Last month, I blogged about the Kiwis Count survey, which is the first national survey to ask New Zealanders about their experiences and perceptions of public services. I explained that we used methodology developed for Canadian public services for Kiwis Count. In this post I’m going to be talking about a second survey tool developed by the Canadians - the Common Measurements Tool (CMT).
Kiwis Count covers the whole of the public services (including local government, schools, universities etc.). This has provided us with some valuable data about the public service overall and also about groupings of similar public services, which can help inform improvements. It does not cover all the services provided by the State sector, nor does it tell us about the performance of individual agencies - there was no way we could do this without asking New Zealanders to complete a huge telephone directory-sized survey. The CMT is a survey tool for agencies to carry out satisfaction surveys on their own services. It provides a set of questions that agencies can either add in to their existing satisfaction surveys - particularly useful if they have been using the same satisfaction survey for a while - or they can develop new surveys based on the CMT.
So why use the CMT? Firstly, it will provide agencies with the information they need to improve their services. It allows agencies to measure their services against the factors which drive satisfaction for New Zealanders – I talked about this in my last post. Secondly, it’s ’common’: if agencies are using the same questions, they can compare results and they can also compare how they are doing against the national Kiwis Count survey. As the Canadians use these questions, New Zealand Police for example, can compare their results with the Canadian Mounties. At the moment, the Canadian approach is generating some interest in Australia, which could be very valuable for some trans-Tasman comparisons.
Another benefit of the CMT is that it has been tried and tested. Canadians have been using it for years. Here in New Zealand, we have tested the questions on New Zealanders and made some minor tweaks to make sure they work in a New Zealand context. (And there are some differences: in Canada, waiting ‘a reasonable amount of time’ for a service means ‘an ok amount of time’, while New Zealanders tend to think that waiting ‘a reasonable amount of time’ actually means ‘a long time’.) The New Zealand Police have also run a comprehensive pilot of the CMT.
And another good reason is that it is completely free for agencies to use. SSC has purchased a licence for all State Sector agencies to use the CMT. All they need to do is sign a Memorandum of Understanding with SSC to be able to use it. So far, several agencies have signed up to use the CMT and several more are considering it.
For more information and guidance on using the CMT, look at the SSC website or contact: CommonMeasurementsTool@ssc.govt.nz
