Agenda and minutes

Venue: The Jeffrey Room, The Guildhall, St. Giles Square, Northampton, NN1 1DE. View directions

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies

Members to note any apologies and substitution.

Minutes:

There were none.

2.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 128 KB

Members to approve the minutes of the meeting held on 5th January 2012.

Minutes:

The minutes of the meeting held on 5th January 2012 were approved and signed by the Chairman.

3.

Deputations/Public Addresses

The Chair to note public address requests.

 

The public can speak on any agenda item for a maximum of three minutes per speaker per item.  You are not required to register your intention to speak in advance but should arrive at the meeting a few minutes early, complete a Public Address Protocol and notify the Scrutiny Officer of your intention to speak.

Minutes:

There were none.

4.

Declarations of Interest ( Including Whipping)

Members to state any interests

Minutes:

County Councillor Marion Minney, co optee declared an interest as an elected Member of Northamptonshire County Council in the potential mystery shopping evaluating the performance of partners.

5.

Baseline data pdf icon PDF 178 KB

The Scrutiny Panel to receive the following baseline data:

 

            Statistics

            Targets

            Call times

            Performance Indicator data

            Mystery shopping data

Customer Excellence Strategy 2009 – 2012

Surgeries available at Northampton Borough Council’s

One Stop Shop.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Scrutiny Panel considered data on

 

One Stop Shop Performance

Customer Contact Centre Performance

Performance Indicators

Mystery Shopping Exercise March/April 2010

Customer Excellence Strategy 2009-2012

 

The main points of discussion were as follows: -

 

Mystery Shopping Exercise March/April 2010

 

The Panel considered that the mystery shopping exercise should be repeated and that in order to achieve consistency the same questions should be used.

They were advised that the Northamptonshire Customer Services Group had just been re-established so the different members would be able to mystery shop each other.

 

The Panel felt that the Northampton Leisure Trust should be included in the mystery shopping.

 

 

Customer Excellence Strategy 2009-2012

 

The Panel commented that the Customer Excellence Strategy needed updating; to reflect the fact that there was no longer a separate site at Cliftonville and also the implementation of the Leisure Trust. They were assured that this is currently being progressed.

 

Customer Contact Centre Performance

 

The Panel considered that it would be useful to be able to listen in to some live and some recorded calls when it undertook its site visit to the One Stop Shop and Customer Contact Centre. They considered that an emphasis should be placed on what happened when the calls were passed on to various different service departments.

 

The Panel was also interested to establish whether staff felt that they were adequately supported by the technology. Certain service areas, such as Planning handle their own calls; they are not routed through the contact centre.

 

The Panel requested budget data, which will be available at a later meeting.

 

AGREED: - That the baseline data be accepted as part of the evidence base informing the Scrutiny Panel’s Review.

6.

Core Questions - Expert Witnesses.

The Scrutiny Panel to devise a list of core questions to be put to the expert witnesses.

 

            Portfolio Holder (Community Engagement)

            Leader of the Council

            Director of Finance and Support, NBC

            Customer Services Manager, NBC

            Director, Enterprise Management Services (EMS)

            Director, Northampton Leisure Trust

Service Users and Residents’ Association Focus Group

Minutes:

The Scrutiny Panel considered a list of core questions to be put to the expert witnesses.

 

The Panel considered that the Head of Planning and the Director of Housing should be included on the list of expert witnesses. These services had not used the contact centre, but managed their own calls although the Housing service was moving across. It was suggested that the Head of Planning and the Head of Housing NBC, be asked to provide responses to the Panel’s core questions.

 

It was also suggested that the facilitator who had run the recent Councillor Development Session “Technology- Making IT work for Customers “ be asked to be an expert witness to provide evidence to inform this Review.

 

The Panel considered the draft core questions, providing comment and wording for additional questions.

 

These were centred around: -

 

·             What happened when the call left the call centre for the service area?

·             Whether staff felt that the technology and equipment was adequate.

·             What could be done to encourage more customers to use other methods of contacting the Council, for example E-mail or telephone rather than face to face visits. This would be cheaper and free up additional staff resources for face to face customers.

·             What support is available for face to face customers that are very distressed and whether there is adequate privacy available and what support is available for the officers that deal with these cases? Is special training available to them?

·             How do we let people know about the services provided at the One Stop Shop by partner agencies?

·             Do we need to look at signage into the One Stop Shop?

·             How should Councillors be feeding into the reporting mechanism?

·             How are out of hours contacts received and monitored?

·             How do we as an organisation learn from past experiences, complaints?

·             How do service requests get prioritised?

 

The finalised core questions are attached at Appendix 1.

 

 

AGREED: 1.That  additional expert witnesses to inform this Review, as stated above, be approved.

2 That the Core questions to be put to key witnesses be approved, as attached as Appendix 1

7.

Site Visits

The Scrutiny Panel to confirm its site visits to:

 

            Internal customer services at NBC

            Sample of departments within NBC, including the Gateway Project

            Enterprise Management Service (EMS)

            Northampton Leisure Trust

Local Authority external to Northamptonshire and private sector contact centre

           

           

Minutes:

The Scrutiny Panel was informed of the arrangements for site visits to:

 

·             Local Authority external to Northamptonshire- visit to Rugby Borough Council customer Services at 10am on Monday 20th February. Councillor Meredith   will lead, all Councillors attending to confirm arrangements with the Scrutiny Officer.

 

·             Internal customer services and contact centre – Thursday 1st March at 3pm prior to the Panel meeting that evening.

 

·             Northampton Leisure Trust – Thursday 8th March Danes Camp at 10.00am.

 

·             Sample of departments within NBC, including the Guildhall Office, Revenues and Benefits, Housing and Planning – Wednesday 21st March at 3pm prior to the Panel meeting that evening.

 

Arrangements have still to be finalised with Enterprise Management Service (EMS).

           

For a private sector perspective, the Scrutiny Officer has contacted a company called Contact Plus who runs customer services programmes, some of which have been awarded best practice status. Amongst their clients are Ford First and a number of Housing Associations. The Scrutiny Officer will try to arrange a visit but if that is not practical then a representative of Ford First had indicated that he would be willing to attend a meeting of the Panel to share best practice.

 

AGREED That the site visits as detailed above be confirmed.

8.

Draft Equality Impact Assessment pdf icon PDF 202 KB

The Scrutiny Panel to approve the draft Equality Impact Assessment for this Review.

Minutes:

The Scrutiny Panel considered the draft Equality Impact Assessment for the Customer Services Review.

 

AGREED ; That subject to the changes to the key witnesses and core questions that had been agreed during the meeting the draft Equality Impact Assessment for the Customer Services Review be approved.