Minutes:
*O&S(I) 16
At the request of the Committee Chairman, the Group Manager – Customer First was in attendance to provide an update on the service areas which were contained within Customer First.
In so doing, reference was made to:-
(a) Customer Services. With the aid of a paper outlining performance comparisons for 2014-15, the Group Manager commented that she was of the view that Customer Services had now turned a corner and overall performance was improving. The paper also highlighted that:
o call volumes had dramatically increased (by 12%), largely as a consequence of the service now receiving the Development Management Service telephone calls;
o one third of staff were currently temporary and in training;
o 70% of calls were being answered, with 35% of these being answered within 20 seconds. However, 30% of callers were also experiencing a greater than 7 minute wait to have their call answered;
o the self-service portal on the website was absolutely critical to the effectiveness of the service. Once it was in place and operational, more customers would be able to self-serve and therefore the number of calls into the Council would be reduced.
In the drive to reduce instances of failure demand, officers informed that such calls had recently started to be logged and this was seen to be a key workstream for Customer Services.
Some Members expressed their concerns that 30% of calls were not being answered.
To address the capacity issues in Customer Services, officers were currently seeking the approval of the HR Panel to increase the staff numbers in this area by 3 full time equivalent posts.
When informed that officers did signpost customers to other agencies and the website (where appropriate), some Members felt that there was scope to also direct callers to ‘My Devon’ which was a service provided by Devon County Council. In response, officers confirmed that they would follow this matter up and report back in due course.
Whilst still in its infancy, there was a general appreciation for the initiative whereby a Member Direct Dial telephone number into the Council had been established for the exclusive use of Members.
(b) Locality Working. It was noted that the locality model had got off to a good start and there had already been a number of instances of success stories.
With regard to locality officers attending a meeting of each town and parish council to introduce themselves, a Member felt it to be regrettable that this was not going to happen as a matter of course. Following a lengthy debate, officers informed that locality officers would be in attendance during the Town and Parish Council Event on 1 September 2015 and they would also give more consideration to the issue of raising their profile amongst the town and parish councils;
(c) Housing Advice and Housing Benefits. The Committee was advised that whilst both services were performing reasonably well, the Transformation Programme Phase 2 recruitment process was likely to have a significant impact in the upcoming months;
(d) Council Tax. In light of the backlog of work increasing, Members were informed that the service was focusing on its newest work to ensure that the backlog did not increase further. Due to the sheer volume of work, officers stated that some staff were working weekends in an attempt to reduce the backlog;
(e) Business Rates. There were no service issues identified in respect of Business Rates;
(f) Planning. Whilst there would not be a qualified planning officer in the Okehampton Drop-in office for four weeks during the summer, there would be an officer on site who had extensive experience of working within the planning department. As a consequence, officers were confident that she would be able to deal with the bulk of planning queries raised.
The Committee noted that the number of planning applications received remained fairly constant, but there were 76 which still awaited processing. Planning advice related work had now been transferred to Follaton House, Totnes and planning staff were also working additional hours to deal with the current workload. To also help with the volume of work, the councils had now successfully recruited four new permanent planning officers and were still using Plymouth City Council to help with the registering of planning applications.
Members felt that the average time taken to register planning applications was far too long and this view was acknowledged by officers, who commented that their current focus was on the front end of the planning process.
(g) Planning Enforcement. There were currently 191 live enforcement cases in the Borough and these were being picked up by shared officers, who would ultimately be supported (once trained) by the locality officers. Officers informed that this number was constant with the number of live cases back in 2012. A Member queried this point and expressed his view that the number of enforcement issues were on the increase and the figures were only constant in light of the amount of cases which had run out of time and had therefore dropped off the system;
(h) Assets. The Assets service was still in the process of recruiting and, in addition to its already hefty workload, was also supporting the leisure centre procurement exercise;
(i) Environmental Health. The Committee was notified that the software migration exercise was now complete;
(j) Customer First vacancies. For clarity, the Group Manager stated that there were currently 15 vacancies in the Customer First service;
(k) the administrative base for the Programme being located at Follaton House. Whilst accepting that this decision was taken by the previous council, some Members wished to put on record their concerns at the implications of this decision and the consequent lack of fixed base staff who were located at Kilworthy Park. In response, the Head of Paid Services made reference to the agile working agenda being an underpinning principle of the Programme and it being his ethos that it did not matter where officers were situated and it was more crucial that the work was being completed and to a good standard. Furthermore, if the Council took the decision to revisit where the administrative base was located, then this would have significant budgetary implications on both the Programme and the Council;
(l) Customer Satisfaction. As part of the Task and Finish Group review into performance measures, it was felt that the way that the Council obtained its customer’s views would be absolutely critical;
(m) the Committee Work Programme. In light of Members not wishing to lose sight of the performance of Customer Services and the Development Management Service, it was requested that updates be scheduled on to the next meeting agenda on 6 October 2015.
It was then:
RESOLVED
That the Customer First update be noted.