Issue - meetings

There will be a presentation at the meeting updating the Panel on ‘Impact on Customers of Organisational Development and Workplace Programmes’.

Ian Savigar – Divisional Director Customer Services showed a short video on Keynsham Civic Centre and outlined the new draft Customers Standards (a copy of the Customer Standards is appended to these minutes).

Panel members asked the following questions and made the following points:

Councillor Gerrish stated that overall the new building is a great asset and generally the staff are happy. He went on to mention a few teething problems:

the Library signage needs some work – it is not clear that there are more books upstairs; self-service kiosks are not easy to use; users of the community room are not using the curtains and the informal space for large gatherings outside the community room is quite noisy. He also noted that there is highways work to be completed. The officer explained that he is seeing the suppliers of the kiosks this week so he will mention this feedback. He noted the other teething problems raised by Councillor Gerrish.

Councillor Macrae agreed that it is early days and that teething problems will be addressed. He stated that the trends of the concerns raised by residents are more important than the fabric of the building and asked about a report on this. The officer explained that there used to be a report on the queries raised in the contact centre but it was very cumbersome to produce and difficult to use. He explained that the new system (the CRM system) should be able to produce area based information in a much more informative way later this year. He noted Councillor Macrae’s request.

Councillor Barrett mentioned that Council Connect do not always get feedback after the query is passed on to the relevant department. The officer stated that he is aware that there are times when messages are not responded to and he is working on a system where the progress of a query can be tracked.

Councillor Bull asked if bus passes can now be provided in libraries. The officer responded that this can be done in the Keynsham One Stop Shop (OSS) as it is co-located with the library, he will look into the possibilities of doing this elsewhere.

Andrew Pate – Strategic Director of Resources, stated that the new building in Keynsham is generally seen by staff and partners as a great facility, replaces a life expired facility and there are now three multi agency public service One Stop Shops in the district. He explained that Ian Savigar is now responsible for libraries so there are opportunities to look at more links with this service. He also explained that the goal was that more people serve themselves using the web and scarce staff resources are focused on support and face to face contact for people that most need it. He asked that Members feedback on the draft customer standards to Ian Savigar.

The Chair thanked officers.