Government Feedback Mechanism (PH0048)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: GOCCs are required to conduct a Third Party Customer Satisfaction Survey by GCG’s Performance Evaluation System (PES). Although there are GOCCs that conduct a Third Party Customer Satisfaction Survey, a standard methodology for all GOCCs is yet to be determined. Thus, a validation of stakeholder satisfaction on all GOCCs has yet to be determined as well.; What is the commitment?: A standardized methodology on the conduct of the GOCCs’ Customer Satisfaction Survey that will periodically indicate the perceived satisfaction level of their respective customers with respect to GOCC operations and services.; How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?: This ensures that GOCCs gather their customers’ feedback which informs them of the services they are doing well and those that need improvement. It also serves as an indicator of the satisfaction of their customers on their services. As GOCCs adopt a standard methodology on Customers’ Satisfaction Survey and strive to achieve a Satisfactory rating, they are also driven to continually improve their delivery of services.; Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?: Civic Participation. A Customers’ Satisfaction Survey conducted by a Third Party allows GOCC’s customers to provide feedback on the services they receive. It enables civic participation and provides a way for GOCCs to know which of their services need improvement.; Additional information: This is in line with Chapter 5 of the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 on Ensuring People-Centered, Clean, and Efficient Governance.

4B. Engage and empower citizenry through an effective government feedback mechanism

Commitment text from action plan:

“A standardized methodology on the conduct of the GOCCs’ Customer Satisfaction Survey that will periodically indicate the perceived satisfaction level of their respective customers with respect to GOCC operations and services.”

Milestones

1. "Establishment of standard methodology on Customer Satisfaction Survey
2. Roll-out of standard methodology on Customer Satisfaction Survey
3. Establish baseline of percentage of GOCCs with Satisfactory rating
4. Publication of results of GOCCs’ Customer Satisfaction Surveys"

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Philippines’ action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Philippines_-Action-Plan_2017-2019_updated.pdf

Context and Objectives (Commitment Design)

The commitment aimed to standardize the methodology and process of the Third-Party Customer Satisfaction Survey that is part of the Governance Commission for Government Owned and Controlled Corporations (GCG) Performance Evaluation System, which all Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCs) are required to undertake.

GOCCs are “any agency organized as a stock or nonstock corporation” that is owned by the government directly or through its autonomous agencies. GOCCs are “vested with functions relating to public needs whether governmental or proprietary in nature.” ^[70] While functioning like any corporation, GOCCs receive subsidies from the Philippines government. In 2014, Php 77.04 billion pesos (approx. USD 1.6 billion) was spent on GOCCs by the national government, 3% of which was classified as subsidies, and 97% was classified as program funds. ^[71] With this significant amount of money being invested by the government, the GOCC Governance Act provides the observance of good governance in GOCCs to ensure high performance and prevent corruption. This is the mandate of GCG. This is especially crucial because some GOCCs have been criticized for being nonperforming and allegedly corrupt. ^[72]

The commitment is relevant to the value of access to information, as it includes a mechanism to release information that was in the hands of the government (GOCCs’ performance according to satisfaction surveys by citizens).

If fully implemented as written, this commitment was expected to have minor potential impact. The commitment included activities to generate periodic data on the satisfaction level of GOCC clients and customers on GOCC operations and services, per results from the surveys. The commitment sought to open up GOCCs to public feedback, which was not yet common. ^[73] Public feedback could improve GOCC services and performance depending on how GOCCs responded to the feedback. However, the commitment’s activities were primarily internal facing, focused on the standardization of the methodology for the survey. Whether the survey would work in improving GOCC performance depended on many prerequisites: participation of clients, the kind of clients that participate, the quality of data and feedback generated (design of the methodology as a factor in this), compliance of GOCCs, and the response of GOCCs to feedback and data. Overall, the commitment was a positive step, but its design only went as far as collecting and publishing data from the surveys – not using the data to effectively implement improvements.

Commitment Implementation

This commitment’s implementation was complete at the end of the implementation period. Particularly relevant to OGP values was the publication of results of GOCCs’ customer satisfaction surveys (milestone 4), available online. ^[74] The survey revealed a high level of satisfaction: 91.65% among the 27 GOCCs that are compliant with the new standard methodology for their customer satisfaction survey. However, 43 GOCCs are still not abiding to this new standard, mainly due to methodological issues. ^[75]

The commitment opened government marginally. Even though the publication of the survey results of the corporations that were compliant with the standard methodology was a positive improvement in access to information, the process of releasing information does not represent a major change of practice by the government. The released information centered on the positive advances of some GOCCs (a minority so far) rather than on the whole universe of state corporations. More detailed information (particularly about noncompliant GOCCs and why they faced problems to adopt the new methodology) was absent. Including that kind of information would have increased the scope of the commitment. Finally, it is not clear how this information has been used by GOCCs or citizens.

Next steps

The IRM shared the following recommendations with stakeholders during the prepublication review period for the design section of this report. They are included below for public record. ^[76]

This initiative has great potential to be developed further and address a key gap in government transparency, in a sector in which significant public funds are invested. Some elements that would increase the potential of this commitment in future action plans are:

• A future commitment should include a milestone providing data on GOCCs not compliant with the survey. It would be helpful to have a consolidated picture of results, such as an overall GOCC performance report based on the survey.
• GCG may want to conduct consultation on the design of its survey and how to ensure clients take action on the results. Citizens’ use of survey information may also be pushed by a future commitment.
• Create an environment for positive incentives or a framework that would enable enforcement of sanctions.