Citizen Charters

What is a citizen charter?

In a citizen charter a government organisation does promises to citizens and entrepreneurs concerning the service. These promises are also called service standards.

Citizens know what they can expect and they can address the government on the service standards. This is an extra stimulance to provide good service.

Service standards concern the process of service, such as periods of settlement, the substantive quality and friendly service.

Why citizen charters?

The current Dutch government wants to cooperate with citizens to improve the level of public service.

Citizen charters are a way to do this together. The government therefore strives to have all public organisations, which has contacts with citizens, to work with a citizen charter in 2011.

How does a citizen charter work?

Governmental organisations are asking citizens to help with improving the public service and receives input to improve their service.

A citizen charter needs to meet the following terms in order to get the cooperation of citizens:

The starting point are the citizen's wishes: the service standards address issues that are important to citizens;
Citizens can review the service standards themselves: the moment a citizen receives a service he can review whether the standard is met. The service standards are accessible to all citizens and clearly visible where service is delivered;
When the service standards aren’t met, citizens know what the consequences are: the governmental organisation communicates what action it takes when a service standard is not met. We call this compensation.

You can learn from mistakes. By recording the number of violations the public organisation can improve it’s service.

The three C's

You can find the essence of citizen charters in three C’s:

Citizen oriented service standards;
communication;
compensation.

Advantages of a citizen charter

Citizen charters:

create a dynamic in the organisation that leads to the quality improvement of the public service
enlarge citizen participation
enhance customer satisfaction
enhance staff satisfaction
improve the handling of complaints