Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 This report is a review of progress to date, future plans, and whether resources allocated for the Customer Access Programme in 2007/08 and 2008/09 were appropriate.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 Notes the programme's progress since the last report in December 2005 and plans for 2006 and beyond in appendix one.

2.2 Notes the revenue and capital resources allocated for the current year as well as for 2007/08 and 2008/09 in appendix 2. This itemises what will be delivered within current funds.

2.3 Endorses the use of the corporate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system as a vehicle to improve efficiency, by reducing other IT systems across the organisation and to encourage corporate culture change.

3

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 As shown in appendix two the Customer Access Programme has been funded with resources to enable expansion in 2007/08 and 208/09 for a 22 seat call centre and 23.9 face to face staff. Although some funds have been allocated corporately, funds have been transferred in from other services as functions or teams have transferred to the front office as shown in the appendix.

3.2 A business case is being developed for a business warehouse, to maximise benefits from the customer relationship management system, and improve corporate management information. This will assist in culture change as well as informing the design of service delivery and overall strategy.

3.3 Development costs necessary for CRM will be dealt with on a case by case basis as work is progressed with individual services. The capital in 07/08 and 08/09 will be used for this purpose, as well as the £50K assigned within revenue.

4 COMMUNITY STRATEGY OUTCOMES

5 CORPORATE IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES

6 CPA KEY LINES OF ENQUIRY

7 THE REPORT

7.1 The programme formally began in 2001. Since then progress has been made in many areas including people, process and technology. Details of progress since the last report to the Executive is at appendix one together with future plans. The key development in 2005 was the implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) enabling Customer Services to start delivering an integrated service across access channels as well as improving front line efficiency. In the longer term it will provide corporate information about customer demand, enabling us to plan and deliver services better.

7.2 Funding for the programme has been spent to date on a range of projects including setting up and rationalising access channels, process improvements, training and development, IT systems and maintenance, as well as running costs of the service.

7.3 Key next phases will be developing libraries as first stop shops, roll out of CRM, and transferring some Planning Service functionality into the service.

7.4 Partnership work, improving customer satisfaction and exploiting technology to make efficiency gains are still key principles of the programme.

8 RISK MANAGEMENT

8.1 The report author and Lead Executive member have fully reviewed the risk assessment related to the issue and recommendations, in compliance with the Council's decision making risk management guidance.

9 RATIONALE

9.1 The programme is driven by a number of corporate drivers, and also makes use of changes in technology, changing customer demands and expectations, as well as central government demands such as e government, transformation, Gershon efficiencies and the modernisation agenda.

9.2 The programme fits well within the overall corporate culture change work and will contribute to a more customer focussed ethos. It is highly interdependent with other corporate improvement projects such as Worksmart, Geographic Information Systems and HR Improvement Strategy.

10 OTHER OPTIONS CONSIDERED

10.1 The programme is part of the corporate plan and therefore no other options have been considered, although the speed of the programme has been reviewed subject to interdependent projects and resources available.

11 CONSULTATION

11.1 The programme has used a range of consultation mechanisms over its lifetime including focus groups, exit surveys, telephone surveys, mystery shopping, Voicebox and national survey data as well as complaints and comments from customers. In addition staff have been able to input to the programme via the web page, road shows and workshops, and consultation for the service plan. There have been regular communications to the organisation through reports to the Executive, Directors Group, Overview and Scrutiny panels (Resources and Corporate Issues), Heads of Service and the web site.

11.2 A report on customer access progress was made to the Resources Overview and Scrutiny panel on 25^th May 2006, who endorsed progress to date.

12 ISSUES TO CONSIDER IN REACHING THE DECISION

12.1 Social Inclusion; Customer Focus; Sustainability.

13 ADVICE SOUGHT

13.1 The Council's Monitoring Officer (Council Solicitor) and Section 151 Officer (Resources Director) have had the opportunity to input to this report and have cleared it for publication.