Agenda item

The Panel considered written responses from the Heads of Strategic Housing, Landlord Services and Planning.

The Head of Strategic Housing, Head of Planning and Planning Administrative Officer also addressed the Panel.

The main points of discussion were as follows:-

Housing

·             Public perceptions of how they were dealt with within the service area are vital. Irrespective of whether people receive the outcome that they want they should feel that best efforts have been made to help them.

·             Managing customer expectations of out of hours services.

·             With regard to Housing it was likely that people would have a different customer service if they were a tenant. Tenants are issued with handbooks giving them details of contact numbers and procedures and would be unlikely to be visitors to the One Stop Shop.

·             Service requests are divided into Emergency, urgent and routine. Emergency would be dealt with on the same day .

·             Out of Hours contact goes through the CORE Care handling service. The Service also handles calls from sheltered housing residents, those calls would take priority, although people could leave a message and they would be phoned back. Out of hours services would only classify a repair request as an emergency if there was a threat to life. An example given regarding tenants who had no water should have been treated as urgent, but would not have been seen as an emergency needing a visit that night.

·             It was agreed that the Head of Strategic Housing would provide Panel members with details of the criteria used to assess urgency of need. It was accepted that there might be an issue regarding managing peoples expectations of service. Emergency work is more expensive and therefore it is a better use of resources if as much work as possible takes place on a planned schedule.

·             Other housing customers, i.e the homeless, rough sleepers, tenants requesting right to buy will be more likely to access services via the One Stop Shop. Some of these visits can be very challenging for members of staff and disruptive to other customers.  The current economic climate has made things more difficult and there are a number of changes to benefits being implemented which will mean that more people will be seeking help. Queries already need to be prioritised.

Planning

·             When a member of the public calls the Planning service they will be given a number of options i.e Development Control, duty Planning Officer. Any calls coming into the Contact Centre would be diverted to the Planning system. Numbers of calls and responses times are monitored.

·             There is a designated Planning are within the One Stop Shop, this is not manned by Planning staff, but the floor walker should direct people to that area if required and advise them of who they need to see.

·             Members complained that they had difficulties in contacting Planning Officers. It was emphasised that Planning Officers spend a lot of time out of the office but that there were duty officers who were available between 8.30am- 5pm.

·             Both the Head of Planning and the Head of Strategic Housing stated that they had not been aware of complaints that duty officers were not available when requested. Members need to ensure that complaints made by Members are recorded properly. Many times a Member is acting for one of their constituents who have contacted them in frustration.

·             Members of the public are more reassured if they feel they are receiving a friendly and consistent approach.

·             Members of the Panel will be visiting Housing and Planning Services and will have an opportunity to meet duty officers.