The idea of a Citizen's Charter arose in the United Kingdom from a simple question: if the public service which people have paid for through taxation is not good, why should they not get their money back, as they would have the right to with any shop or service provider in the private sector?

In 1991, the Conservative government of John Major articulated and implemented the concept of Citizen's Charter as a national program. Its aim was continuous improvement of the quality of public services so that these services could respond to the needs and wishes of the users. The program was re-launched in 1998 by the Labour government of Tony Blair.

International scenario
The UK's Citizen's Charter initiative aroused considerable interest around the world, and several countries implemented similar programs e.g., Australia (Service Charter, 1997), Belgium (Public Service User's Charter 1992), Canada (Service Standards Initiative, 1995), France (Service Charter, 1992), India (Citizen's Charter, 1997), Jamaica (Citizen's Charter 1994), Malaysia (Client Charter, 1993), Portugal (The Quality Charter in Public Services, 1993), and Spain (The Quality Observatory, 1992).

The government of Malaysia issued guidelines on the Client's Charter in 1993 to assist government agencies in preparing and implementing it. The Malaysian Client Charter closely followed the UK model and introduced the concept of "service recovery," which strives to restore the trust and confidence of the client in a proactive manner when things go wrong.

The government of Australia launched its Service Charter Initiative in 1997 as part of its commitment to improve the quality of public services by moving the government organisations away from bureaucratic processes to customer-focused orientation. The Treasury Board of Canada secretariat started a Service Standard Initiative in 1995. The Indian government took decision of formulating a Citizen's Charter in 1997. Primarily an adaptation of the UK model, the Indian Citizen's Charter has an additional component of "expectations from the clients." Initially, Charters were introduced in sectors that have a large public interface e.g. railways, telecom, posts etc.

The salient features of a Citizen's Charter are

• Standards
• Information and openness
• Choice and consultation
• Courtesy and helpfulness
• Redressing of grievances, and complaints handling

Standards
The Charter should lay out explicit standards of service delivery so that users understand what they can reasonably expect from service providers. These standards should be time-bound, relevant, and specific. The tendency among organizations to develop targets and standards based on their own convenience, as opposed to the needs of the citizens, must be avoided.

Information and openness
A key attribute of good service is the availability of relevant information to the users at the right time. The Charters should contain, in plain language, full and accurate information about the services available, and quality of service to be expected, available channels for redressing of grievances etc.

Choice and consultation
The Charter should provide choice of services to users, wherever practicable. There should be regular and systematic consultation with the users, to fix service standards and to ascertain quality of service delivery.

Courtesy and helpfulness
The Charter can help develop a culture of courteous and helpful service from public servants. Small initiatives such as name badges, "May I help you" counters, etc. can be helpful in building customer confidence.

Redressing of grievances, and complaints handling
There is a strong link between the provision of quality service and effective handling of complaints. Firstly, by facilitating and responding to complaints, the reasons for complaints can be reduced. Secondly, by identifying trends in complaints, the service provider can resolve systemic and recurring problems.

Engaging the stakeholders
As discussed above, engaging the stakeholders is one of the most important aspects of developing and implementing a Charter. Without it the Charter is just a statement of intent rather than a live, meaningful, contract between the state and the citizen. The stakeholders should be engaged during the period of developing the Charter, firstly to ask their views on what should be included, and secondly to show them the charter that has been developed as a result of their views. They should also be engaged during review of the charter, which should take place periodically.

Challenges
Introduction and implementation of the concept of Citizen's Charter in a country like Bangladesh may be quite difficult, due to the old bureaucratic set up/procedures and the rigid attitude of the work force. In Bangladesh the initiative is likely to encounter a number of problems. First, a consultation process may be minimal or absent if the formulation of the Charter is taken simply as an exercise to be carried out because of a direction from above.

Second, failure to understand the concept and spirit of the Citizen's Charter, and lack of awareness about the contents, may result in lacking of commitments to make it successful. Third, setting unrealistic standards/time limits of service, either too lax or too tight, may hinder the implementation of the Charter.

For the success of a Charter initiative, an effective awareness campaign amongst all the stakeholders is essential at the initial stage. The Citizen's Charter will not change the mindset of the staff and the clients overnight. Therefore, regular efforts will be required to bring about attitudinal changes. Employees responsible for its implementation should have proper training and orientation.

To sum up, a Citizen's Charter is not merely a document/brochure that contains information of services provided by the organisation. In the light of the spirit of a Citizen's Charter, we can say that it must be formulated through consultation with the users so that there is a balance between users' expectation and service providers' capacity. A Charter cannot be claimed to be effective unless the grievance redressing mechanism functions effectively. Moreover, a Charter should continuously solicit stakeholders' feedback, based on which it should be updated from time to time.

There should be a system of monitoring of performance to make sure that the work of the organisation is in conformity with the Charter. Finally, it should be kept in mind that introducing Citizen's Charter in agencies which come in close contact with the public is more important than introducing it in ministries/divisions. To meet the expectation of the clients of particular areas there should be area specific Charters in agencies like health, agriculture, etc.

Arif H. Khan is a Program Manager in Manusher Jonno Foundation.