984 gov’t offices pass anti-red tape check

MANILA, Philippines - Ninety six percent or 984 of 1,023 government offices surveyed got passing marks in the 2014 Report Card Survey (RCS) of the Civil Service Commission (CSC).

On the other hand, 39 offices or four percent of the total earned a “failed” rating, which indicates failure to comply with provisions of the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.

The CSC announced the results of last year’s RCS as a mechanism to measure client satisfaction and get feedback on government frontline services.

Among the passers or those that obtained scores from 70 to 100, some 258 offices (25.22 percent) received an “excellent” rating; 10 offices (0.98 percent) got “outstanding”; 636 offices (62.17 percent) were rated “good”; and 80 offices (7.82 percent) were “acceptable.”

The service offices subjected to the RCS came from nine agencies most complained of and that need frontline service improvement, based on reports received through the Contact Center ng Bayan of the CSC.

These agencies include the Land Transportation Office (LTO), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Social Security System (SSS), Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), Land Registration Authority (LRA), Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF), Philippine Statistics Authority-National Statistics Office (PSA-NSO) and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

The CSC, headed by chairman Francisco Duque III, runs the survey as the lead implementer of Republic Act 9485 or the Anti-Red Tape Act.

The CSC checks if the service office has a citizen’s charter that contains detailed commitments on transaction steps, cost and time.