Issue - meetings

Cllr Chandwani, The Cabinet Member for Customer Service, Welfare, and the Public Realm attended the meeting to respond to questions on the Customer Service and welfare part of her portfolio. The Cabinet Member provided a brief update to provide some context and background. The following key information was noted:

• The vision for Customer Services was for the Council to be able to serve people in the way they want and way that they need. This was through effective use of resources in a multi-faceted way, ensuring accessible services for those in need and everyone else served in a different but accessible way.

• Ensuring Services connect strategically which also requires getting the atomisation right so the council can help people most in need whilst ensuring that day to day contact and interaction is as efficient as possible.
• Customer services supports 17 council services and does not answer phone calls for all Council services.
• There were varied and complex contacts with the council ranging from planning enquiries, council tax enquiries and parking fines .
• The logo of the council was important for setting out the identity of the council. There was a need to be clear on the brand and what this means to everyone.

There had been a lot of work over the last year to create new support structure including:

Ø  The Haringey Here To Help [ welfare scheme] which  was one place to find information on welfare support.

Ø  Haringey Support Fund – which residents  can  get information on access to the Discretionary Housing Payments policy and Council Tax Reduction Scheme

Ø  Debt Partnership Board – This includes several partners and stakeholders who work together to support as much as possible the residents that are likely to face severe hardship.

Committee discussion included:

There was a question on the use of new IT system for parking permits which was useful as accessible online and worked well for people that have basic IT literacy. It was acknowledged  by the  committee that, new systems will have discrepancies that need to be resolved once starting to be used and the question was how quickly these discrepancies can be resolved with the contractor when they become apparent. In response, the Cabinet Member outlined resources to provide basic services and the previous identified need to invest the money in IT element of Parking services. In taking this service forward online, there was a good baseline of information on demand for parking permits and on this basis, the service had done well. The service had worked on the basis on 20% of customers needing assistance but this figure currently stood at 35%. The services had identified simple issues to fix which would improve this figure. There was a frustration that limit on parking permits being issued and this issue as well as others was being managed through the Customer Services Programme board as this involved four services, under different directorates. Therefore, important to note that an identified issue with the system could belong to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29