Issue - meetings

INFORMATION NOTE OF THE CUSTOMER AND DIGITAL SERVICES MANAGER

This information note is to provide an update on the full year (24/25) performance regarding the Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) for the Council the and the contractors that provide services on the Council’s behalf. This briefing accompanies the 3C’s dashboard at Appendix A, and the breakdown of the 3C’s by service and type at Appendix B.

Councillor Val Bryant, as Executive Member for Customer Experience, presented the information note entitled ‘Full Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) 24/25’, which was followed by a verbal update from the Customer and Digital Services Manager on the current performance of the Customer Service Centre, following which Members asked questions.

Audio recording – 4 minutes 23 seconds

Councillor Val Bryant, as Executive Member for Customer Experience, presented the Information Note entitled ‘Full Year Update on Comments, Compliments and Complaints (3C’s) 24/25’ and advised that:

·             This Information Note included a comparison of data with 2023/24.

·             The number of compliments received by the Council had decreased and complaints, including those to contractors, had increased which was attributed to the change in leisure contract detailed at paragraph 3.10 of the information note.

·             The percentage of Stage 1 complaints resolved within ten days had increased to 91% which was well above the 80% target.

·             The percentage of visits and interactions with the Council resulting in a complaint remained below 1%.

·             Urbaser saw a 73% decrease in complaints received compared with the previous year.

·             The Council and their contractors received 184 compliments across a variety of service areas as shown at Appendix B.

·             24 Stage 2 complaints were received across all service areas but only 9 were justified to be escalated to senior managers.

·             5 complaints were received from the local ombudsman and 2 of these were upheld for fault and injustice and 3 were closed after initial enquiries.

·             Monthly meetings were arranged with the Customer and Digital Services Manager to discuss Customer Service Centre (CSC) related issues.

·             CSC staffing had been problematic through some parts of the year but was now at a good level.

·             The leisure contract change had caused call volume to increase greatly from April to September 2024.

·             Call volume had also increased due to increased resident anxiety which was attributed to some major events throughout the year.

·             One of these was Council Tax reminders which were sent to residents earlier in the year and required residents to use a new reference number and a huge number could not find this. This was being investigated to make sure that in future, anxieties stemming from new systems like this were pre-empted.

·             Increased resident anxiety had also come from the garden waste invoices which some residents had perceived to be a scam. Due to the timing of a police message through Herts Connected which advised residents to contact the business directly if they were unsure, call volume had increased from this as well.

·             To reduce resident anxiety resulting from Council correspondence, they would trial human blind testing on documents before they were sent out to residents to test that officer and Member perception matched that of residents.

·             A suggestion had been made to create another resident panel to focus on pinpointing problems on forms and applications before they were formally introduced to reduce the likelihood of resident anxiety resulting from these. 

·             Work would begin to take place on digital inclusion to ascertain the data on digitally excluded residents and how the Council could better reach them through their communication streams. Funding had been dedicated to this and an officer had been recruited to work on digital inclusion, however, they were still at the initial stages of this process.

·             The Council had a team  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9