Last week, SSC released the results of the Kiwis Count survey. This is the first national survey to ask New Zealanders about their experiences and perceptions of public services. We surveyed over 6,000 New Zealanders and got a response rate of over 60%, which is pretty impressive for a voluntary postal survey.
The survey is part of the New Zealanders’ Experience research programme, the subject of my last post. Our approach to measuring satisfaction with public services in New Zealand uses methodology which was developed in Canada. The Canadians have been measuring satisfaction with public services for the last ten years and their public services have shown a steady improvement in that time. By using the same approach as Canada, we can compare New Zealand public services with Canadian public services, and we also know we are using a tried and tested method.
I won’t go into detail about the results here: they are summarised in a small purple booklet which you might have seen and there’s also a much longer research report which goes into detail about the methodology. Both of these are available on the SSC website. New Zealand public services scored well, with 68% of New Zealanders saying they were satisfied with their last public service experience. This score was equal with Canada’s score in their last national survey.
While satisfaction surveys are interesting in themselves, particularly to those with a research bent (and Kiwis Count has provided us with tons of fascinating data), if no one takes any notice of them then they are of limited value. The important thing is that the results are used to make improvements to services and this is where the Canadian approach is particularly valuable. If all we knew was that 68% of New Zealanders were satisfied with their last service experience, we wouldn’t necessarily know how to improve on that figure. However, we know a lot more than that. Firstly, we know what makes New Zealanders satisfied. Last year we carried out what we call the ‘drivers survey’. This identified six ‘drivers’ of satisfaction, which are:
- the service experience met your expectations (the most important driver).
- staff were competent
- staff kept their promises - that is, they did what they said they would do
- you were treated fairly
- you feel your individual circumstances were taken into account
- it’s an example of good value for tax dollars spent
Interestingly, the things that make New Zealanders satisfied are different from the things that make Canadians satisfied, who are a lot more interested in timeliness and staff going the extra mile. And drivers vary between population groups within New Zealand, with Maori for example placing the highest priority on fairness. The results of the drivers survey are published on the SSC website.
Secondly, Kiwis Count tells us how services are performing against the different drivers. Public services perform best on having competent staff and least well on being an example of good value for tax dollars spent. Results are also broken down into groups of services, so this provides some clear pointers about where to focus service improvements for particular types of services.
