Citizen perspectives on public services during life events: final report

In 2021, Monash University and colleagues at BehaviourWorks and the Australian Catholic University, partnered with the APS Reform Office in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to research people’s experiences with public services. We analysed seven waves of the Survey of Trust in Australian public services (formerly Citizen Experience Survey) to understand how services could be better tailored to Australians experiencing different life events.

People-centric approaches to public services, while not new, have accelerated in popularity in the last two decades. There has been an increasing emphasis on the need for services that revolve around ‘life events’, such as changing employment status, transitioning to university, becoming a parent or carer, exiting the workforce, or suffering serious illness or injury. Life event approaches highlight how public service needs span across various agencies and levels of government. However, optimising service provisions to the needs of Australian citizens relies on robust data, and a consideration of long-term trends.