Issue - meetings

The Customer Service, Complaints and Standards Manager explained the report was to provide information on the Council’s performance in relation to its customer service standards.

For the Revenues & Benefits Telephone line, the target for ‘direct dial’ Revenues incoming calls to be answered within 20 seconds was 60%; for Q4 2023/24 this was 84% and the cumulative performance for 2023/24 was 79% - both exceeding the target.  The target for ‘direct dial’ Benefits incoming calls to be answered within 20 seconds was 78%; for Q4 2023/24 this was 93% and cumulative performance for 2023/24 was 92% - both exceeding the target.

For the Contact Centres telephone line, the target for incoming calls to be answered within 20 seconds was 75%; for Q4 2023/24 this was 75% and the cumulative performance for 2023/24 was 80% - on or exceeding the target.

For E-mails, target 1 was for 100% of emails to be acknowledged within 1 working day, and for target 2 for 100% to be replied to within 8 working days.  For Q4 2023/24, 8,804 email enquiries from the public were received through enquiries@bolsover.gov.uk; all were acknowledged within one working day; and 100% were replied to in full within 8 working days cumulatively for Q4 2023/24.

For Live Chat, which remained a relatively new service, the target was 75% of incoming Live Chats to be answered within 20 seconds.  Contact Centres achieved 91% for Q4 2023/24 and the cumulatively performance for 2023/24 was 93% - both exceeding the target.

It was noted for E-mails and Live Chat, handling these communications took longer on average than traditional methods.

For the Corporate Telephone Standard, the total received calls to the authority (direct dial internal/external), the target was 93% to be answered within 20 seconds. Cumulatively, performance was 87% for 2023/24 – below target.  For incoming calls not answered, cumulative performance was 10% for 2023/24 – above the target of 5%.

For Compliments, a total of 55 written compliments were received during Q4 2023/24.  For Comments, 12 were received and 100% of these were acknowledged and passed to their respective departments within the target time of 3 working days.  For Stage 1 Complaints, a total of 45 were recorded – Customer Information System had 33, Open Housing Repairs system had 12 – for Q4 2023/24, 89% of which were responded to within the Council’s customer standard of 3 working days.  For Stage 2 Complaints and M.P. enquiries, 26 formal complaints were registered in Q4 2023/24 42 M.P. enquiries during the same period – 100% Stage 2 Complaints and 100% M.P. enquiries were responded to within 15 working days.  For Stage 3 Complaints, 9 were received and all responded to within 20 working days.  1 Ombudsman Complaint was received in Q4 2023/24, but no fault was found by the Housing Ombudsman.

The Chair noted there were clearly some obstacles present, with more needing to be done, but thanked the team for their very good work.

Mover by Councillor Vicky Wapplington and seconded by Councillor Louise Fox  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8

The Customer Service, Complaints & Standards Manager presented the Q3 report to Members on performance in relation to the Council’s Customer Service Standards and the effective management of complaints.

The Committee were referred to Appendix 1 of the document, which listed the following: 80% of incoming calls for Revenues being achieved, above the target of 65%;  91% of Benefits calls being achieved, above that target of 78%; 100% of emails acknowledged in 1 working day; 99.7% of emails replied to within 8 working days, with 19 replied over that time; 78% of 15,976 incoming calls being answered within 20 seconds, above the 75% target; and 96% incoming Live Chats being answered within 20 seconds, above the 75% target.  These figures were for Q3.

Future reports would include data from the Leisure and Revenues and Benefits Departments, as these have their own directories and BDC needs to meet the Corporate Plan target.

The Committee were referred to Appendix 2 of the document which showed the performance for Q3 of unanswered calls, with 6% of incoming calls direct to service areas not being answered, though this was within the 10% target.  Departments meeting or exceeding this target included Finance and Accountancy, Audit, Revenues and Benefits, Joint ICT, Planning and Joint Environmental Health.

The Customer Service, Complaints & Standards Manager noted that a reminder to promote the 01246 242424 would be beneficial as the main customer contact, rather than individual officer direct dial extensions, to assist with meeting the target of 93% of calls being answered in 20 seconds; the figure for Q3 stood at 83%.

The Committee were referred to Appendix 3, which showed the number of written compliments received for the period by department: 69 compliments had been received; 9 comments had been made; and 63 complaints had been recorded during Q3.

1 Ombudsman complaint had been received for Q3, but a decision not to investigate was made as there had not been enough evidence to justify any fault in the way the Council had acted.

The Chair noted a lot of the targets were being made and surpassed, though work needed to continue to improve the Council’s services; it was important to catch the calls to direct lines, as this was where most of the complaints were being directed.  The Customer Service, Complaints & Standards Manager agreed, stating it was important to ensure staff had access to the softphone system to enable answering calls reliably from home.

Moved by Councillor Rita Turner and seconded by Councillor Amanda Davis

RESOLVED that the report be noted.