A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

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Citizen Report Cards (CRC)
Producer
PAC – Public Affairs Centre (Bangalore, India)
History
Citizen Report Cards were first developed in 1994
by the Public Affairs Centre, a Bangalore-based
not-for-profit organisation. The first report card on
Bangalore’s public agencies covered municipal
services, water supply, electricity, telecom, and
transport. Since then, PAC has brought out report
cards on several other cities, rural services and also
on social services such as health care.With support
from the Asian Development Bank, it has also
prepared a self-learning web-based course
through which interested organisations could
learn how to apply the Citizen Report Cards and
develop their own questionnaires.
Objectives
The Citizen Report Cards aim to:
• Collect citizen feedback on public services
from actual users of a service (and not opinions
from the general public) such as drinking
water, health, transportation and education;
• Assess the performance of individual service
providers and/or compare performance across
service providers;
• Generate a database of feedback on services
that is placed in the public domain.
Applicability
The CRC is usually used by civil society organizations
to monitor the performance of service delivery
agencies in cities such as the municipal water
supply company, the police department, and the
electricity provider. Although it can be applied in
any urban context and to any service-providing
organisation, it appears to be more effective in
influencing policy and improving performance in
those situations where there is a tradition of civil
society activism. In other words, it works best when
governmental bodies are more willing to accept
feedback from citizens as well as to take action,
and where respondents are already familiar with
survey exercises.
Types and sources of data used
Information is subjective as data are usually
collected through household surveys, or, if more
appropriate, through surveys of individuals,
organisations or groups. Respondents are
normally selected using a probability random
sample. The focus of the survey remains the
experience of different groups of users with
particular service providers.
Methodology
Citizen Report Cards are a means to assess the
public services of a city from the perspective of
users. It is possible to focus the CRC on one or more
services, as well as on one or more aspects of
service delivery (such as availability, access, quality
of service, incidence and resolution of problems
and complaints, interaction with staff, corruption).
A focus group discussion involving both service
providers and users is organised in order to help in
identifying the services and aspects of service
delivery that should be included in the CRC. Data is
collected through a random, representative
sample of respondents. However, it is also
recommended to include respondents from
various sub-groups, for instance, both slum and
non-slum households, in order to capture the
experiences of both the poor and better-off
sections of society. Therefore, stratified sampling is
also used to some extent. Typically, respondents
give information on aspects of government
services on a numeric scale (e.g. –5 to +5, or 1 to 7).
These ratings are then aggregated and averaged,
and a summary measure is produced. The exercise
is repeated regularly. Results are disseminated
through the media and a follow-up meeting
between the citizens and service providers.
A Users’ Guide to Measuring Local Governance 103