4th European CAF Users Event, Bucharest, 23-24 September 2010

ProgressingTowardsExcellence

The Challenge for European Public Administrations inDifficult Times

Improving work processes in a Norwegian District Court

1. Identification

Reference/ Session: S1.3.

/ Organisation: Aust-Agder District Court
Country: Norway
Name case presenter(s): Judge Jan Atle Hansen
@ :
Phone: +4790018833
Website: -
And/or LOGO / Focus:
Management by processes and facts
  1. Quality Improvement Issues.

When the CAF-process was initiated, the Court had limited knowledge of its customers’ opinion concerning the employees’ behaviour, the service-level, the quality of the court-decisions etc. The employees – and especially the judges, had of course their own opinions on these topics, but they were not built on facts and a careful inquiry. Customer-focus was therefore at an early stage identified as very important for improving the work processes.

Traditionally the Norwegian courts have a flat structure with the Court President as a sovereign administrative leader. Involvement of employees by delegation of authority was therefore another principle of importance this was identified at an early stage for the further improvement work.

The CAF-process, when it was started, made it possible to point out the strong and weak sides of the work processes in the organization. An appointed assessment group of four employees evaluated the court-organization during the late autumn of 2008 and afterwards recommended several actions that would improve the work processes and contribute to strengthen the analysis of data and information as a base of decisions.

  1. Case background.

Aust-Agder District Court is a first level court with 5 judges, 3 judge-trainees and 12 executive officers. The court was established in 2004 as a result of a fusion of 3 even smaller district courts in a part of the southern Norway. The Court serves about 80 000 people and deals with both criminal and civil cases of all sorts.

Traditionally there has been a strong focus in the Norwegian court system on reducing time spent for the case proceedings. Aust-Agder District Court wanted to extend this focus to embrace other sides of the court activities, e.g. the collaboration between the court and the users, develop competence in order to improve the quality of the court-decisions, involve the employees in decision-making processes etc. As a result of the fusion-process three different cultures had met, and there was a need for pointing out the best of these cultures and how they used their resources and unite it in one.

The President of the court at that time – mrs. Bjornoy, had a six-month leave in 2008, studying quality work in several courts in Denmark and the Netherlands. She immediately initiated a CAF-process in her own court. The process started in September 2008, when an introduction to the CAF principles in general was given to all the employees of the court. The President also pointed out a group of four persons that was given the task to evaluate the organization according to the principles of a CAF-process, - a work that was carried out in the end of autumn 2008.

  1. The actors.

The assessment group presented several concrete proposals for the President. Afterwards she presented the proposals for the employees. They decided whether a proposal should be implemented or not. During a period of 6 weeks in February and March 2009 all the users visiting the court house were invited to answer a questionnaire, giving them the opportunity to open-hearted notify their opinion on the service-level of the court, the behaviour of the judges during the court sittings etc. In May 2009 the President made interviews on the same topics with a group of lawyers and psychologists frequently participating in criminal and family cases. By taking these measures the customers’ needs and opinions were seriously taken into account for the further improvement of the decision making and of the work processes.

  1. The work process/the approach.

An analysis of the questionnaires and the answers given by interviews gave a very good basis for the further work. A data-based collection of court decisions was built, especially meant for new judges and judge-trainees, but also useful for judges and other employees with long experience. One of the judges was made responsible for the maintenance of the data-base. Routines for the treatment of different cases were written down and a monitoring system of the court sittings was initiated, in order to give constructive criticism to the judges. Some of the proceedings were even video-taped.

  1. The measure of success.

As already mentioned the evaluation of the good practice was mainly based on feed-back from the customers. To survey the court-sittings two judges with long experience were engaged in order to give constructive criticism of the judges’ behaviour. Annual meetings with the lawyer-association, the public prosecutors and the organizations of other users of the court have been established in order to discuss good practice. All of these measures have had positive effects.

  1. The main obstacles.

Some of the employees did not appreciate the increase of authority given to them in order to improve the level of service. To meet this opposition it was necessary to train them in decision-making within the actual areas. It was also necessary to use enough time to prepare the judges mentally for the monitoring of the court-sittings.

  1. Lessons learned.

If you want to develop good work processes, it is necessary to keep a close contact with the users/customers. It is also of importance to build an information system to conserve and developedexamples and routines and to make it available for the whole organization. It is important to involve all employees in the organization and for this purpose, sufficient time must be reserved.

  1. Project innovation content and adaptability.

A future challenge will be to maintain a close contact and dialogue with the users in order to improve the good practice. It is important to be aware that the work is not finished, but must be on-going.

When you want to develop good practice, it is necessary to use some time to map the problems and weaknesses in the organization in order to find out on what topics one should focus on.