The Director of Finance presented the annual update on the work of the Customer Services teams, who provided the main access channels to services provided by the Council in line with the Customer Access Strategy. A wide range of training and development enabled most enquiries to be resolved on first contact with the Council, either on a face to face basis, by telephone or via the web. Work with departments was undertaken to identify efficiencies and improve their processes to ensure that the customer facing element of the service was transparent and was easily accessed.

The Director provided details of performance monitoring in relation to the Call Centre and One Stop Shops and commented that although the trend showed an improvement in 2009/2010, performance had been affected in the current year as a result of a surge in customer enquiries related to adverse weather conditions in December 2009 and January 2010.

He reported that a peer review exercise was currently underway to assess awareness of, and performance against, the Corporate Customer Care Standards. He commented that should the exercise identify the need for further training and awareness initiatives he would review what additional supporting resources were required, as it was imperative that the customer standards endorsed by the Council were acted upon by all staff so that members of the public could be assured of a consistent level of service. Customer surveys, a focus group and a mystery shopping exercise contributed to the improvement of service delivery and he commented that the Audit Commission Access to Services inspection team had ranked provision of services at two stars, on a scale of zero to three stars, with promising prospects for improvement. Building on this positive assessment, the Authority had continued to progress the recommendations to ensure that services were provided in ways that customers wanted. Compliance had also been achieved with the standards for both Charter Mark and Investors in People. In response to a comment from a Member, the Director proposed to present a report to a future meeting in relation to the Customer Focus Group.

He reported that the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system was used to record, progress and analyse customer feedback, excluding statutory complaints in Adult Social Services and Children’s Social Care and the challenge was to consistently record and respond to feedback received across all Council departments. The reporting period 2009/2010 showed a 5% increase in corporate complaints received over the previous 12 months, compared to a 22% increase reported in 2008/2009.  He commented that a single issue again dominated the 2009/2010 complaint figures (as with the Strategic Asset Review in 2008/2009) with the adverse weather conditions experienced in quarter 4 affecting delivery of key services such as refuse collection, which recorded 359 stage 1 complaints in January 2010. The annual report of complaint handling was presented to the Standards Committee on 21 June 2010 (minute 4 refers).

As the Audit Commission outlined in the Access to Services report, the Director indicated that it was the cutting edge approach to working with others where customers benefited most significantly and he provided details of partner agencies and community networks working with One Stop Shops and the Call Centre. In response to a question from a Member, the Director indicated that staff received significant levels of training in relation to work with other agencies.

Resolved –

(1)  That the thanks of the Committee be accorded to the officers for the comprehensive Annual Report, and the high levels of customer service be noted.

(2)  That a further report be presented to a future meeting of the Committee in relation to the work undertaken by the Customer Focus Group.