People 'ignorant of Citizen's Charter': The Cabinet has admitted it needs to do more to push John Major's 'big idea'. Patricia Wynn Davies reports

MUCH more needs to be done to educate the public and providers of public services about the ethos of the Citizen's Charter, William Waldegrave, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, accepted yesterday.

The admission came with the announcement of a Charterline public service information telephone helpline, to be piloted in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, and of plans by John Patten, Secretary of State for Education, and Virginia Bottomley, Secretary of State for Health, to introduce league tables for further education and the NHS internal market.

The announcements came after the third Cabinet seminar on the charter, chaired by the Prime Minister at Downing Street and research showing high levels of ignorance among the public.

Mr Waldegrave said people were entitled to know what they were paying their taxes for. 'It seems to me we've got a long way to go,' he said.

The research, carried out by the consultants Research International, showed that a very large number of people wanted to make complaints but did not feel either that it was worth it or that they knew how to do it, Mr Waldegrave said. 'I believe there is a huge demand out there, shown by the research, for greater and easier access.' There was an immense preference for using the telephone, he said.

The Charterline scheme, enabling residents to dial one number for information and help about all public service organisations, will begin at the end of May. Callers will also be able to find out more about the Citizen's Charter and individual charters.

Of Mrs Bottomley's plans to introduce comparative information in the health service, which would begin with waiting times, Mr Waldegrave said this was essential for the working of the internal market. 'There will be some professional resistance, but we must have the information out.'

The Department of Health said work had begun on the scheme but it was unlikely to be completed before next year. The project is complicated by the difficulty of finding meaningful ways of measuring hospital performance.

Mr Waldegrave also named the end of next year as the expected time of publication of the Audit Commission's comparative performance tables for local authorities. Mr Patten's league table plans for further education and sixth form colleges will go out to consultation first. Other initiatives following yesterday's Cabinet discussions are:

A new complaints adjudicator for the Inland Revenue, which also published three new codes of practice;

A charter for the Child Support Agency, launching in April;

Police inspectors to be appointed from outside the police service for the first time;

A Housing Corporation Ombudsman to handle housing association tenants' complaints;

Citizen's Charter standards to be part of rail franchisees contracts after privatisation of BR;

'One stop' offices to handle claims for different social security benefits under one roof;

Improved standards in a revised charter for the London Underground.

John Major also disclosed details of the 1993 Charter Mark awards for excellence in delivering services.

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