SEMA Trend Report: How can we improve citizen satisfaction with police stations in Kampala?

SEMA is a social enterprise geared towards the citizen-centred improvement of public services. With this goal in mind, SEMA developed a system of citizen feedback through which citizens rate the experiences they have had at public offices. Since 2018, this system has been tested in Uganda in collaboration with (among others) police stations. The feedback collected from citizens was presented in one-pager actionable reports that are distributed and discussed each month with the heads of the police stations where we work. Monthly reports are followed-up with management of an office to find out which improvements have been initiated. To ensure that the results of the feedback given reaches the citizens, who are the source of this feedback, we ask that public officers pin up the monthly reports that we give them on the notice boards at the public offices. However, not all offices do this. Although we continue to value the confidential relationship we have with police stations where we measure, we also want to inform JLOS and other government bodies, as well as citizens and civil society groups about the trends that we see in our data. Therefore, this report is one of the trend reports SEMA publishes and distributes publicly to inform a wider community about the trends we see in citizen feedback at police stations. The purpose of this report is to address citizen feedback collected from 9,092 citizens, between September 2018 and March 2020, at different police stations around Kampala city. The focus of this report will be to compare the performance of different police stations in Kampala and discuss what poorly performing stations can learn from good performing stations. We hope the Ugandan Police Force, the JLOS Sector and non-governmental partners will use this report to develop new policies and strategies for better police performance in Uganda.