CAF works - better service for the citizens by using CAF

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European cooperation and work on quality management has significantly improved over the last few years. During Austria's first Presidency in 1998 the aim was to take specific steps towards improving public service for the citizens. The idea of a European Public Administration Quality Award proved not to be the right tool at that time. So the idea of a Common Assessment Framework - to provide public administrations with a quality management tool and give an impetus for improvements - was born. Together with EIPA and the members of the European Public Administration Network (EPAN) CAF was developed and finally presented at the 1st EU-Quality Conference in Portugal in the year 2000. Since then, the 3rd version of CAF has been finalised in the light of the experiences of the more than 900 CAF Users.The CAF 2006 version will be officially presented (distributed) at the 4th EU Quality Conference in Tampere in September 2006.  
As CAF has continued to spread all over Europe there is increasing interest in more in-depth knowledge of the use of CAF and the results achieved. The need for appropriate bench learning partners in the different fields of public administrations is growing. It is now time to have a first evaluation of whether CAF works in Europe. The overall objectives of the publication "CAF works - better results for the citizens by using CAF" are:

• to bring the CAF self-assessment to life by showing specific results and improvements related to the CAF self-assessment.
• to raise awareness of CAF as an instrument for quality management throughout Europe's public sector organisations.
• to increase bench learning between CAF users.

For the first time, information is being provided on concrete results for citizens, people within the organisation and society, the way CAF has been used and improvement actions which lead to improved results in the organisations. 
On behalf of the Austrian Presidency I would like to thank all who have participated in this publication: the members of the European CAF Correspondents Network,the public administrations which have delivered their case descriptions. Also to EIPA and the Austrian KDZ - Centre for Public Administration Research who have done an excellent job in guiding the case descriptions and extracting general results and conclusions. 
I hope this publication offers interesting experiences and information for CAF users who are interested in Bench learning and that it may also encourage those who still hesitate to use CAF to join the European community of CAF users.