Issue - meetings

An officer presentation will be given at the meeting.

The Chair invited Amanda George (Director of Business Change and Customer Services) and Tracey Long (Head of Digital & Customer Services) to give a presentation to the Panel (attached as Appendix 2 to these minutes).

Officers highlighted the following points in their presentation:

·  Current Agenda

·  How do residents contact the council?

·  Contact via the website

·  B&NES Fix My Street

·  Fix My Street – report volumes and report status

·  Customer Contact Strategy – what we know

·  Customer Contact Strategy – digital first

·  Customer Contact Strategy – discovery

·  Customer Contact Strategy – key principles

·  How can you support us?

Following questions and comments from the Panel, these points were highlighted:

·  Members of the Panel queried effectiveness of Fix My Street and agreed that responses from FMS were not always ‘user friendly’ or detailed enough often due to complications regarding 3rd party land ownership/responsibility.  Members of the Panel suggested that the Council should explain to the residents the difference between national and local versions of Fix My Street.  The Panel suggested using Council’s social media to explain that difference.

·  Some Members of the Panel read out comments from their residents on issues around Fix My Street which were picked up by officers.

·  Officers ensured the Panel that this was work in progress.  Officers were aware that there was a need of cross-service joint working in some areas, for example with environmental services.  Therefore, further training and coaching would be provided to staff members.

·  Members of the Panel welcomed the initiative for further training and staff development with BANES Fix My Street to achieve consistency across the board in every aspect of customer services.

·  Members of the Panel highlighted that customer service should be consistent across all services and departments in the Council.  Some Members of the Panel suggested that customer services and response to residents vary with different departments.  Members of the Panel also added that not all of the residents were digitally equipped, so there was a need for telephone access.  Officers responded that residents could still call the relevant department in the Council, or call Council Connect who would then forward their query to the relevant department.

·  On a question about benchmarking against other unitary authorities Tracey Long said that we were part of the Southwest user networks for customer services with good relationships with our local authorities, especially our neighbouring authorities.

The Chair thanked Amanda George and Tracey Long for the presentation.

It was RESOLVED to note the presentation.

A briefing was requested on the resident/customer experience of contacting the Council.

This item was deferred until the Panel meeting scheduled for 30^th March 2020.