In November 2007, NSW departments were asked to complete a Customer Service Benchmark Survey which asked questions about the mechanisms they had in 2006-07 and their plans to improve customer satisfaction in 2007-08.

The Survey closed in February 2008. The survey was completed on a self-assessment basis. Half of all respondents provided additional material as evidence to support their answers. No independent verification of department responses has been undertaken.

Data were provided by 78 departments. This is a participation rate of 77%.

The respondent departments employed 256,448 full-time equivalent employees (FTE) in June 2007, or 86% of the total NSW public sector workforce. Based on these two factors, the findings can reasonably be considered to be a representative of results across the NSW public sector.

Data was analysed in several ways. Responses were examined on the basis of:

• Source of funding of departments (budget and non-budget-funded departments).
• Public sector function (such as policy, regulatory, infrastructure and direct service delivery departments).
• Policy sectors (such as human service, justice, transport, culture, economic development and environmental departments).
• Nature of clients (voluntary, non-voluntary, individual persons and organisations including other government departments).

These statistical analyses showed that there were no significant differences between departments when segmented on the basis of these variables. The only statistically-significant differences in data were between small, medium and large departments.

This report summarises and analyses total responses; and compares small, medium and large departments.

There were 41 small departments – departments that had 350 FTEs or less. They included small specialised departments such as the Internal Audit Bureau (9 FTEs); the Casino Control Authority (35) and the Community Relations Commission (71); to larger departments including the Department of Environment and Climate Change (210); the Office of Financial Management (Treasury) (249); and the State Water Corporation (303).

Table 1: Customer benchmark survey – respondents

Medium departments were defined as those with more than 350 FTEs and less than 1,000 FTEs. There were 15 medium departments. These included Departments of State and Regional Development (425 FTEs); Premier and Cabinet (549); and Water and Energy (684); and non-budget-funded departments such as TransGrid (942).

There were 22 departments defined as large, that is, having 1,000 FTEs or more. These included Health (92,336 FTEs); Education and Training (an estimated 50,000); Police (19,311); RailCorp (13,805); and Ageing Disability and Home Care (9,431).