Long-term demographics and government plans to slash the deficit demand a drastic realignment of local public services. Doing the same things, only more cheaply, is no longer an option. It is time for a complete redesign of services — enabled by technology, but driven by a better understanding of what customers want.

Finding out what the needs of your customers are, and determining their degree of satisfaction wiith the services you provide, are both difficult, and many councils fail to do it effectively. They make assumptions about what their customers want without checking, and sometimes are not even sure about who their customers are.

"Strategies for delivering customer-facing services (usually covering access strategies around customer location, disability, channel preference etc)"