Minutes:
The Chairman invited Councillor S Cawley, Executive Councillor for Transformation and Customers to update the Council on Transformation. A copy of Councillor Cawley’s PowerPoint presentation is appended in the Minute Book.
Firstly Members’ attention was drawn to the new name of the Transformation Programme – Mosaic, Councillor Cawley proceeded to outline to the Council the goals and objectives of the Programme and updated Members on the new work streams – Customer, Business, People, Work Smart and Commercial, each headed up by a lead Senior Officer and supported by a Project Manager. Councillor Cawley reported upon the success under the Customer Work Stream and the recent award to the Council’s Digital Team for the website achieving four stars. He also explained how the Council had been reviewing its services through a LEAN based approach and encouraged all Members to attend the Members Summit to discuss this in more detail.
In light of the comments made previously by Councillor M F Shellens (Minute No. 16 ante refers), Councillor Cawley explained that through the People Work Stream work was being undertaken looking at people policies, transferring skills and opportunities for staff to be identified for upskilling, alongside a People Strategy that would be addressing the availability of staff.
Members noted the growing expectations of its customers and Councillor Cawley indicated that inefficiency needed to be eliminated to increase productivity and the development of services with customers as the primary focus delivering services efficiently and effectively. In order to enable this, Members noted that technology would need to drive transformation and empower staff to manage relationships with our customers and respond to their changing expectations.
Councillor Cawley explained that Mosaic was a three year plan designed to transform work through the five work streams and the proposal for a single point of contact for customers and Members so issues could be dealt with at the first point. He referred to the launch event that took place on 26th June 2017 for all staff and Councillor Cawley reported upon the responsiveness of staff involved, together with identified opportunities for the Council.
In welcoming the assurance by the Executive Leader that the Customer Service Centres would now remain open, Councillor Mrs S A Giles referred to the collection of a petition of signatures against the closure of the facility in St Neots and the lack of consultation with Members on the original decision to close the facilities. In accepting the petition, Councillor Cawley explained that the timing of the planned closures had been incorrect and the decision to close the Customer Service Centres had been a Council decision taken through the budget setting process.
Councillor T Hayward outlined his concerns for the fear of losing face to face contact for customers, whereby Councillor Cawley provided reassurance that although technology would be embraced to undertake jobs more efficiently and effectively it had always been the intention to continue to support customers through the Customer Service Centre in Huntingdon to meet those customers in most need of the Council’s support.
Councillors B S Chapman, D Giles and Ms S L Taylor made reference to the closure of the St Neots Customer Service Centre and requested that consideration be given to the co-location of other services at the Customer Service Centres including the Job Centre and concern expressed by staff that they had been in fear of losing their jobs. Whereby, the Managing Director undertook to arrange a separate meeting to discuss these issues with the Members concerned.
In response to concerns expressed by Councillor T D Sanderson on the single point of contact and discussion of case work with specific officers, Councillor Cawley explained that this level of detail had not been determined and welcomed Members input into development of the operating model.
In commending the presentation, Councillor Ms L A Duffy commended the work of the Call Centre staff with the knowledge in their ability to resolve issues at first point of contact, but remained concerned about the ability of residents to travel into Huntingdon and other vulnerable residents. In response Councillor Cawley undertook to pass back the positive comments to Mr J Taylor, Head of Customer Services and reassured Councillor Ms Duffy that there was a commitment to support these residents that preferred face to face contact.
In the light of Councillor Sanderson’s comments above, Councillor P D Reeve also indicated his concern that Members might become more channelled through the single point of contact approach, whereby Councillor Cawley indicated that Members would not be restricted to use the resources that they currently utilised but stressed the importance of ensuring staff were equipped to take forward the Project.