Agenda item

Purpose: To present the work undertaken by the Customer Journey Task and Finish Group and their final recommendations.

Councillor James Cole presented the Customer Journey Task and Finish Group report (Agenda Item 7).

The following points were raised in the debate:

·         Members raised an issue with customers being able to find the Council’s main telephone number on the website and pointed out that some people still needed to use the phone or needed an urgent response. It was noted that it was easier to find the Council’s number through a Google search than on the Council’s own website.

·         The Task Group was commended for its report and Members asked where it would go next. It was confirmed that the report would go to Executive. The report contained 42 recommendations, of which 14 were a high priority.

·         Members suggested that there was an ongoing need to consider the customer journey. Although it would be up to the administration to set up the appropriate groups to coordinate this, the Scrutiny Commission could look at this again in future to see what had changed.

·         Councillor James Cole was praised for his role in chairing the Task and Finish Group and the other Members were thanked for their contributions.

·         Members stressed that recommendations given a medium priority ranking should not be forgotten. It was suggested that quick wins should be identified for early implementation to give confidence that changes were being made.

·         It was suggested that any new IT systems should be subjected to extensive beta testing before going live.

·         Officers highlighted that the customer journey was never perfect. Although the Council generally provided good service, there were pockets of poor performance that needed to be addressed, but significant steps had been made in the right direction:

o   The Customer Charter had been approved.

o   A Planning Customer Charter would be going to Planning Advisory Group for consideration.

o   Training would be provided for officers on customer care.

o   The website was constantly being updated and improved.

o   It was recognised that some services needed to be transformed in order to improve efficiency – a report to Full Council would set out how resources would be provided to facilitate that.

·         It was confirmed that an action plan would be developed on the back of the report’s recommendations.

·         It was noted that the terms of reference were very wide and Members were reminded of some of the reasons for this. In particular, the Task Group had been asked to consider emerging issues affecting the Out of Hours service. An interim report had been presented to OSMC, which had focused on that aspect. The remainder of the terms of reference related to office hours services.

·         Members were pleased that a customer charter had been adopted, since this helped to secure employee buy-in to improvements.

·         It was highlighted that certain officers had complained about the depth of the analysis undertaken by the Task Group, but Members considered that this was the role of scrutiny.

·         Following the May 2023 election, the new administration would be asked to consider and implement the recommendations. It was suggested that OSMC should review progress after March 2024.

·         Members acknowledged that the Council’s performance was good compared to other local authorities, but stressed that there was still room for improvement.

·         It was noted that the report had highlighted issues with the Task and Finish Group achieving a quorum with just four Members. However, increasing the size of Task and Finish Groups to six members would be unworkable if two reviews were undertaken in parallel.

RESOLVED to:

a)    refer the Customer Journey Task and Finish Group’s recommendations to Executive for consideration; and

b)    agree that the Overview and Scrutiny Management Commission keeps the issue of the Customer Journey under review, with reference to the work of the Customer First Programme Board (or its successor), and invites annual updates on progress in implementing the report’s recommendations.