Agenda item

Stuart Young – Assistant Chief Executive – introduced the report as set out.

NOTED:

·               The report was an outline of the business case – the full business case would be presented to Cabinet in Spring 2014.  A range of costs and options were provided in the report, although the IT procurement had not been fully costed.

·               The decision to be taken by Cabinet in November was not a key decision – the key decision would follow in the budget papers for capital / revenue funding, which would form part of the budget scrutiny process.

·               The primary drive for the project was to enable residents to access all possible services.  Support would be provided to those currently unable to access online services.

·               Four options were presented at page 5 of the report.

Mr Young, Catherine Galvin and Kieron McQuade responded to questions from the Committee:

·               At the start of the project, ten local authorities and public sector providers were visited.  If Members wished to do so, a visit could be arranged to see how the customer services programme worked in other areas.

·               The programme was about changing the way that the Council worked.  Processes would be re-designed so that specialist staff would be answering telephone calls.  This should result in telephone queries being dealt with in either one phone call, or being transferred to the correct department immediately.

·               A residents panel had been set up to look at the whole programme.  The initial participants were drawn from people who had made a complaint to the Council.  There was further work needed to ensure that those who are not so vocal could participate.

·               Following the resident panels there would be wider consultation.

·               It was noted that Members were a good contact point into the community.

·               It was important to remember that the Council had good staff – but the programme was about the ‘end to end’ experience, and staff needed the tools in order to do this.

·               The programme was not at the stage for knowing physical locations of hubs.  This would be a broader conversation at a later stage.

·               Redundancy costs had not been included in the costings because it was difficult to assess how much redundancy payments would be, as it was different for different staff members.

·               The procurement process would be transparent and could be brought to OSC should Members wish.

·               A good example for the programme was Wigan Council.  There were 14 partner services working out of one building, and all issues were tracked using one system.

·               The importance of getting buy-in from residents was noted, including ensuring documents were made accessible to them.

·               The aim was not to form a digital and non-digital queue.  No one who made contact would be turned away.  However, there was a possibility that in the future, some services would become online only.

·               There would be a digital overarching offer to cover all transactional processes.  There would also be an offer of telephone or face to face interaction.  Where possible, people would be helped into using the online services.

·               The new online services would provide customers with a personalised account, where they would be able to track reports and the progress.  The importance of ownership by Officers dealing with issues was noted on the basis that the information provided in a residents account would only be as useful if it was up to date.

·               Discussions had taken place with other partners, such as the Department of Work and Pensions, and Job Centre Plus.  However, these discussions had largely dried up due to the situation with Universal Credit.  It was acknowledged that this should be kick started again.

·               In terms of partnership working it was felt that advice agencies were a good place to start. 

·               Libraries were a good space to use, although it was accepted that it was important to make sure that it did not become a customer services centre, and that people would still be able to use it as a library, which included a quiet area for people to study.

·               Barking and Dagenham were a good example of a successful customer service centre and would be a good place for OSC members to visit, should they wish to.

·               It was also accepted that there was a hard to reach group of customers who could not speak or read English.  There could be facilities available for online translation.  In general there was a wider policy debate needed by the Council in terms of translation services provided.

·               Stuart Young outlined three area which OSC could add value in:

-partnership debate

-inclusion debate

-a specific focus on one of the pathways which OSC could then make recommendations on.

Councillor Winskill proposed that the Chair write to Cabinet to suggest:

·         That a project based web page, containing key project documents, is set up to allow people to understand what was happening and make comments and suggestions on the programme.

·         To request further clarity on how the less abled were going to be identified and supported to access services.

·         To ask the Cabinet for clarity on their commitment to partnership working and what they have already done to ensure compatibility of systems and joint provision of services.

·         To ask for that their commitment delegating authority to Customer Services Operatives to allow them to make decisions at the front line is implemented as soon as new processes are agreed and, if possible in advance of the full roll out of the programme.

·         For further information on the residents' engagement strategy for the Customer Services Transformation project.

The Chair agreed to contact the Leader to request to speak at the Cabinet meeting on 12 November 2013.

Actions

·               Members to advise Stuart Young of any requests for site visits, via Scrutiny.

ACTION: Melanie Ponomarenko / Stuart Young

·               To provide the Committee with a copy of the operating model.

ACTION: Stuart Young

·               To send the Committee milestones for the project and opportunities for the Committee to further engage with the process.

ACTION: Stuart Young

·               An email to be sent to all Councillors who may have local residents interested in being involved in the resident panels.

ACTION: Stuart Young

RESOLVED to note the report.