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Delivery strategy: Customer focus

What is customer-focused government?

The business of government is to improve the lives of citizens. To do this government departments develop and deliver policy. Policy always has a purpose - it does not exist simply to provide employment for Civil Servants!

Defra is funded by the British public to ultimately produce benefits for them in relation to the environment, food and rural affairs. To ensure that our policies and delivery are effective, we need to be clear from the outset about what specific public benefits we are seeking. The better we understand what we are trying to achieve; who we have to work with to achieve this; and who the end beneficiaries are, the better our policies and delivery will be. In short, the more customer-focused we will be.

Of course, customer focus is not confined just to Defra, but is high on the agenda for all government departments. The Cabinet Office is responsible for ensuring that all departments operate in a customer-focused way. For more information - see the customer focus section on their website.

Who are Defra's customers?

Defra, like most public services, has two types of customer. The people we work directly with and through, and the wider public, who should derive a benefit from what we do. We call these our direct customers and our end customers respectively. In essence:

  • A direct customer receives a product or service directly from Defra or from a delivery agent of Defra, for example, a grant; some regulation; advice; or a licence. The output.
  • An end customer obtains or may obtain a benefit from our services, for example, biodiversity or clean water. The outcome. But, s/he does not usually have a direct relationship with Defra.

So, even if you have never contacted Defra directly, you will be receiving a benefit through the successful delivery of Defra's products.

So what's the difference between a customer and a stakeholder?

Because of the nature of our business, almost everyone has a stake in Defra's business. If you are a customer of Defra, you are our most important stakeholder. We have categorised all our stakeholders under the following broad headings.

  • customers (and their representative organisations);
  • delivery agents - bodies formally contracted to deliver products or services for Defra;
  • partners - largely other parts of government, including advisers or experts;
  • interested individuals and organisations - independent people or bodies with a more separate/objective relationship, examples include the media, suppliers, pressure groups;
  • staff - Defra staff and Defra agency staff.

So what products does Defra deliver?

In the private sector it's easy to see what a company's products are. It's also easy to see what the customer relationship to the supplier is - as a customer you choose what products you buy and how you pay for them. Many people wouldn't see Defra as a body which delivers products - if you're a farmer or a fisherman you can't choose whether you're regulated by us or not! However, regulation is one, amongst many, of the products the department delivers and whilst most wouldn't choose to be regulated, we aim to treat everyone we have contact with, as a customer. It's important that we are courteous and polite; listen and respond to requests quickly and efficiently; and offer a choice, wherever possible.

Broadly, we have defined our products as:

  • regulation;
    • standard setting / rules / taxes / price setting
    • licensing, certification and registration
    • inspection and surveys
    • investigation and enforcement
  • grants and Payments;
  • operations;
  • advice, information, and facilitation.

How does Defra make contact with its customers and other stakeholders?

If we want to know what our customers think, the best thing to do is to ask them! But how does Defra make sure that customers and other stakeholders receive the information that is relevant to them? All the various parts of the department are being encouraged to think carefully about their various customer and other stakeholder groups.

We realise that rather than treating all customers as one homogenous group, we need to segment our customers. Of course individuals or groups can wear different hats - you might be a food retailer, but also a dog owner, so depending on what hat you wear, you will receive a different type of product from us.

We also want to take account of how our customers or other stakeholders categorise themselves. So, we are looking closely at how our customers are defined and are also trying to find better ways of storing the information we hold about our customers.

What research has been done into Defra's customers?

As part of our programme to improve the way we work with our external customers, a snapshot of the scale and nature of our interactions with them took place on 12 November 2002. Defra staff across the country collated contact data, and analysed it by:

  • the channels customers used to communicate with us (eg. telephone, email, face-to-face, letter, web visits),
  • the products or services we delivered (eg. regulations, grants & payments, operations, advice and information).

Front line organisations such as the Rural Development Service; the State Veterinary Service; the British Cattle Movement Service; and Defra's Executive Agencies, Inspectorates and helplines all took part.

This was not an exercise in customer satisfaction, merely a picture of the scale and nature of external customer interface with Defra, over the course of a day. The results were very interesting.

Around 33,000 interactions were carried out during the course of the day and on analysing the data we found that:

  • almost two thirds of all customer contact with Defra is via the telephone;
  • two out of every five calls are received at our Animal Health Offices;
  • the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) receives almost one third of all calls, nearly all about grants and payments;
  • more than one in three customer contacts are for advice and information;
  • when RPA is excluded, almost half of all contacts are for advice and information;
  • enquiries about regulations are the second most frequent reason for contact;
  • email is a significant communication channel.
Breakdown of results:
Number of contacts Reason for contact
Telephone 17,675 Regulations 6,091
E-mail 3,449 Grants & payments 6,919
F2F 3,109 Operations 2,487
Letter 3,244 Advice & information 9,491
Total 27,476 Total 24,988
web
(provisional)		 5,318 (Discrepancy between "number" and "reason"
results from unreconciled returns and extrapolation.
Analysis of web visits cannot break down by
reasons detailed above)
All contacts 32,794

How do we get feedback from our customers?

Defra has set up a system of regular customer satisfaction surveys. These enable us to check our performance and compare it against the performance of other government departments. We also use the results to formulate action plans for continuing to improve our service delivery.

Listed below are all those Defra bodies which took part in the 2002/3 survey:

  • Central Science Laboratory
  • Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science
  • Egg Marketing Inspectorate
  • Horticultural Marketing Inspectorate
  • Pesticide Safety Directorate
  • Plant Health & Seeds Inspectorate
  • Rural Development Service
  • Rural Payments Agency
  • State Veterinary Service
  • Veterinary Laboratories Agency
  • Veterinary Medicines Directorate
  • Wildlife Licensing & Registration

How can customers complain about Defra's standards of service?

If you feel you have received poor service from Defra then please let us know.

Page last modified: 25 June 2004
Page published: 25 June 2004

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs