Agenda item

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Customer Services and Culture introduced the report as set out. 

The following arose as a result of the discussion of the report.

a.    Residents were still able to resolve issues via telephone.  The Council received around 2000 telephone calls per day on average, of which 80-85% were responded to. There was also a call back option in place.

b.    Over 40% of the 108k households in the borough had signed up to My Account. My Account included a digital platform with application functionality, so that people could interact with Council services through their mobile device.

c.    The Committee enquired how management were minimising the impact on staff  from working in what could be quite a stressful environment. Officers responded that they acknowledged the need to balance customer demand and ensuring that staff had adequate breaks. Officers advised that a structured approach to staff breaks had been adopted to offset spikes in demand at peak periods. Officers also advised that staff working in the customer services centres were not eligible for flexi-leave.

d.    The Committee expressed concerns with the absence of equalities comments in the report.

e.    Officers acknowledged that the original target of 90% of households signing up to the My Account online portal by March 2017 was a very ambitious target. It was anticipated that there would be 45k households signed up by the end of the financial year, and 70k signed up within 12 months was considered an ambitious but realistic expectation. The Council was currently averaging around 700 sign-ups per week since December.

f.     In response to a question on what the potential service offer was for the refurbishment of Hornsey library, officers advised that there were no plans to offer a face-to-face contact centre but they would be looking at potentially developing a technology based platform, such as self service kiosks.

g.    Officers acknowledged the Committee’s concerns around the impact of the customer service centre at Wood Green on the functioning of the building as a library, and advised that they would be looking at refurbishing the building to better utilise the space and develop a more flexible service offer.

h.    In terms of what had been successful, officers advised that there had been significant positive feedback around the centrality of the customer service centre locations and that residents appreciated having tickets with estimated waiting times. The Committee was also advised of a partnership agreement with Shelter which involved the organisation having a presence in the library two days a week and Council staff being able to direct and make appointments with Shelter. Officers commented that some likely next steps would include evolving the appointments approach and the roll out of hand held devices for floor walking staff.

i.      The Chair acknowledged the reasons behind waiting times that were outlined in the report as well as the improvements that had been made, and also welcomed the introduction of temporary staff to alleviate demand pressure further.

j.      The Committee asked where management would like the service to be in the next six months and what would be perceived as a successful benchmark for performance.  In response, officers advised that the UCCX platform upgrade had been implemented and that staff were now working from one single telephony platform, which also included additional functionality for back office process. In terms of where the service wanted to be, the Committee was advised  that self service technology would dramatically cut blockages in the system. Officers advised that going forwards, consideration would have to be given as which services the Council wanted to concentrate its face-to-face offer on.

k.    Historically the best performance achieved by the Council was 62% of all customers seen within 20 minutes  and that performance for last year was 61%.Officers advised that maintaining this performance level would be seen as successful given the amount of savings made and the reduction in staff levels.

l.      The AD for Customer Services agreed to feed back to the Committee on the timescales involved in the 3 task & finish groups that had been established around the customer service offer in regards to HfH, parking and benefits. (Action: Andy Briggs).

m.   The Committee requested that a further update on the Customer Service Transformation be brought back to the Committee in six months’ time.The Committee also requested that the update include information pertaining to the £2.3m capital investment in libraries, particularly around the process and timescales involved. (Action: Andy Briggs/Clerk).

RESOLVED

      I.        The Committee noted the report