Agenda item

To consider a report seeking approval for the North Tyneside Council

Customer Service Programme and the proposals to engage.

Cabinet considered a report seeking approval for the North Tyneside Council Customer Service Programme, the approach to engagement and the management of delivery.

A key theme running through the Our North Tyneside Plan was to listen to residents and to focus on ensuring that the Authority worked better for residents.  The motto on the Authority’s crest was “we serve” and this should be firmly at the core of how the Authority delivered the Our North Tyneside Plan – a promise to serve the people, communities, businesses and visitors across the whole of the Borough.     

The total efficiency savings that the Authority had had to find due to cuts in funding from central government now stood at over £120 million.  A number of these savings had resulted in changes to the way the Authority was organised and how it delivered services.  As a result of this change, the Elected Mayor, Cabinet and the officer team were seeking to review and improve the customer service experience delivered by the Authority and its partners and to really demonstrate that ‘we listen and we care’. 

To help shape these plans, the Authority had looked at what its customers were saying was important to them through the annual Residents Survey.  The Authority had also been out and about across the borough in the Big Community Conversation 2018 to test with over 500 residents and visitors how they would want their experience of Authority services to be.

In addition, internally the Authority had asked its partners through the State of the Area event in October 2018 and tested out ideas with staff from across all parts of the Authority and with delivery partners Engie and Capita.  Through the insourcing of the repairs and maintenance service project the Authority had worked closely with council tenants to help to shape how the new housing repairs service would operate from April 2019.  The Authority had also worked in the past with its social care, culture and leisure customers to design its services with them.

The Authority had looked at any key themes from other forms of feedback from its customers including: members’ enquiries, complaints, social media, Mayor’s Listening events to see how this might help to shape how to improve things from a customer service perspective.  The Authority also listened to young people and responded to their concerns. 

The Young Mayor and Cabinet were developing their 10-year plan for the borough looking at what they saw were the key issues to address in North Tyneside to make it a place where they would like to bring up their own children.  Working with the Elected Mayor, Cabinet and

Officers they would develop their ideas on how this was done.

The Elected Mayor, Cabinet and the Officer team had then spent time working through what this evidence was telling the Authority in terms of What is good customer service?; What is bad customer service?; What type of customer service does the Authority want to offer, and how does the Authority achieve that and what needs to change?

The Customer Service Programme set out in the report spelled out the scope of what the Authority would aim to achieve with its delivery partners for its customers. 

The programme would include the following four parts:

i.          Customer promise

ii.         Brilliant basics

iii.        Customer focussed services

iv.        Better never stops – a continuous improvement culture

The key activities for each of these parts described how and what the Authority would do to improve customer service.

The Customer Service Programme would be led and co-ordinated by a Steering Group and a set of performance measures would be agreed to test delivery of the customer experience.  As far as possible these would be measured in real time.  A critical measure would be the Residents Survey due in 2020 when the Authority could expect the impact of the programme to show results.  There may also be some impact of early changes made in the next Survey due in 2019.

The next steps were to establish the Steering Group to oversee delivery of the programme and agree a programme delivery plan through the steering group.  

In response to comments made by Mr Bavaird, the Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Engagement gave an assurance that the business community would continue to be involved in key Council consultations.

Cabinet considered the following decision options: either to approve the recommendations as set out in paragraph 1.2 of the report, or alternatively, to not approve the recommendations and ask for further work and a revised programme to be submitted to Cabinet in due course.

Resolved that (1) the Customer Service Programme, as set out in the report, be approved;

(2) the proposals to engage on the Programme be approved; and

(3) the delivery of the programme be overseen by a Steering Group comprising the Chief Executive, lead officers, delivery partner representatives, the Deputy Mayor and the Cabinet Member for Community Engagement and Safety and progress be reported regularly to Cabinet.

(Reason for decision: Following reflection on engagement undertaken, it reflects the Elected Mayor and Cabinet’s priorities for the delivery of the Our North Tyneside Plan.)