes in with a query will have it dealt with fully, rather than being told he or she is in the wrong office, should go elsewhere or return another time.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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Ministers never do that. They resolve everything instantly.

It is a challenge for the system. In fairness, public servants come out strongly in examinations of what the public, both businesses and individuals, think of them. The big effort with the customer quality initiative has been and will be to find out where the flaws are, particularly when dealing with the public, and deal with them. There are many challenges in this area not necessarily in Departments, but also in health, education and other areas with which we must deal.