Agenda item

Councillor Rebecca Longbottom, Portfolio Holder for Customer Experience and Review :

a)    presented a report to Performance Scrutiny Committee covering the areas:

·         Customer Services

·         Audit Arrangements

·         Electoral and Democratic Services

·         ICT

·         Policy and Performance

o   Quarterly Performance Reporting

o   Annual Review of Performance Measures and Target Setting

o   External Audit on Performance Monitoring

·         Lincoln City Profile 2022/23

·         Census 2021

·         Project Management

·         Business Transformation

·         Website

·         Business Transformation – a Forward Look

b)    extended her thanks to the team of officers that supported her Portfolio for their hard work, dedication and commitment to supporting the residents of Lincoln.

c)    invited members’ comments and questions.

Question: Why had the number of individuals registered on the electoral register decreased from 62,292 in 2021/22 to 61,778 in 2022/23?

Response: An answer would be provided following the meeting.

Question:. Why had the number of staff in Lincoln City Councils Welfare Team been reduced whilst the size of North Kesteven’s Welfare team had increased given the demand that was placed on the service by City of Lincoln Council residents?

Response: The Welfare Team had not been reduced, there were some vacancies but recruitment was underway. There had been an increase in demand in Lincoln, however the work was spread across the whole of the shared services team.

Question: Was it possible to provide a more detailed breakdown of calls received for each service area?

Response: A breakdown was provided in the Performance measures but could be included in future within the body of this report.

Comment: The call waiting time in customer services was very good compared to other organisations.

Question: There were issues with recruitment in the Audit Team. Had officers looked at how other councils successfully recruited, and could we learn from this?  Was it possible to use apprenticeships or similar schemes to ‘grow our own’?

Response: These suggestions would be discussed with Officers to ensure that they had been explored. The work in the Audit Team was being covered appropriately in order to meet the requirements of the Council.  

Question: Residents may not know what type of ID was required to vote. Could the council do more to ensure that residents were informed of the correct ID?

Response: Agreed that more advertising could be done, this would be discussed with Officers.

Question: There was a  financial impact of having team vacancies and reliance on agency staff.  Was there a plan in place to meet the long-term costs associated with this, if the Council continued to struggle to recruit?
Response: An answer would be provided following the meeting.

Question: Would the common risks identified via the combined assurance work be monitored to reduce the risk to the Council?
Response: Common risks were identified as part of the strategic risk register. This monitored the risks and set out the work that would be undertaken to address them.

Comment Long term vacancies had an impact on the Medium Term Financial Strategy if posts were filled with temporary agency staff.

Question: A recent visit tool place to observe the customer contact centre. The Customer Service Advisors did an excellent job at handling the calls, however one call was received about a letter that had been sent out by a different department that the contact centre were unaware of and therefore could not fully answer the query. Had processes been put in place to address this issue?
Response: A document was being drafted to advise departments to liaise with customer services if they were expecting to receive a number of calls on a particular matter. Service areas often did contact customer services in advance, however, the document would improve processes to ensure that customer services could fully respond to queries.

Question: Was the Council being rewarded for taking part in the beta testing for the changes to the electoral registration system?
Response: An answer would be provided following the meeting.

Question: Was a Service Level Agreement with service providers in place to manage security risks in relation to cloud migration within the ICT Strategy?

Response: This was addressed on a system by system basis, and robust contracts were in place for each system.

Question: Had the ICT Disaster Recovery Plan been tested as recommended by the Audit Committee.
Response: A table top exercise would be undertaken in due course.

Question: Was the data set within the Lincoln City Profile compared with the Census for accuracy?
Response: Each data set within the Lincoln City Profile showed the source of the information. The most recent source was from the Census 2021. We could look at some other data sets to triangulate the information. It would be a  worthwhile exercise for comparison.

Comment: There had been an increase in the number of complaints in relation to parking. It was important to continue to learn lessons from the complaints and to ensure that they were incorporated into processes.
Response: Recommendations made from complaints were monitored by the Departmental Management Teams. A section on complaints could be incorporated in future into the body of this report.

RESOLVED that the report be noted with thanks.