Agenda item

Cllr Chris Burke, Portfolio for Customer Experience and Review, presented a report to Performance Scrutiny Committee:

a)    highlighted the progress made within the following areas:

-       High Performing Services

-       Customer Services

-       Customer Experience Strategy and Creating Value Processes

-       Business Development & Information Technology

-       Audit Arrangements

-       Electoral Activity

b)    gave a performance overview of the following:

-       General Performance

-       Local Performance Management Framework (LPMF)

-       New Performance and Information Management System (PIMS)

-       Quarterly Performance Reporting

-       Lincoln City Profile (LCP)

-       Lincoln Project Management Model (LPMM)

-       Complaints against the Council

c)    he invited members’ comments and questions.

Question: Members asked what assurance was given from Mazars that the Audit reporting would not be delayed again?

Response: CX met with managers at Mazars regarding the late reporting and she had been assured that this would not happen again.

Question: Members asked for further information on what services could be accessed online and if there was anything to promote eforms, how many emails had been received in Customer Services and what steps were being taken to save on postage for the authority?

Response: Officers were trying to make more services digital. Calls received from customers were mainly due to Housing Repairs as this service was not available online currently. Emails were not a practical form of communication as they don’t necessarily contain all the information needed to process the service needed but a phone call did. Officers wanted to move customer to a forms system which would ask the customer all the information that was needed for that service/query. This system would then email the customer once this had been processed. Postage for the authority had been looked at for years and was still being pushed to make expenditure cheaper.

Question: Members commented that complaints had decreased, what the main subject for complaints was and what the nature was of the upheld complaint?

Response:  The ombudsman complaint was regarding wheelie bins being left out on the street which was not upheld. Complaints were reported into Departmental DMT’s on a quarterly basis. Most complaints made were regarding Council Tax, Housing Repairs and wheelie bins not being emptied.

Comment. Members commented that the wheelie bins being left out once emptied could be a trip hazard due to the street lights being turned off at night.

Question: Members asked if the project funded by MHCLG’s Local Digital Collaboration Fund, with other authorities to enable Council Tenants to book repairs online had been trialled?

Response: If the service was to go digital then what this would look like has been scoped. Tenders were being looked at  and would be funded by Central Government.

Question: Members asked how value for money was measured so that it could be scrutinised for Performance Scrutiny Committee?

Response: This was being measured in three ways:

-       online transactions

-       streamlining internal processes

-       supporting the ‘One Council’ programme

One Council would be part of the Vision 2025 in the future and focused towards the customer.

Question: Members asked what areas the mobile working pilots were in?

Response: The first pilot was with Housing Officers to see what work they could complete when they are out visiting residents. The Second pilot is with office based staff and how technology could help them.

Question: Members asked whether portfolio Holder responsibilities were being looked at as part of Vision 2025.

Response: Portfolio Holder responsibilities would be reviewed.

Question: Members asked whether officers wanted to comment on the time taken to answer calls?

Response: An electronic questionnaire had been sent out along with the Citizens Panel questionnaire, asking what the appropriate time to wait for a call to be answered was. The information from this was being evaluated and would be circulated once it was available. The online forms system needed to be promoted more rather than email as a form of communication as forms were processed straight away.

RESOLVED that the content of the report be noted.