Meeting documents

Report to Executive

4-Monthly Performance Report

SCOPE OF REPORTING AREA

Customer Access Programme

E-government

Service Standards & Quality Schemes

Complaints

LSP & Partnerships

Community Legal Service

The report provides estimates at end of March of the outturn at the end of March

Main achievements

The main achievements this period are:

The Customer Access Programme

Executive have endorsed the full Customer Access Programme as outlined in the Corporate Plan after a successful Members Working Group. The endorsement is for;

three one stop shops

a forty seat call centre

libraries as first stop shops

on street kiosks

an interactive web site

Bath Central Library refurbishment completed and initial results show increased visitors and book issues. Generally good public feedback and publicity.

Saltford Library refurbishment completed in December - visitors and issues increased.

Following on from Executive approval procurement is underway of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and telephony hardware. The contract to manage the risk reward element of the project is being developed.

The visuals developed as a corporate customer brand by the Customer Access Programme branding project have been adopted as a corporate standard by branding advisory group and will be implemented over the next 12 months. Within Customer Services Libraries and Information branding work is underway with signage and zoning for Bath Central Library. An artist's impression of the new layout is now available for the public to view.

Initial scope for the work has been agreed by the project team for the Planning Pilot proposed by Members Working Group, on which to base a report for the Executive in September 2005.

The Business Process Reengineering team has been recruited and will start work on March 1^st. Their time is to be allocated and agreed by Business Improvement Service Directors Group.

The 3 year Community Safety and Drugs strategy has now been written in full consultation with the general public. (CCU)

More reporting Centres for Hate Crime have come on board and staff training is underway. (CCU)

The Voluntary Sector Compact has been written and is out for wider consultation at the moment (CCU)

Children Act workshop held with frontline children's services staff (Council and partners) to look at developing integrated services. Very positive evaluation received.

E-Government

Successful completion of Implementing Electronic Government statement IEG4 report and receipt of£150,000 capital grant for 2005/06

Completion and national launch of e-Pay, the e-Payments National Project (http://www.e-payments.org.uk). Net benefit to the Council of£75,000 together with publicity and profile raising

Extension of kiosk trial and commencement of negotiation with CitySpace for rollout of further kiosks/ATMs across the region

Rollout of new Intranet system nearing completion.

Two special mentions for the Council's website in the Society of Information Managers (SOCITM) `Better Connected' report.

Planning is underway for an independent web site for the Community Safety and Drugs Partnership (CCU)

Local Strategic Partnership (LSP)

On-line partnership support system now available

First round of work on Office of Deputy Prime Minister Plan Rationalisation Study completed

Work with Countryside Agency on rural-proofing completed

Joint working with Primary Care Trust and Active Leisure Team on putting in place GP referral scheme

Draft Annual Report and Business Plan published

The LSP has been working with the other LSPs in the 4UA area on a project to improve training and development for those involved in partnership working. This has been subject to an application to the ODPM Capacity Building Fund proposal and a provisional allocation of£100,000 has been agreed from this fund.

Mini-review of LSP and Community Strategy completed

Work with Democratic Action for BAN&ES Youth (DAFBY) taken place on sub-regional strategy and how to improve links

Culture Partnership and Economic Partnership both now established

The Community Safety and Drugs Partnership is now working to it's newly reviewed membership (CCU)

Services Customer access initiatives

Revenues & Benefits are trialling a new 24 hour automated service of scripted responses for their customers to relieve the pressure especially at peak times. This is a new number for this service, customers are asked to redial the old number if they want to speak to an agent. The service went live on 15th March to coincide with the dispatch of 75,000 council tax bills. It is intended that it is a 3 month pilot. Has been very successful and reduced the number of abandoned calls, and have dealt with a larger volume of calls.

We were a partner in the Environmental action day that gave the community access to information and services improving the public realm in their area (CCU)

Social services are about to start using the new web-based public information database on a wide range of social care and associated information in partnership with the Care Forum who maintain and update the database. It succeeds DISSBASE which itself had 12,000 records covering both national and local information. The new information base is called Room 102 and will be available for staff and our telephone based public information service (Purple Pages) to use. It will not be directly available to members of the public as it is subscription based.

Pension Services customer initiatives included:

o Inter-active pension calculator for members use added to the Avon Pension Fund Website plus a number of pension leaflets added to the site for downloading by members

o We held 17 pension clinics at employers venues - 1 to 1 consultations and advice for nearly 600 staff (there were 2 sessions for B&NES staff - one in Bath and one in Keynsham - over 50 B&NES staff seen). Customer satisfaction rating well over 90%

o The offer in last Newsletter to all 30,000+ active pension members to send future copies electronically - little take up so far but expected to grow. (We regard this as an e-government measure).

o Official Complaints were kept to an absolute minimum - 5 in 2004/05 out of a total membership of the Scheme of nearer 60,000! (0.008%)

Planned Actions not achieved

None

Development Opportunities

Workshops to promote awareness of Customer Relationship Management Contact Centre implementation and realisation of CRM strategy are being developed with input from HBS Business Improvement Service. This is the opportunity to emphasise the progress made by Customer Access Programme over the last year and gain buy in from senior managers throughout the council.

A new Customer Access Programme plan for 2005/06 is being prepared for agreement, and governance arrangements have been improved following the recommendations of the Members Working Group and closer working with Planning Service and Revenues and Benefits Service

Several all Member briefings were delivered in March

Bath Central Library re-opened after a refurbishment in March, which is expected to see higher user numbers and greater customer satisfaction. Opportunity to help move library culture to be more customer focused, and start delivering first stop shop services.

The Change Programme Management Group has been set up, which will help ensure that the programme is aligned to other change initiatives and is co-ordinated with them.

The balanced score card is about to be introduced at a corporate and service level which will assist in measuring customer focused activities consistently across the organization.

Training has been on going for all library staff in customer care and revised complaint procedures.

Working with Planning service restructure to produce a model of front/back office design and transfer of service to contact centre delivery model, to cover issues such as finance, Human Resources, Information Technology and accommodation.

Peer review in libraries as part of Framework for the Future agreed. Will provide a report and action plan with£70K grant to implement action plan.

There is a potential to further join-up health and transport initiatives following a workshop at the Primary Care Trust's Planning Fair

Public Service Agreement PSA2 provides significant potential to lever-in resources for the Community Strategy and Corporate Improvement priorities, though this is now deferred until 2006/7 to be delivered alongside a Local Area Agreement

Wardens have a new customer contact point in Green Park station (CCU)

2. Reporting on targets and commitments made in the Performance Plan

3. Equalities Targets