Agenda item

(1)       Mr Hill and Mr Fitzgerald introduced the Customer & Communities performance dashboard which provided members with progress against targets set in business plans for key performance and activity indicators.  As agreed at the last meeting the Contact Centre and Trading Standards had been identified as areas for more in-depth consideration.

Performance Dashboard.

(2)       Officers answered some questions and noted comments from Members in relation to the performance dashboard which included the following:

• The Performance Indicator for the number of deaths registered within 5 days (page 19) should be amended to appointments offered to register death within 5 days.
• Future Performance Dashboards include the number of marriages and other ceremonies carried out by KCC registration staff in non- KCC venues.
• Ms Slaven to clarify for Mr Chittenden the figure for the number of young people engaged with the Youth Service and achieving an accredited outcome (page 24)
• It was suggested that KDAAT could be the subject for a “deep dive” at a future meeting.
• It would be helpful to group indicators by service, indicating the different timescales for collecting performance data, rather than by timescale

Trading Standards

(3)       Mr Rolfe circulated a bullet point note of key performance targets within the two primary areas of focus for the unit which were protecting the public from harm, and supporting and protecting legitimate Kent businesses.

(4)       Mr Rolfe noted comments and answered questions from Members which included the following:

• Mr Rolfe undertook to remind Members that they could sign up for Trading Standards email alerts and to suggest that their Parish Councils also sign up for alerts.  It was noted that organisations, such as Age UK, had signed up for Trading Standards alerts. 
• Members commended the good work that Trading Standards carried out in relation to rogue traders and protecting vulnerable members of the community. 
• The link between Community Wardens and Trading Standards was mentioned and Mr Rolfe referred to the valuable community intelligence that Community Wardens shared with Trading Standards.
• Members were impressed by the range of services provided by Trading Standards especially the support given to Kent businesses.
• In response to a question on the vacant posts in Trading Standards, Mr Rolfe explained that the service was currently being restructured and therefore the posts had been kept vacant, but that following the restructure it was intended that the unit would be fully staffed. A new post of Financial Investigator had been established to assist with the more complex financial elements of rogue trading.  The restructure would affect the senior part of the unit i.e. managers and senior professional.  It would generate efficiencies in back office support and would not affect the front line.

Contact Centre/Contact Point

(5)       Mr Smith circulated a bullet point note which set out the key objectives to improve the performance of Contact Point.  This included performance data for the last three months, GovMetric feedback for August 2012 and the top 14 service calls to Contact Point for June to August 2012.

(6)       Mr Crilley stated that they were engaged in a root and branch review of the Contact Centre in order to make sure it delivered for the next four to five years.  This was an enormous opportunity to deliver savings in the future and give a better quality of service for our customers, which was a win-win situation.

(7)       Mr Smith noted comments and answered questions from Members which included the following;

• In relation to the Contact Centre the indicator should include quality of customer experience and the outcome of calls, as well as the number of calls answered and time taken.
• Officers undertook to send information to Mr Capon on the income from the 0845 calls over the past 5 years and what this has been used for.
• It was agreed that there would be an item on Channel Shift to a future meeting (including a timetable for the new contact centre software).
• In relation to a suggestion that the public could be encouraged to email via the Contact Centre rather than phoning, Mr Smith explained that although use of email was an option it did take longer to respond to than a phone call. He believed the way forward was to encourage people to go onto the web and self-serve. 
• Members mentioned the various ways in which the public could contact KCC. Ms Honey referred to the Customer Services Strategy, published in January 2012. Mr Smith emphasised the importance of making sure that information on the web was easy to find and that emails and letters had officer contact details on them, which would free up the telephone lines for those people who needed to speak to an advisor.

(8)       Mr Smith issued an invitation to Members to visit the Contact Centre and spend time with an advisor to see the variety of calls that they received and the issues that they dealt with.

(9)       RESOLVED that the comments made by Members on the Customer & Communities performance dashboard and on the “deep dives” be noted.