Developing the SAPS website for optimal service delivery

3 Service delivery

In this study the SAPS website is regarded as a service delivery tool within the South African government and the SAPS – both of which clearly state their roles as service providers.

Much has been written on principles for an effective website. Given the increasing amounts of information being generated in this era (of information), it is not surprising that in a relatively short span of time, the field of website design and content has been well analysed and documented. Author Tom Peters states (Peters 2000:5) that “the world is going through more fundamental change than it has in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years”. He refers to it as ‘time compression’: “Where it took 37 years for the radio to get to 50 million homes, the World Wide Web got there in four”. Similarly tutoring in the do’s and don’ts of website design and content development has not lagged behind.

In 2000 the SAPS introduced its Service Delivery Improvement Plan (SDIP). The purpose of the SDIP is to provide excellent service to all communities of South Africa. Further, the SDIP focuses upon satisfying customer needs (SAPS s.a.: 78).

The SAPS website, which aims to satisfy customer needs, could thus be regarded as an SDIP tool as well.

(Of interest here is that the SAPS is regarded as one of the biggest investors in tele¬communica¬tions and information technology in Africa. Access to this type of technology is regarded as essential in service delivery and crime fighting (Intelligence 1997:34-38).)
The service that the SAPS website should and could deliver is to inform the community (and SAPS employees) about what is happening within the organisation and what the SAPS is doing, in accordance with its vision, to “create a safe and secure environment for all people of South Africa” (SAPS 2002c: 39).

Further, the government’s ideal of “democratic outreach” should be achieved through the SAPS website. Through this ideal the government wants its departments to reach out to communities – in this case via the Internet – and to render service to them. This would, inter alia, entail making online forms available to the public and creating online discussion forums and public opinion polls (GSIC 2000).

The term ‘democracy’ implies equality and freedom. What does it mean in the context of online government publishing? Landow (1992:78-94) provides answers: “Used in the sense of textuality, it in effect means levelling the playing fields for the reader and the writer, i.e. the writer and the reader become counterparts [...] Anyone using electronic text can ply it to make his own interest the de facto principle. The point of focus depends on the reader [...] This empowers the reader and makes it possible for him to choose his way through text.”

In addition, the SAPS website should make it possible for the community to also exchange information with the SAPS; to give opinions on how the SAPS and the SAPS website could better serve them (cf. Bosman in Reynecke & Fourie 2001:32).

Trowler (in Jones & Jones 1999:13) refers to such exchange as ‘digital liberation’. He substantiates this by saying that consumers acquire more choices. Interaction can take place directly and instantaneously. Democratisation of users increases as information becomes more freely available.

Such ‘liberation’ in the form of exchange between the service provider and the client is part and parcel of ‘interactivity’ as it is understood in online or web-based publishing. It includes community involvement in decision-making that focuses on specific priorities and needs of the community (in this case as far as the SAPS website is concerned).

Verwey (1990:103) points out that such feedback and exchange has an effect on interrelationships and consequently with management, and how the environment (in this case, the website) will be adapted or influenced.

Such community involvement (including the Internet community) in policing is becoming a worldwide trend. In a telephonic interview with Sir John Stevens, the London Metropolitan Police commissioner, in December 2001, he iterated that policing in partnership with the community was becoming increasingly significant in policing in the UK (telephonic interview, 22 December 2001).

In the USA so-called community policing has also been established. Reiner states “Community policing has now become an influential movement among progressive police chiefs in the United States and elsewhere” (Reiner 1992:96).

Goldstein urges police administrators to work with the communities they serve to define the problems that need addressing (Goldstein 1979:246). Bayley (1996) repeatedly expresses the view that in a give-and-take atmosphere, police officials and the public can come to understand each other’s perspectives.

Wadman and Bailey (1993:91) maintain that crime is a community problem and requires community involvement and accountability. Crime prevention is also described as a shared responsibility between law enforcement and the citizen (Ohio Crime Prevention Association 1995:49).

There is therefore a very definite rationale for involving SAPS website users – as a specific community – in the development and maintenance of the SAPS website.

For a police agency website, and, in this case, the SAPS website, to be effective and to deliver service, it must cater for the needs of its users. But as Nielsen (1993: Executive Summary) points out users do not always know what is best for them. Members of the public who visit the SAPS website for various reasons do not necessarily know whether the website has been optimally designed in terms of user-friendliness and whether it does meet their needs as effectively as it could and should. Trenner (in Oppenheim, Citroen & Griffiths 1990:64) describes user-friendliness as the way a system “handles user errors sympathetically and efficiently, provides support and orientation, accommodates user levels and has a friendly output”.

Hugo (in Oosthuizen 1994:34) warns that “Any media centre that ignores its external environment may end up delivering the right products for the wrong needs”.

It is therefore the responsibility of the owner of the website to ensure that user needs are attended to.

Despite an extensive search, no relevant literature could be found on specific guidelines for an effective police agency website. One of the aims of the research project, was to do just that, i.e. to determine such guidelines.

Further major requirements in developing and improving a website is the development of a website strategy to show the way forward, an assessment of user needs (the latter should also be done periodically), and an audit – and subsequent audits from time to time – of the website.