Agenda and minutes

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no urgent items of business.

Members should declare the existence and nature of any Disclosable Pecuniary Interest and Non Statutory Interest as defined by the Members’ Code of Conduct in respect of:

a)  any business on the agenda

b)  any urgent additional items to be considered

c)  any matters arising out of those items and if appropriate, withdraw from the meeting at the relevant time.

Members were requested to declare the existence and nature of any disclosable pecuniary interests and/or other interests, not already on their register of interests, in any item on the agenda and withdraw from the meeting at the appropriate time.

There were no declarations of interest.

Minutes of a meeting held on Monday 3^rd August 2020

Moved by Councillor Rose Bowler and seconded by Councillor Rita Turner

RESOLVED that the Minutes of a Customer Service and Transformation Scrutiny Committee held on 3^rd August 2020 be approved as a correct record.

(Members should contact the officer whose name appears on the List of

Key Decisions for any further information.  NB: If Members wish to discuss an exempt report under this item, the meeting will need to move into exempt business and exclude the public in accordance with the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 and Local Government Act 1972, Part 1, Schedule 12a for that part of the meeting only).

Committee considered the List of Key Decisions and items to be considered in private document.

Moved by Councillor Rose Bowler and seconded by Councillor David Dixon

RESOLVED that the List of Key Decisions and items to be considered in private document be noted.

Committee considered a report which provided information on the Council’s performance in relation to its customer service standards and effective management of complaints for the period 1^st October 2019 to 31^st March 2020 and the annual summary for 2019/20.

Customer Service Standards

Appendix 1 to the report provided a breakdown of the key customer service standards by quarterly period, together with the target and the cumulative performance for each standard.

Telephones - Target - 93% to be answered within 20 seconds

Appendix 2 to the report provided performance information between 1st October 2019 and 31st March 2020 by quarterly period.  The report identified that 98% (in both Quarter 3 and Quarter 4) of incoming calls were answered corporately within 20 seconds cumulatively.  The departments narrowly missing the key customer service standard of 93% for those periods were;

·         Housing and Community Safety 92% in Q3

·         Planning 92% in Q3.

Cumulatively, performance is 98% over 2019/20.

Contact Centres - Target - 80% of incoming calls to be answered within 20 seconds

Contact Centres achieved 80% and 76% for Q3 & 4 respectively (78% cumulatively).

Cumulatively performance was 78% over 2019/20, which fell just short of the target of 80%.

Revenues & Benefits - Target - 60% of incoming calls to be answered within 20 seconds

Revenues & Benefits ‘direct dial’ achieved 81% and 81% for Q3 & 4 respectively (81% cumulatively).

Cumulatively performance was 77% over 2019/20, which exceeded the target of 60%.

E-mails - Target 1 - 100% to be acknowledged within 1 working day and Target 2 - 100% to be replied to within 8 working days   

6,488 email enquiries (3,388 in Q3 and 3,100 in Q4) were received from the public through enquiries@bolsover.gov.uk - all were acknowledged within 1 working day and 99% were replied to in full within 8 working days.

Emailing remained the popular method of contacting the Council with more e-mails received by the public in the reporting period compared to the same period in 2018/19 of 4,798 emails.

Face to face monitoring - Target – 99% not kept waiting longer than 20 minutes at a Contact Centre

Waiting times were monitored for 1 week (w/c 15^th July 2019) in 2019/20 due to the Contact Centre being closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Of the 813 customers who called into the Contact Centres, 812 (99.9%) waited less than 20 minutes to be served.  This exceeded the corporate target and demonstrated excellent service.

During the same period, 199 callers were served on Meet & Greet at The Arc, bringing the total number of callers served during the monitoring period to 1012.

Compliments, Comments and Complaints

Compliments

Written compliments received for the period by department were set out at Appendix 3 (A) attached to the report.

In total 218 written compliments were received from customers who appreciated excellent service.  These included 44 for Leisure, 35 for Streetscene, 35 for Revenues & Benefits and 26 for Housing.  As some compliments cross cut departments, the number did not correspond with the  ...  view the full minutes text for item CUS14-20/21

Committee considered a report which provided information contained within the Annual Letter from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) 2019/20 which was appended to the report.

The LGSCO letter contained an annual summary of statistics on the complaints made about the Authority for the financial year ending 31^st March 2020.  Committee was asked to note that the data provided by the LGSCO may not align with the data the Council held as the LGSCO numbers included enquiries from people who had been signposted back to the Council by the LGSCO but then the enquirer(s) may have chosen not to pursue their complaint. 

Key points;

·         The LGSCO had received 11 enquiries and complaints during 2019/20, four of which were subject to a detailed investigation.

·         The LGSCO decided 16 complaints, of which 2 were incomplete or invalid, 8 were closed after initial enquiries, 2 were referred back to the Council and 3 were ‘no maladministration’.  The remaining one was decided as ‘maladministration and injustice’.  This was a particularly complex case and fault was found in the delays which occurred. 

Benchmarking information looking at close neighbouring authorities comparative figures was contained in the report or Committee’s information.

One complaint was upheld against the Council (25%) which may seem high but this was based on a small number on detailed investigations (4 in this period). 

The LGSCO had upheld 61% of complaints submitted to them in 2019/20 – this was an increase from 58% in 2018/19 with the average being 45% for similar authorities.

The Council also received 1 complaint via the Housing Ombudsman (HO), for the same period, which was also reviewed by them.  In both cases the decision was to ‘close the case and there was no maladministration’.

A Member noted the training courses referred to in the LGSCO letter and queried how many of the Council’s staff had attended courses to improve their skills.  The Customer Standards and Complaints Officer replied that she attended the LGSCO course each year.  The Council had also hosted a training event in 2018 on behalf of the Planning Ombudsman (PO) which included neighbouring authorities.  Although, the PO did not deal with planning decision complaints they did deal with complaints about how these had been administered by the Council.  Currently online courses were being offered by the PO and the Customer Standards and Complaints Officer was arranging for relevant staff to attend these.

Moved by Councillor Rose Bowler and seconded by Councillor Andrew Joesbury

RESOVLED that the report be noted.

The Customer Standards and Complaints Officer, Councillors Mary Dooley and Andrew Joesbury left the meeting.

Committee considered their work programme 2020/21.

It was noted that some items on the work plan were provisional and the Scrutiny & Elections Officer would update the plan and inform Members as confirmation of items and officer availability were made.

Moved by Councillor Rose Bowler and seconded by Councillor Ray Heffer

RESOLVED that the Work Programme 2020/21 be noted.