Q: What does Mampu do?
A: We are an organisation within the Prime Minister's Department entrusted with the task of introducing administrative reforms in the public sector.
The aim is to continuously upgrade the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery system of government departments and agencies.
Q: How is Mampu involved in helping to improve the delivery system of government departments and agencies?
A: We provide advisory and consultancy services to public sector agencies in improving management practices so they are better equipped to manage their services for the people.
We also provide technical and management expertise in the application of information and communication technology (ICT) so that the agencies can provide more customer-centric services as well as improve their internal operations in supporting these services.
This is what will ease doing business in Malaysia. We look into reducing the number of processes, forms, etc.
We also ensure there is uniformity in implementing modernisation initiatives across the departments and agencies through circulars and guidelines in several areas that are critical to service delivery.
We also conduct awareness and communication programmes to enhance their understanding of administrative modernisation initiatives and the need to focus on service delivery.
Q: What initiatives has Mampu undertaken to date to enhance the quality of services rendered by government departments and agencies?
A: One of the major initiatives is the implementation of eKL, which is to provide a wide range of integrated and connected services for citizens and businesses in the highly urbanised Klang Valley area.
This is also part of the Public Service Commitment 2008 (PSC 2008) that was announced by the Chief Secretary to the Government on Jan 16 which is premised on the "One Service, One Delivery, No Wrong Door" concept.
"No Wrong Door" can be interpreted in many ways. For example, we have the MyGovernment portal through which the public can access all the government websites via a single gateway.
The one-day renewal of passports, the ease of registering a business and even the renewal of your driving licence, insurance and payment of bills at post offices are just some of the many initiatives. Payments at post offices means you go to one door and you get many services.
"999" is also another example of "No Wrong Door" where you dial a single number to access various services.
We also set service standards and ensure quality assurance of delivery processes through the implementation of MS ISO 9001:2000 quality management standard.
The "Star Rating System" is also being introduced to rank the performance of ministries and departments and spur healthy competition among them.
We also assist them to re-engineer their business processes and review their licensing requirements.
We have to make sure Public Service Commitment 2008 is fulfilled and we are one of the agencies which has been asked to do the follow-up. We have to make sure we follow through the commitment that has been pledged.
Q: Do you engage the private sector in implementing these initiatives?
A: Yes, we work with the private sector and ensure that their views are considered when the agencies draft new policies or introduce rules and regulations that will affect the private sector.
Back in the early 1990s, Mampu issued specific guidelines to government agencies to establish consultative panels with the chambers of commerce and private sector associations to obtain feedback and input so that action can be taken to remove obstacles that hinder the growth of business activities.
Issues on service delivery had been raised and deliberated through this channel in the spirit of Malaysia Incorporated.
Dialogues and meetings are the main mechanisms we use to get the involvement of the private sector and non-governmental organisations in designing effective delivery mechanisms.
Today, we have Pemudah, the Special Task Force to Facilitate Business, which has taken public-private sector partnership to a higher level.
Pemudah, which is led by the Chief Secretary to the Government and co-chaired by the president of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers, has heads of departments and captains of industry sitting as members and deliberating on issues to facilitate the ease of doing business.
Mampu is a member of Pemudah and I have witnessed first hand how effectively both sectors have functioned in addressing various service delivery issues affecting the business community.
The government has also instructed all agencies to ensure effective communication channels with their customers, whether from the private sector or the public at large.
These include input and suggestions through websites, emails and other channels. All feedback and complaints gathered must be acknowledged within three days if they are received through ordinary mail or immediately if they are received through email or SMS.
They are then to be informed of the status of their complaint or receive feedback within seven days.
Q: Can you give some examples of how things have been simplified for the business community?
A: Let's take the hotel industry. If you want to set up a hotel, you have to deal with several agencies such as the land office, the local authority, the fire department, the department of machinery, etc.
What we do now is sit with them to see how we can improve in terms of timeliness. Previously, it would take 546 days (from registration, construction to pre-operational) and the applicant would have to deal with 22 agencies for 72 different approvals.
Now it takes only 143 days and they deal with only 19 agencies for 44 approvals.
Instead of filling up 15 forms like before, they now only have to fill a single composite form.
This has been made possible with the involvement of the industry players themselves -- the hoteliers, the employers, the licensing agencies, the local authorities, the land office, etc.
We play a facilitative role for them to go through the processes and see how it can be simplified.
Q: How do you keep track whether these agencies are following procedure and applying these initiatives?
A: We have an inspectorate division whose members visit all the agencies, especially those which deal with customers, frontliner agencies such as the NRD (National Registration Department), local authorities, JPJ (Road Transport Department) and the Immigration Department where there are a lot of counter services, to observe the service delivery.
Every month, we have a team which goes to all these agencies to observe whether they adhere to our guidelines.
We also do "mystery shopping" -- such as testing to see if the telephone operators answer within 10 seconds or three rings. We also pretend to be a customer to observe how they serve clients at the counter and what kind of facilities they offer.
We also look out for the standards they should comply with such as the queuematic system (digital system of queuing ), a suggestion box, facilities for the disabled and senior citizens, and floor managers to control the crowd.
So, we look into the facilities they have to make their clients happy. But we are also aware that not every agency has the resources to have all these facilities.
Q: What happens if these agencies do not implement these initiatives?
A: From the feedback we get, we prepare a report and table it to the Panel on Monitoring Service Delivery which is chaired by the Chief Secretary.
The findings of this panel is then sent to the head of department. We give them a time frame to make the improvements, after which they are to report back to us the initiatives they have taken.
We go back to the agency to check if they have rectified the shortcomings.
We do this spot checking even for those who have won the annual public sector quality awards in previous years.
Q: Does Mampu provide training?
A: Yes, we do. While Intan (the National Institute of Public Administration) does most of the training, we assist in other ways like providing consultancy or guiding them on how to get the ISO quality certification or helpdesk training, etc.
Q: How many government departments and agencies have obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification?
A: Until December last year, 720 government organisations, including district health clinics. We encourage them to go for ISO certification because it is part of improving delivery and good governance.
Q: Are you satisfied with the performance of the agencies?
A: Satisfied in the sense that the agency has made a lot of improvement? Yes. We feel we are on the right track and a lot of effort is being taken. We are quite happy. They are very receptive to all these initiatives.
If you look into the rankings we have been given on government efficiency, under the World Competitiveness Yearbook ranking by the Institute of Management Development Switzerland, for countries with a population of 20 million and above, from No 8 in 2000, we are now No 6.
This shows we have made a lot of improvement. Our target is to keep on improving.
Q: What is Malaysia's ranking among the world's civil service?
A: I have not come across any international ranking of the world's civil service in a single category. However, we can use rankings that relate to certain aspects of civil service performance as a guide.
For example, last year, the Brown University Global e-Government report ranked Malaysia 25th out of 198 countries for electronic government initiatives.
This shows an improvement from No 36 in 2006.
The impact of the civil service can also be seen in terms of licensing procedures that affect business activity. In the Doing Business 2008 Report published by the World Bank, Malaysia ranked No 24 for ease of doing business last year out of 178 economies.
Customer service is another area associated with the civil service.
Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, has come out with its report on Leadership in Customer Service: Delivering on the Promise.
Published last year, it ranked Malaysia 14th out of 22 countries.
These rankings act as indicators and generally show that we are in compliance with many of the best in class practices adopted by high-performing civil services in the world.
Public delivery service is an issue that is of utmost concern to the government and especially the Chief Secretary and there is no doubt that we will be working hard to improve further by benchmarking against the best in the world.
Q: What other plans does Mampu have to further improve the delivery system of the civil service?
A: We will continue to improve the delivery processes by enhancing co-ordination, strengthening management practices and ensuring effective deployment of ICT systems and applications.
At the same time, we will also support the efforts of all agencies in human capital development.
For this year, Mampu will focus on efforts to support the Public Service Commitment 2008 of "One Service, One Delivery, No Wrong Door".
There are specific initiatives in the PSC 2008 that will be led by Mampu and we need to ensure that these are delivered as promised.
Mampu will also be responsible for the deployment of ICT systems and applications to enable agencies to respond effectively to rising demands of customers.
This will mean widespread adoption of on-line delivery channels, including e-payments, that will cover a wide array of government transactions.
All these are aimed at supporting the commitment to the people: reliable, predictable, responsive, timely, competent and customer friendly government service.
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