interest in how the system functions; the actual recipient of an employment
insurance payment would be an external client. A regional employment
insurance office that depends on a central agency to distribute the employment
insurance payments to their office would be an internal client” (3). It
is important to recognize that public servants rarely deal with a single client
or citizen. The front-line employee may be assisting someone sitting across
the table, but he or she is simultaneously serving the public by ensuring
that the process meets legal requirements. The complexity of government’s
interactions with citizens and the public marks all efforts to improve service
quality in government.
Despite this complexity, there have been a variety of efforts to define
public sector service quality. One especially comprehensive list developed
for local government includes the following:
1. Convenience measures the degree to which government services are
easily accessible and available to citizens.
2. Security measures the degree to which services are provided in a way
that makes citizens feel safe and confident when using them.
3. Reliability assesses the degree to which government services are provided
correctly and on time.
4. Personal attention measures the degree to which employees provide
information to citizens and work with them to help meet their needs.
5. Problem-solving approach measures the degree to which employees
provide information to citizens and work with them to help meet their
needs.
6. Fairness measures the degree to which citizens believe that government
services are provided in a way that is equitable to all.
7. Fiscal responsibility measures the degree to which citizens believe local
government is providing services in a way that uses money responsibly.
8. Citizen influence measures the degree to which citizens feel they can
influence the quality of service they receive from the local government
(Carlson and Schwarz 1995, 29).
What is especially interesting about this list is not only that citizens expect
public services to meet such standards as timeliness and reliability, but that
they should and do expect that services be delivered fairly and with attention
to fiscal responsibility as well; citizens expect to have the opportunity to
influence the services they receive as well as the quality of those services.
This same point can be made more theoretically. According to Jenny Potter
(1988), the theory of consumerism suggests that there is an imbalance of
power between those who provide services and those who receive services.