Questions/Answers

Deputy Commissioner’s (DC) office is the major hub of service delivery at the district level in Bangladesh. The office usually provides citizen intensive services related to land management, law and order, trade and commerce and education management. The management of the office lies with the bureaucrats deputed by government. GIU introduced a charter for the DC office which is known as Citizen’s Charter (CC). Citizen’s Charter (CC) is a written, declaration and commitment by service providers about service standards, choice, accessibility, transparency and accountability. This document needs to be displayed publicly in front of the offices in billboard as well as in the official websites. CC is comprised of eight components which discloses detail information about the name of the service, time, cost and required documents and responsible person (with his name and contact information). There is also a provisions for grievance redress with detail information. Before the introduction of CC there prevailed a kind of opacity about the process, cost and timeline of the service delivery due to lack of specific information and commitment. The situation created a congenial environment for the middleman to chip in which facilitated the corrupt practice at the service delivery end. At the same time under the situation the bureaucrats sometimes also got an opportunity to become non responsive. As a result, the citizens sometimes suffered a lot which led to bad governance. Introduction of CC has brought transparency and accountability in the service delivery processes as it has made all kind of information available and created a provision for grievance redress. In this backdrop the main objectives of the initiative were to reduce the hassle of the service recipients by ensuring timely delivery of services at a specified cost and minimum visit as well as to increase the accountability of the service providers.

Citizen’s Charter is aligned with category 2: Enhancing the effectiveness of public institutions to reach the SDGs. CC Initiative has brought in better transparency and accountability in the service delivery processes. It has not only made the service provider aware about their role and responsibilities but also about the required capacity. In addition, it has made the citizens aware about their rights and role in the service delivery process. Thus, it helped to develop the capacity of both the service provider and the service recipient which facilitates more efficiency and effectiveness.

The very structure of CC along with its operational mechanism has been designed in a way so that it can bring in more transparency and accountability in the system. As a result, it has become a tool for ensuring good governance at the service delivery process. The notion of CC falls in line with the spirit of goal 16 of SDG. Disclosing detail information about the service delivery along with fixing a timeline for service facilities both transparency and accountability. These features are associated with SDGs target 16.6 which focuses on enhancing accountability and transparency at the institutional level. This initiative also ensures access to public information which supports the target 16.10 that highlights access to information and fundamental freedom. As the CC tried to bring in more transparency and accountability and scope for access to information in the system, it is ultimately helping to reduce corruption and illegal practice. This very outcome of CC facilitates the achievement of the target under 16.5. In addition, service delivery procedure developed by Citizen’s Charter ensures equal opportunities and reduces discriminatory practices to receive government services irrespective gender and socio economic status which is linked with target 10.3.

There was huge demand for a reform in the service delivery system in order to make it more transparent and accountable. This initiative reflected the demand of the citizens and also helped to reduce time of service delivery, cost and frequency of visit of the service recipients. This has made it socially and economically sustainable. The financial and legal sustainability of the initiative has been ensured by the recognition and approval of the Cabinet Division as the formal implementing and monitoring agency of the government.

The public service culture in Bangladesh has been blamed for lack of good governance and inefficiency. The lack of transparency and accountability in service delivery system has been at the core of bad governance. As a result, poor segment of the society along with vulnerable groups including women and minority were the prime victim of system. This initiative addressed this issue by making the relevant service delivery information available to the citizens. It helped to reduce the time required for a service delivery along with the cost associated with it. The system also helped to reduce the number of visits by the service recipients. As a result, the disadvantage group has been directly benefited from the initiative. At the end of the day the transparent and accountable system has proved to be effective in reducing the corrupt practice at the service delivery end. Moreover, the digital version of the initiative has made the services available at the door steps of the citizens.

The traditional service delivery process in government offices required several visits in person for any service as there was lack of transparency about the service delivery procedure. Detail information about all the services is now available in the CC which is displayed in front of all DC offices. The digital version is also available in the official websites. As a result, the service seekers need not to come to the office physically for any kind of service related information. This provision has immensely benefited the vulnerable groups including the women and the elderly people.

The target group of the initiative was citizens (mass people) especially the under privileged segment of the population. The main objective of the initiative was to reduce the hassle of the citizens to acquire government service by ensuring timely delivery of the services at a specific cost and minimum time.The Deputy Commissioner's Offices (DC Office) are the major provider of district government services towards citizens. Therefore, the initiative was first introduced and implemented in the DC offices. Introducing Citizen's Charter enabled the service recipients to know what services they can acquire from the office in what time and cost. In addition, it enabled them to know where to go and where to complain if they do not get the expected service. So, it reduced the hassle of the target group. Moreover, it ensured the accountability and transparency of the service providers towards citizens.

• Inception: The practice of Citizen’s Charter (CC) in public sector came into surface in 2007 by a notification of the Cabinet Division. Since then a demand has been created for a comprehensive CC at the district level which was evident in the findings of a study conducted by the University of Dhaka. • Formulation of CC: Based on the findings of the study GIU started working on developing an ideal format for CC. A number of consultation with the relevant stakeholders including the citizens and the government officials was conducted. Based on the consultations GIU formulate a standard format in 2015. The format was later approved by the Cabinet Division. • Awareness and Capacity Development: Once the format was finalized, GIU launched awareness and capacity development program across the country for both the service recipients and the service providers. The program was able to sensitize the supply side as well as the demand side. • Financial and Technical Support: GIU provided both technical and financial supports to all the DC offices for preparing their own CC. • Formulation of CC Handbook: A detailed guideline has been formulated by GIU which was labelled as Citizen’s Charter Handbook. This handbook was a significant millstone which expedited the formulation and implementation process of the CC across the districts. • Monitoring and Evaluation: GIU formed a consortium in order to monitor the implementation of CC. The consortium was comprised of the officials of the Ministry of Public Administration and Cabinet Division. The members of the teams visited the districts on a regular basis in order to monitor the progress. GIU initiated a nationwide study to evaluate the implementation progress of the CC. The study was conducted by the National Statistics Office namely Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. GIU is working on further development of CC based on the result.

The culture of “Resistant to Change” was the main challenge at initial stage of the reform. In addition, lack of understanding about the output orientation among the officials was an important concern. Besides, mind-set of the citizens as to their rights and role was also found to be challenging. In order to mitigate the challenges a good number of workshops and trainings were arranged to build the right kind of capacity and mind- among the officials as well as the citizens. Moreover, Cabinet Division issued some instructions based on the consultation with GIU. These instructions also facilitated the implementation processes.

CC was new tool introduced for the first time in the service delivery system of Bangladesh. The tool has been designed to empower the citizens by providing them necessary information about the service delivery system. It is evident that it has contributed in reducing the time span for delivering services along with reducing the cost of the services. It has also brought more transparency and accountability in the service delivery processes. It has also open a new window for grievance redress in the system. All the attributes of this initiative are new in the context of Bangladesh.

Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) of India implemented a similar type of initiative in their country. DARPG made a standardized model of Citizen’s Charter after evaluating effectiveness of the existing one by a professional agency. DARPG also made a guideline and performed the duty of communication and coordination with different government offices for effective implementation of Citizen’s Charter. This initiative has shown some positive impacts in several states in India especially in Karnataka. The initial result in India motivated GIU to put forward the concepts in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is focusing on e-governance in terms of delivering services to the citizens. Keeping this policy direction in mind the implementation plan of the CC has been designed. According to the plan, offices are exhibiting the CC in billboards as well as in their official websites. The plan is to gradually reduce the dependency on the billboards and transform the initiative into a fully interactive digitized system.

Initially the initiative was taken only for the Deputy Commissioner’s offices in the country as it directly delivers the highest number of government services. After getting positive responses it was disseminated to District Education Offices and Civil Surgeon’s offices in 64 districts. Later, it was expanded across the government departments and offices irrespective of whether the office is proving service to the citizens or to other organizations. Now, every government office have their own CCs. Initially, it was challenging to implement a unified system of CC across the board. However, based on the recommendation of GIU, Cabinet Division has incorporated CC as a mandatory performance indicator in the Annual Performance Management system which really facilitated the implementation process. In addition to that GIU conducted awareness and capacity development programs across the government ministries and departments.

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GIU, is comprised of seven members. The whole team was devoted in the implementation process of CC for more than one year. The entire journey includes the formulation and finalization of the CC format, capacity and awareness development initiatives, implementation of the tool in the ground and monitoring and evaluation. Approximately 20000 man/hour has been devoted to this initiative. Besides, GIU has created a pool of trainers among the civil servants by providing ToTs. These resources are also contributing in the process in directly. GIU has funded around USD 306,245/BDT 26,030,815 for the capacity development and implementation purpose.

Cabinet Division has issued instructions for implementing CC across the public sector. This instruction creates a legal binding for the public sector offices. Moreover, CC implementation has been incorporated as a performance indicator in the performance management system. As a result, CC implementation has become a mandatory obligations of the government offices. In addition, GIU could able to raise the awareness and capacity level of around 9,910 civil servants across the public sector. Every training institution has incorporated the CC as a module in their training courses. In this backdrop it is expected that CC will sustain.

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The Bangladesh Bureau of statistics (BBS) and the National Statistical Organization (NSO) named Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) evaluated the initiative by both qualitative and quantitative research. The survey is basically focused on improvement of service delivery through the use of Citizen’s Charter in DC offices across the country. The survey has been conducted to analyze the relationship between the improvement of service delivery and procedural clarity grievance redress mechanism maintained through Citizen’s Charter as well as demographic characters of citizens. To achieve this “descriptive and analytical” survey design has been carried out.

This survey analyzed secondary data collected from different files from DC offices. This survey also analyzed primary data collected through interview of service recipients who visited those offices. The survey included all 64 districts of the country. Total, 1920 files were analyzed and 1920 persons were interviewed. Collected data were transcribed into excel texts to ease data analysis. Then data were further interpreted through Strata method. They were coded, tabulated and classified according to objective and hypothesis of the survey. The data have been analyzed by using simple and suitable mathematical and statistical tools like tabulation, percentage frequency and cross tabs.

According to the evaluation survey, the findings suggests that 32.6% of the service receivers were fully satisfied and 58.1% were satisfied with the services provided by the DC offices. The survey also found that service providers think that 65.6% of service recipients got relief from brokers after introducing Citizen’s Charter. It also found that 85.2% of service receivers received services within stipulated time. So this initiative has changed the experience of service providers and service recipients in terms of Time-Cost-Visit (TCV). In other words, it paved the path of a citizen centric DC’s office and ensured good governance in service delivery.

Being a specialized unit at the Prime Minister’s Office, GIU has been assigned to work as a think tank with special focus to Good Governance. Identifying and recommending alternative solutions to various governance challenges is one of the key responsibilities of the unit. In line with the aim of the unit, GIU developed the standard format for CC. It also took part in developing the capacity of the relevant organizations. Cabinet Division is responsible for implementation and monitoring reform initiatives in the field administration. The management of human resources working in field lies with the Ministry of Public Administration (MoPA). In line with the aim of the unit, GIU came forward with the reform initiative. It also assisted the implementation of the initiative by developing the capacity of field administration and preparing SoP for the CC. It is now working for the evaluation and further development of CC. Therefore, the unit has rendered its service as a think tank organization.

The citizens along with relevant civil servants from center and periphery were extensively engaged in the designing and formulation stage. A good number of workshops has been conducted at various parts of the country. These workshops were participated by the members of all segment of the society including the disadvantage and vulnerable groups. The universities and development partners were involved in the relevant studies. Feed backs were collected from relevant government departments during the formulation phase of the tool. GIU maintained a close collaboration with Cabinet Division and MoPA at all stages of the initiative. The national statistical office along with public and private universities were involved in data collection at the evaluation stages.

The key lessons learned after evaluating the outcome of the initiative are as below: a) Access to information for all is a precondition for transparency and accountability in service delivery; b) Public awareness and engagement is necessary for the successful implementation of Citizen’s Charter. The awareness level of the citizens yet to reach an optimum level. Further actions are needed in this area; c) Government employee’s sincerity is vital to implement the Citizen’s Charter. So, they need to be motivated through both reward and sanction mechanism. It should be linked with individual performance as well as organizational performance management system. GIU is planning to monitor the implementation progress of the initiative across the public sector. It is also planning to conduct regular study involving the national statistics office and the universities in order to find out the areas for further improvements.