eGovernment for Development

eTransparency Case Study No.17

eCustomer Care System in Malta: Enabling Online Complaints

Case Study Author

Eugenio Ciappara (eugenio.m.ciappara@gov.mt)

Application

In 2002, the Government of Malta introduced an ICT-based system to assist citizens making complaints or suggestions to government.

Application Description

Each government agency in Malta has a service charter. Part of this service charter includes the creation of a Customer Care System (CCS) that allows citizens to file a complaint, suggestion, or request for information. The heart of this system is ICT-enabled. In a later development (eCCS), a Web-based front end was added to the system. Citizens therefore have multiple channel options for making their submissions - by phone, face-to-face, by email, or via the Web. As well as allowing Web-based submission, eCCS also allows Web-based tracking: when a submission is made, a reference number is automatically generated. Using this reference number plus their personal ID card number, the citizen can track via the Web what action has been taken. The information system also has a comprehensive reporting system that allows central officials to identify particular issues that citizens are commonly raising as complaints or queries.

Once a complaint, suggestion or question is submitted, it is routed via workflow management software to the appropriate part of the Maltese public sector. Each agency has specific staff with responsibility for dealing with submissions. More general issues, or those that cannot so easily be directed to a responsible agency, are routed to 'Clearance House' - a dedicated section within the Office of the Prime Minister - which will decide what action needs to be taken to provide a satisfactory response to the citizen.

Once the citizen's submission has been dealt with, a response is produced and sent out by email, fax or post as appropriate.

The types of issues logged on the system vary considerably - notifications of a broken street light; queries about museum opening hours; suggestions about improvements to the accessibility of public buildings; complaints about poor water quality; as well as complaints about quality of other public services or complaints about the actions of individual public servants.

Role of ICT

The core of the system is based around workflow management software designed using Staffware Server, with SQL Server 7.0 for data storage and query handling. It was installed in January 2002 in all of Malta's 68 local councils and 14 central Ministries, plus the three main public corporations for the islands - Energy, Water and Environmental Protection. In January 2003, a Web-enabled front-end (written using HTML and ASP) was added, making the system accessible through any Internet-connected PC and any WAP-enabled mobile phone. This extension was christened eCCS. Reporting facilities are provided using Crystal Reports and Visual Basic 6.0.

Application Drivers/Purpose

In part, the drive for this initiative came from the more general attempt to improve government services in the run-up to Malta's accession to the European Union in mid-2004. More specifically, there was a desire on the part of government to make good use of the strong ICT penetration on the islands: by mid-2003, 18% of the population had direct Internet access (plus a greater proportion able to access via shared facilities), and 70% had a mobile phone. This desire was made concrete through one individual - the then Minister for Justice and Local Government - who was an enthusiastic champion of ICTs, and of delegation of powers to local councils.

Stakeholders

The key eCCS stakeholders are the officials and staff of the entire Maltese public sector, and members of the public. Secondary stakeholders are Malta IT & Training Services Ltd, the system developers.

Transparency and the Poor

All Maltese local councils can file complaints, suggestions or questions on behalf of citizens; for example those who lack IT skills or who do not possess a PC or WAP-enabled phone. Indeed, the great majority of submissions still come via ordinary phone or physical presence. The continuation of these channels recognises the likely persistence of a digital divide, with some households never expected to become direct ICT users.

Impact: Costs and Benefits

The costs of adding the Web-enabled eCCS front end were relatively small - no more than US$25,000. In the first nine months of operation, around 2,500 submissions were made through eCCS from a total of some 31,000 submissions during the same period (22,000 by traditional phone, 800 by post, 150 by email, 14 by fax, and 5,500 by face-to-face presentation at a local council). Given a total Maltese population of roughly 400,000, this suggests a strong level of engagement with both eCCS and with CCS more broadly. The benefits of having an ICT-based system are that submissions do not get lost. Deadlines are also more likely to be adhered to since the system issues automated reminders if deadlines are passed without action. The entire system is more efficient since submissions can be both accessed and transmitted far more quickly than would be the case for a paper-based system. The benefits for citizens with eCCS are 24/7 access to submission of complaints or suggestions plus the ease with which they can track the progress of their complaints online.

Evaluation: Failure or Success?

There has been no formal systemic evaluation of the project to date, but statistical assessments are continuously available to produce the figures quoted above.

Enablers/Critical Success Factors

1. Strong political drive . As noted above, one particular Minister in the Maltese government has been a vocal and visible e-government champion, driving forward - for example - a commitment to having 90% of government services available online by 2004. This drive, combined with his parallel push to delegate more functions to local government, was the key foundation for CCS and then eCCS.
2. Strong ICT infrastructure . The Maltese government made an early commitment to a pervasive and robust ICT infrastructure in the form of the Malta Government Network (MAGNET), a metropolitan area network that links all government entities. Without such a foundation, e-transparency applications like CCS/eCCS would have been much harder to implement.
3. Common Web standards . Although not essential to e-transparency applications, the decision to adopt a common Web framework and common Web development standards (including 'look and feel' elements) across all e-government applications, helped to streamline the eCCS development process and to shorten the delivery timescales.

Constraints/Challenges

1. Digital divide . Until quite recently, Malta had a strong digital divide which held back the viability and value of e-transparency applications. Although Internet access is still limited, the explosion in mobile phone ownership has helped shift the cost/benefit equation in favour of such applications. Access issues, though, do still remain - they are seen to particularly affect the older members of the Maltese population, of whom around 20% are of retirement age; and to relate to skills, awareness and attitudes perhaps more than to physical access. The government's Ministry of IT and Investment has therefore initiated a nation-wide project providing free Internet access courses.
2. Council opening hours . The limited opening hours of local councils in Malta (coinciding with the time when most Maltese are themselves working) was seen to be a constraint that held back the successful uptake of the original CCS system. This became one of the drivers behind implementation of the eCCS upgrade.

Recommendations

1. Design must be citizen-centred, not government-centred . Screens and messages for e-transparency systems must be designed in a way that the citizen understands, rather than designed from the 'insider' perspective of the public servant.
2. eTransparency can drive an information society . There is a mutual relationship between Internet access rates and e-transparency applications. As noted above, access rates must rise above a certain level before e-transparency becomes genuinely viable. Equally, though, e-transparency applications like eCCS - applications that deal with the everyday issues faced by citizens - drive up Internet access rates, and help push a country more quickly towards becoming an information society.
3. Be incremental . This e-transparency application succeeded in part because it went step-by-step rather than trying to rush everything at once. First, the core workflow system was introduced. Only once that was fully operational for many months did the project move to the next step of adding the Web front end.

Further Information

http://www.servizz.gov.mt/default.aspx

Case Details

Case Editor : Richard Heeks.
Author Data Sources/Role : Project Management Role.
Centrality of Transparency : Secondary. Type : Reporting. Audience : External. Content : Registration. Sector : Multiple.
Outcome : No Independent Evaluation.
Region : European Periphery. Start Date : 2002. Submission Date : February 2004.