Agenda item

Report of the Chief Executive (enclosed)

Councillor Graham Dunn, Executive Member for Customer and Advice Services will be in attendance at the meeting.

The Panel received a report of the Chief Executive that provide contextual information and proposed initial questions to initiate discussions regarding current levels of customer dissatisfaction with Council services.

The Head of Customer and ICT Services, Asim Khan and Head of Policy and Communications, Chris Sinnott along with Policy and Partnership Officer, Natalie Taylor Proctor attended the meeting to answer questions of the Panel about the information contained with the report.

Ensuring that customers are satisfied with the services they receive from the Council is a high priority for the authority. The council measures satisfaction in a number of ways including a comprehensive resident’s survey every few years that captures residents’ views on levels of satisfaction of the quality of life in their local area and of the Council and its services, together with a monthly survey which seeks feedback from customers on specific services they have requested from the Council.

The 2013 resident’s satisfaction survey showed that 73% of people were satisfied with the way in which the council runs things, a significant improvement on the 50% satisfaction recorded in 2008. A target of less than 20% had been set to measure customer levels of dissatisfaction with the services that they receive from the Council. This target reflected the council’s ambitious approach in continually improving its services and levels of customer satisfaction. The latest figures taken at the end of August reported current performance levels at 22.6% which indicated that the figures continued to fall and officers were confident that their target could be achieved.

The main reason for customer dis-satisfaction was staff not getting back to customers in a timely manner and many steps had been taken throughout the Council to address this. My Account had been launched to enable customers to track the progress of their requests 24/7 via the website and contractors such as Veolia had been issued with mobile devices to enable them to provide up to date progress on customer requests.

The results of the satisfaction survey, including customer reasons and comments, continued to be reported to Strategy Group on a monthly basis and Information Exchange to enable Heads of Service to address any service related issues.

By developing My Account, the information that officers input can update customers with the status of their request and it is only closed when actually complete, rather than when it is expected to be finished.

There had been an internal communications drive for all staff to get back to the customer within two working days.  Customer dis-satisfaction levels are available via the Loop and articles appear on a regular basis reminding all staff of the importance of customer call backs. And everyone within the authority can use the My Tasks system to assess the current status of any request. Work is progressing to ensure that the same standards are implemented across all services, whether by email, phone or face to face.

Some issues however are more complicated to resolve as they can involve several partners and can sometime considerably longer than two days to reach a conclusion. In these instances, additional training has taken place with officers to ensure that they take the necessary steps to keep the customer adequately informed as the issue is progressed.

The sample survey is now sent via the Attain system which enables the Council to maximise the number of respondents. The survey has been optimised to ensure that respondents are able to give their views quickly and easily. The Council has now built up quite a comprehensive data base of emails that can be used in this way.

They are also used to better inform people of what actions have been taken to resolve their issues or what services the Council can provide. This method of communication is now used as a way of conveying key messages to the residents of Chorley. This data base will continue to grow especially with the increased use of residents registering to use the My Account application on the Council’s website. Around 1000 email addresses are now being captured on a monthly basis as opposed to around 200 previously.

However, the Council are aware that there are some people that do not have an email address and a piece of work is currently being undertaken to establish the different pathways that people access Council services. This will allow the authority to find alternative ways of gaining feedback from all strands of the community across the borough.

Members asked how the My Account service had been marketed as there didn’t seem to have been an official launch. It was explained that the application had been brought in quietly in order to test the system so that it could be improved and developed accordingly. Once the team are happy with everything it will be fully marketed. There are plans to widen its scope to give residents the option to pay their Council Tax or other bills, but this is dependent on improved security measures being put into place.

Members commented that they were very impressed with the My Account application and the work that was being done in the One Stop to encourage people to use the system. The Group were satisfied with the work that was being undertaken to bring customer dis-satisfaction levels down and it was generally accepted that some people will not be satisfied, no matter what the Council do.

Some people are not satisfied if they have not received the answers that they were looking for; this is particularly evident when dealing with planning applications or housing allocations. It was also felt that resident’s expectations were higher for the Council/ public sector than they were for private companies such as mobile phone and electrical companies.

The Chair thanked the officers for attending the meeting.

RESOLVED – That the note be reported.