How To Improve Chinese Government Service Quality

Currently, building a service-oriented government is the most important goal for Chinese government. A service-oriented government does not only mean strong service consciousness, but also high government service quality. In the context of establishing a service-oriented government, the necessity for studying the way to improve public service quality becomes imperative. At present, there are a multitude of studies which only focus on the concept and theory of the service-oriented government, and yet the number of studies about approaches to establish the service-oriented is very small. From the angle of quality management, this paper introduces ISO 9000 quality management system and provides a specific avenue to improve the service quality of Chinese government.Government service quality is the sum of the attitude, method, manner and technique of government service, which shows the management ability of government and affects the satisfaction degree of the public. The general standards of government service quality include reliability, responsiveness, special features, equality, availability, flexibility, tangibles and individuality, and the final standard is to make the public satisfied. The service quality of Chinese government has many problems: lack of clear and specific service standards; low service consciousness; low responsiveness; complicated service procedures and low efficiency; closure of information; less professional; unclear responsibility and function; unsound government service supervisory mechanism.ISO 9000 quality management system is the essence of quality management theory and practice all over the world. Its basic principles include: Customer focus; Leadership; Involvement of people; Process approach; System approach to management; Continual improvement; Factual approach to decision making; Mutually beneficial supplier relationships. Originated from enterprises, ISO 9000 Quality Management System has expanded to service industry and public sectors due to its crucial role in enhancing the organization efficiency and improving the product(service) quality. According to a research report of ISO, by the end of 2006, there are 897866 organizations from 170 countries which have passed ISO 9001:2000 certifications. Just as ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden commented:"Since the first ISO 9000 standards were published in 1987, this approach to ensuring the quality of the output of organizations has been taken up firstly by manufacturing industry, then by the service sector and, in more recent years, by public administrations. This evolution would not have taken place unless the ISO 9000 approach provided concrete benefits for the organizations that implement it."ISO 9000 quality management system is of significance for Chinese government to improve service quality. First, it is suitable for Chinese government; Secondly, it can strengthen service consciousness of public servants, offer precise and applicable service standards, clarify function and responsibility among different government departments, cut off unnecessary procedures, reinforce supervision and make Chinese government geared to international standards. Public sectors of Britain, the U.S and Malaysia have introduced ISO 9000 quality management system and succeed in enhancing the service quality, which brings considerable and invaluable experience for our country.The specific approaches to applying ISO 9000 quality management system to Chinese government and raising government service quality are: 1.Establish ISO 9000 organizations within government departments and pay emphasis to leadership; 2.Hold lectures and trainings to strengthen service consciousness and professional quality of public servants; 3.Carry out in-depth research about government's status quo and problems, formulate suitable quality guideline and quality goal; 4. Write ISO 9000 documents, clarify duties and set proper government service standards; 5.Reinforce supervision of government service through ISO 9000 examination mechanism and certification mechanism; 6.Continual improvement towards enhancing satisfaction degree of the public. Besides, Chinese government should pay more attention to some problems which might happen during the process of introduction: the difficulty in adapting standards to government, the separation between standards and specific work of government, and the increase in administrative cost.