Customers' expectations of public sector services: Does quality have its limits?

What are the standards of quality that we can expect from public services. Are there limits? If so, what are the limits, how are they determined and what difference do they make to the quality process in public sector organizations? This paper identifies a number of limits within three broad groups: where customers influence the limiting factors; where limiting factors are influenced by both the customer and the supplier; where limiting factors are not influenced by the customer. The limiting factors which are identified and examined are: customer awareness, conceptual limits, the limits of tolerance, limits imposed by personal and collective values, the limits of empowerment, commercial limits, the politics of quality and structural limits. Examples are given of ways in which some public sector organizations have identified and taken steps to minimize the effects of the limiting factors. On the basis of the practical examples which illustrate the different limitations, the paper concludes with an analysis of how the limitations are determined, and what difference the limitations make to the quality process.