Comments by attendees at three recent national conferences, here and abroad, confirm that government reengineers are no closer to simplifying the issue. A sense of frustration permeates project after project as the complexity of serving far too many masters prevents simple contraction of government processes.
There is a wide body of opinion on this topic. Frankly, confusion appears to reign among government project teams, as they try to map existing processes and produce redesigned processes capable of effectively meeting the conflicting needs of a bevy of customer groups. This confusion has slowed government reengineering to a snail's pace.
It seems so simple! Government only has one customer -- the taxpayer. The person who pays for the government service is always the customer. In many cases, the taxpayer/customer values a government service's contribution to our society sufficiently to pay for the service on behalf of another individual. This may be the user, the student, the patron, the patient, the recipient, the passenger or the beneficiary. These groups of government service recipients pay some fees, but no more than the supplemental cost of services. It is the taxpayer/customer -- who funds government overall -- whose financial interests must be addressed by reengineers, or our customers may choose to stop buying.
This concept contrasts markedly with impressions that the customer is the end recipient -- the legislature, the secretary or minister of whatever, the internal users of a departmental function, or some other government service. These groups are stakeholders, with an interest
In a recent meeting, one participant, a senior agency administrator, explained to me patiently that the taxpayer was not her customer -- the cabinet-level appointee was her customer. I asked her how long the average tenure of a typical cabinet-level appointee might be. She replied "about two years." Suddenly, realization hit her. She was trying to hit a moving target to produce long-term results. She was trying to accommodate political initiatives within process redesign, leaving the taxpayer/customer still paying the bill.
A government organization that defines an internal customer will be confronted by the same result. The slightest restructuring or change in management philosophy moves the target. And all the while the taxpayer/customer's needs grow greater as good managers add still more internal processes to accommodate the organizational shifts.
In a recent discussion, another manager argued about how to define the taxpayer. In his opinion this term had to be attached to a particular tax-paying public. He couldn't stay focused on the bigger issue, and didn't comprehend the immaterial nature of his debate. "Taxpayer" is collective, and this group's interests are collective. The amount of money paid for taxes is less of an issue for most people than the idea that their money might be funding and enabling wasteful processes.
The collective "taxpayer" wants to believe that public servants act on a strong sense of responsibility -- that the money they give to government provides the highest quality services at the lowest possible cost. Doing more with less is a very, very reasonable expectation given the new tools and methods available to us today.
It is disconcerting, as one of government's customers, to see how far afield the fiduciaries of taxpayers' money have traveled. There are government reengineering projects that have defined other divisions, suppliers, internal suppliers, other government agencies, and many more as a customer more critical than the taxpayer, or have not identified the taxpayer at all.
For years taxpayers have been trying to tell government leaders they expect value in the services their money is buying. When they talk about waste, they are talking about bureaucracy and end-to-end processes that frequently appear circular and nonproductive. For the most part, they are not talking about the end service products of government.
Hopefully, every government elected official, appointee, and career bureaucrat has been following the cartoon strip Blondie's recent government service experience. We could change Blondie's situation and the name of the government service agencies from which she must request or apply for services, and it would just as easily be the same outcome. It is a sad commentary, indeed, when such reality is depicted in a cartoon.
In each government reengineering or speaking engagement, managers, administrators, attendees and reengineering teams alike are intrigued and sometimes even titillated by the idea that their customer may be the taxpayer. Some get it and some don't. For those who do "get it" the task of identifying wasteful processes, delivering real value to the customer, and succeeding in reengineering is simplified immensely.
Ninety-nine percent of our government processes have been built to meet internal demands. Only by focusing outwardly on the person who pays the bill can we begin to see how valueless most of our home-grown processes really are. This framework forces us to see true cost and weigh real value. No other method has been as effective in producing properly redesigned government so quickly. Suddenly, common sense makes sense!
Rita Kidd provides commentary and analysis on human services and other large-scale automation efforts in state and local government. Her experiences as former deputy director of Merced County, Calif.'s Human Services Agency, and as director of MAGIC -- Merced County's welfare automation system -- provide valuable insight into the complexities of welfare automation and approaching welfare reform. She is now a government reengineering consultant residing in Cathey's Valley, Calif. Her opinions are her own, and not necessarily those of GT or its editors. E-mail:
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