Agenda item

To seek approval to the proposed second phase priorities for the Customer Service Programme in North Tyneside.

Cabinet received a report on the progress of the Authority’s Customer Service Programme to date and sought approval to the proposed second phase priorities for the Programme.

Feedback from the Authority’s Covid-19 Recovery Programme was directly informing the Customer Service Programme priorities and approach. Both of these programmes were in turn, driving the prioritisation of digital services for the Authority’s customers, first set out in the Digital Strategy for North Tyneside, agreed by Cabinet in January 2020. The interdependency of these three programmes, for the Authority’s customers, had been carefully assessed and the next stage of priorities reflected this approach.

The pandemic had changed how many of the Authority’s services were delivered and in turn, customer expectation had also shifted. An assessment of these shifts, understanding how services had changed; the impact of change on the Authority’s customers and which, if any, should continue beyond the restrictions of the pandemic, would be made. This would continue to direct the priorities of the Customer Service Programme.

Having reviewed the progress made since the start of the Customer Service Programme as set out in the report, the priorities for the next phase of the Programme’s delivery had been refreshed and were set out below against each of the four Programme’s themes.

a. Customer Promise

•           Embedding the promise; the customer promise was the Programme’s commitment of what every customer of the Authority could expect.  From April onwards, the Promise would be more widely publicised internally and externally.  It would also be included into every team member’s individual performance review from 2021 / 2022.

•           The Elected Mayor’s Spirit of North Tyneside initiative ; would be used to highlight and celebrate exceptional customer and community service all year round and would be the focus of the Authority’s celebration of national customer service week, in October 2021.

b. Brilliant Basics

•           Corporate branding: remained a priority and all previous workstream activity would continue in line with any relevant Covid-19 guidance or restrictions.

•           Correspondence, complaints, and customer feedback; the recently established correspondence unit would be used to assess different approaches to dealing with all of the Authority’s correspondence, complaints and customer feedback, including those from Elected Members.

•           Team communication; the Authority’s staff pulse surveys highlighted how social distancing measures had increased the gap between those who were office based and those working remotely. Digital and personal skill solutions for addressing this gap would be progressed, ensuring all staff were connected and had the information they needed to  deliver the Promise, to every customer, every time.

c. Customer First

•           Customer focused web services; throughout the pandemic, the ability and demands of the Authority’s customers to access online information and carry out digital transactions with the council had grown significantly. The second phase of the Programme had a number of web based projects which would see notable improvements in the offer of the Authority website, including the look and feel of the site, as well as access to improved information services for children and families and vulnerable groups receiving social care support.

•           Community hubs; the Authority had been growing community hubs for over 10 years, with investment in local health and wellbeing services, focused community and voluntary sector investment and customer first centres.  A new community hub strategy would be developed, determining how best to further make use of these resources and to enhance the customer experience through COVID-19 recovery and beyond.

•           Digital inclusion; Throughout the pandemic, the use of technology with the Authority’s customers had grown exponentially. Nationally and locally this had further highlighted the digital skills and resource gap. Working with the community and voluntary sector and local NHS, a number of digital inclusion projects would be undertaken, as part of a digital inclusion strategy for the Borough.

d. Better Never Stops

•           Staff as the Authority’s eyes and ears; a new tool for staff living and working in the Borough would be developed, enabling them to report, in real time, issues that required action by Authority’s services. Additionally, a new staff suggestion scheme, highlighting ways to improve the customer experience, would be established.

•           Workforce; further workforce development would be undertaken to embed and evaluate the implementation of the organisation’s values, most importantly, ensuring people understood and could live the customer promise. Work would begin to look at how trauma informed practice could be applied beyond social care, to other areas across the organisation.

•           Service reviews; the methodology of internal service reviews would be refreshed, with a greater focus on technology and Covid-19 Recovery plans.

•           Best in class work systems; a number of IT systems that supported the delivery of

Authority services would be refreshed and replaced.  This would improve the efficiency of how these services were delivered, as well as improving customer experience.

On behalf of the Business Forum, Toby Bridges thanked the Authority for the excellent support provided in handling grants to local businesses during the pandemic.

Dawn McNally also thanked the Authority for listening to older people in its digital inclusion work.

The Elected Mayor thanked Cabinet members, Council staff and partners for working together for the benefit of residents during the pandemic.

Cabinet considered the following decision options:

Option 1: To agree the proposed priorities for the Customer Service Programme in North Tyneside as set out in section 1.5.3 of the report.

Option 2: To not agree to the proposed priorities and request officers to consider other options for Cabinet’s consideration.

Resolved that (1) the progress and deliverables of the Customer Service Programme to date be noted;

(2) the list of second phase priorities for the Programme be agreed; and

(3) a further progress report be presented to Cabinet in 2022.

(Reason for decision: The priorities outlined have been developed following a formal review of the work of the Customer Service Programme to date. The priorities continue to present the ambition set out in the Programme and have taken careful consideration of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and work of the Authority’s Covid-19 Recovery Programme.)