It isn’t for lack of any feedback. There are constant letters to the editor complaining and anguished stories across all media about people suffering. Surveys are done showing widespread dissatisfaction. Nothing changes.
Councillors and members of Parliament insulate themselves from us.
Those who work for the Government at high levels are dispatched swiftly if they acknowledge even that there are major issues in delivery and costs of services.
It has become impossible for senior civil servants to be honest with us or their political masters.
We need to somehow have a feedback loop which identifies issues and allows us to know what is being done to fix them.
Maybe it is time to encourage the use of a mystery shopper system.
Mystery shoppers are anonymous shoppers who use services and then evaluate them to improve customer services.
Each council and each ministry could have mystery shoppers, independent of the organisations they report on.
These mystery shoppers would provide feedback at regular intervals to the chief executives of the organisations as to how the services are actually working.
The staff would then report on their proposals to sort any issues arising from the reports. Then both the mystery shopper feedback and what the staff propose to do could be made public in a timely fashion so we all know what is going on and what is intended to be done.
This could have some useful effects. It would reduce the chance of politicians denying that they knew what was actually happening. Civil servants would understand that anyone using services might be a mystery shopper and be about to provide feedback to those further up the chain.
Feedback would not be able to be dismissed as just one bad experience.
If we asked the right questions of the mystery shoppers we may be able to establish issues more holistically and not focus on what looks like a good press release to government and councils.
For example, in the health area in Otago, we may be able to let politicians know that we want nurses and doctors who are paid enough, respected enough and resourced well enough to provide good health options, rather than have a decades-long argument about capital expenditure on a new hospital.
We have recently seen a local member of Parliament from the government benches (to be congratulated on her recent elevation to the position of Minister outside Cabinet) talking about us all needing to convince the decision makers about what makes good health outcomes, so we will need the mystery shoppers to report back to these decision makers, once we find out who they are both locally and nationally.
It may help with the annoying habit those around government and local government have developed about acknowledging a minor version of what is a major problem and then saying earnestly it is a priority to fix. Think hospital waiting lists and bus ‘‘services’’. Staff would be expected to say what they are doing to fix the problem, not just describing the response to an issue as a priority.
With resources stretched in all directions, we need those in power to know what the problems are and how serious they are.
We need to know what is being done to sort them out, and be in a position to discuss the solutions proposed in a useful way early enough to make a difference. And those in power need to know what matters to us in as many ways they can be told so they can lead us better or understand that they are at risk of not being chosen next time.
Mystery shoppers may also help authorities to understand how annoying it is to thank us for our patience. Our patience may already have run out.
