Agenda and minutes

(Assistant to the Chief Executive)  To report the appointment of any substitute members for the meeting.

The Panel noted that there were no substitute members.

(Assistant to the Chief Executive). To declare interests in any items on the agenda.

In considering whether to declare a personal or a prejudicial interest under the Code of Conduct, Overview & Scrutiny members are asked pay particular attention to paragraph 11 of the Code in addition to the more familiar requirements.

This requires the declaration of a personal and prejudicial interest in any matter before an OS Committee which relates to a decision of or action by another Committee or Sub Committee of the Council, a Joint Committee or Joint Sub Committee in which the Council is involved and of which the Councillor is also a member.

Paragraph 11 does not refer to Cabinet decisions or attendance at an OS meeting purely for the purpose of answering questions or providing information on such a matter.

No declarations of interest were made.

(Chairman/Lead Officer) To note the attached updated Terms of Reference. The Panel are asked at each meeting to review this documents.

The Terms of Reference were noted and agreed.

To consider and agree the notes of the meeting of the Panel held on 15 September 2008.

The minutes from 15^th September 2008 were noted and agreed as a correct record subject to noting the apologies of Councillor Mrs Lea.

(Performance Improvement Manager) to consider the attached report.

The Deputy Chief Executive updated the Panel on the introduction of the National Indicator 14 and its aim to reduce avoidable contact.  They noted that a cross directorate working party of senior officers had been set up to progress the implementation of a manual recording form. This form will be piloted in the Planning Services Section. It was projected that a thousand samples per service area would have to be collected in order to make the data statistically valid. The collected data will not only go towards providing data for NI14, but will form the basis for future service improvement.

An analysis of this first round of data collection will be brought to the Panel when available and also to the Finance and Performance Management Standing Panel.

The Panel discussed their visit earlier that day to the Harlow Civic Offices to review their one-stop-shop, ‘Contact Harlow’. A short note of that visit is attached to these minutes. They noted that Harlow introduced the Contact Centre on an incremental basis over a few years.

Councillor Morgan was very impressed with the layout and facilities of the centre. Councillor Rolfe agreed and commented that EFDCs problem was that it just did not have to space to do the same thing. Councillor Mrs Lea added that there were no decent transport connections into Epping. As a mainly rural district Epping will still need to have some ‘out stations’ spread around the district.  Councillor Stallan agreed that there was the problem of out laying areas of the district and the associated problems of travelling to Epping. He would like to know how much it had cost Harlow to set up. Derek Macnab said he would ask them to share information on their costs with us. They used existing staff resources and the Capital costs were met from the planning gain resulting from the provision of the new shopping centre.

Councillor Cohen said that Epping Forest would have more resistance to centralisation as we have various district centres such as Loughton and Waltham Abbey. Some of these people in these population centres may never come into Epping; therefore centralisation may not suit this district as such. It was noted that they would have to come to Epping for Benefits and Planning advice and that there was a need to increase telephone and website contact.

Councillor Cohen noted how little Harlow could do on their website. They expected people to go into Harlow town centre for everything.

Councillor Philip thought that they had got the reception area right, with the message boards etc. and the fact that they had interchangeable, generic staff capable of manning the switchboard, contact centre, cashiers and reception was very useful. Mr Carne, Public Relations and Marketing Officer, said that Epping could use staff from other parts of the Council to help out in peak working situations. Councillor Philip added that we may need to do a lot of training for these staff.

The meeting was impressed that Harlow resolves 80% of calls at their first point of contact and that abandoned calls are down to 4%. It was also impressive to be able to seek feedback from 10% of enquirers.

Councillor Mrs Lea saw the benefit of a call centre but thought we would still need to have some ‘outstations’. Derek Macnab noted that some councils have a mobile information/cash office that toured the more rural areas of their district.

In conclusion the Panel said that they like the idea of having generic, interchangeable staff, the CRM system and a Contact Centre. They would also like a single contact number for the Council and the continued need for ‘outstations’ to be kept under consideration.

Although the use of alternative methods of contacting the Council such as E-Mail has increased and the authority now offers a range of interactive services through its Website, the Council still receives in excess of one million telephone enquires each year.

The annual telephone statistics for the year 2007-08, which breaks down the volume of enquiries in each service area, is attached.

Along with the level of calls, information has been provided with respect to the Citizen Charter Limit (CCL), the national performance standard for call answering.  The standard requires that 95% calls are answered by the main Switchboard within 15 seconds and that all other desk phones are answered within 10 seconds.

The Technical Services Manager who is responsible for the Council’s Telemetry System will be attending the meeting to give Members an insight into the operational aspects of the system and issues affecting current performance.  It is also hoped that the Panel will be able to discuss options for future improvement.

The Panel will also have the opportunity to view both the current Switchboard facilities and the Customer Services Unit within the Environment and Street Scene Directorate.

The Technical Services Manager, Angelo Stephen gave the Panel a short talk on the Council’s current telephone system. The current system can track the number of calls that come into the Council. They adhere to the Citizen Charter Limit (CCL) performance standard requiring 95% of calls be answered by the switchboard within 15 seconds and other desk phones within 10 seconds.

Last year the Council received 1.9 million calls, 89% was answered within the time laid down; the switchboard achieved 67%, but they have their own problems. They have to deal with the same problems as a contact centre, acting as a mini contact centre without the resources. They have to tease out the information they need from confused callers. Most times without adequate information they have to guess. They also receive a lot of unusual calls that they do not know what to do with.

A lot of people have voice mail, and the switchboard has to hang on to see if they will pick up and answer, thus extending the time before the next call can be answered. Some people also use the switchboard as a directory service. A lot of calls are not being transferred onwards; internal staff are calling the switchboard for other staff’s numbers and also outside organisations numbers. It was noted that officers have an electronic telephone directory which they should be using instead of using the switchboard as it took time away from outside customers. Councillor Philip said that perhaps it showed that the directory was not as good as it should be.

The switchboard only has an average of 2.5 staff on at any one time, compared to the twelve staff at Harlow. At present abandoned calls are running at 41% on average. Councillor Cohen questioned these figures because if a call is diverted it is classed as an abandoned call. In some of the bigger departments it may go through several telephones before it gets picked up.

Councillor Stallan asked if the switchboard were dealing with calls within 15 seconds instead of just answering them within that time. He was told that they try to answer and deal with a call within 15 seconds so they can move on to the next call within the time set out.

Asked what the policy was on applying voicemail Mr Stephen said it was up to the service director to set out a policy for their staff. Mr Macnab said that this was an area they needed to look at and develop some criteria for.

The Panel next heard from Julie Barnard, the office manager for Environment and Street Scene Services.  Their general office changed in April from using standard handsets to a new call monitoring system that enables the team to be more proactive. They are currently answering about 97% of all calls with an average waiting time of 18 seconds. It also captures information on an ongoing basis and can produce reports on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

The Panel  ...  view the full minutes text for item 23.

Forester is the Council’s own magazine published and distributed to every household within the District four times per year. It is a 32 page A4 colour magazine format including eight pages of advertising. Each edition costs approximately £12,000 to produce and distribute. Current distribution arrangements with Royal Mail have been compared to open market competition and the Council is to test an alternative delivery organisation during 2009. Should alternative arrangements for distribution prove successful, a saving of approximately £5,000 may be achieved over the year.

Separately, the print and production of Forester is also being tested against current arrangements. However, before producing a final brief on which to take tenders, the Council is undertaking consultation with residents and users of the Forester. Specifically, a Freepost Survey is to be included in the Christmas edition of Forester, inviting readers to let the Council know what they think of the product and what changes they would make. The survey also includes questions that should help the Council better understand the social/demographic make-up of the readership.

The survey will also be available online via the Council Website as a means of reaching people who may not habitually read the Forester. In addition, four focus groups are being organised with representatives of the local community. They are panels to be drawn from:

(a)   Epping Forest District Youth Council

(b)   A local Town Centre Partnership

(c)   Older residents based in sheltered council housing

(d)   A residents association representing private sector residents.

Officers would welcome feedback from Members of the Customer Transformation Panel in terms of those elements they think work well within Forester, those items they would like to change or improve and those elements they believe are most important from the customer/resident perspective.

The Public Relations and Marketing Officer, Tom Carne, informed the Panel about the Council’s Forester magazine. He informed the Panel that the distribution of the magazine up to the Christmas edition would be handled by the Royal Mail. The Royal Mail has handled the distribution of the Forester up until now as they had provided been the most reliable and the best value for money, especially in the rural areas.

However, the distribution of the Forester will be moving to a new distributor, (D2D or Door 2 Door), in the Spring of 2009, who will employ people to deliver the Forester door to door. The Royal Mail has said that it would not be cost effective to deliver it to certain post codes. The cost at present is about £20,000 per annum. There has also been an ongoing problems with Royal Mail over the last few distribution runs and that not everyone was receiving the magazine.

Councillor Stallan said this was also about the effective use of ratepayer’s money and we should be asking for a refund if not all areas were being distributed too. Mr Carne said that he would be asking for some recompense and that this failure should be made public.

Mr Carne went on to inform the Panel about the latest review being carried out on the Forester Magazine. They will be asking the public what they would want from the publication, are they happy with the size of the magazine, should it be delivered electronically, the type and amount of advertising, are they happy with the quality of the magazine and what do they like reading in it. There is also a debate to be had on the balance of Council vs. Community news to be included. Although the Forester is for everyone, it could be that this is almost impossible to provide in one magazine, although they do try. The Forester is increasingly becoming important to the Council as a consultation vehicle as it was a very valuable way of getting into every home.

Along with the survey there will also be four focus groups set up to consider the magazine. The groups would be drawn from:

a)                  Epping Forest District Youth Council

b)                  A local Town Centre Partnership

c)                  Older residents based  in sheltered council housing

d)                  A residents association representing private sector residents.

Councillor Stallan commented that Christmas was not the time to hold consultations. He like the magazine as it was, the adverts were a necessary evil but it was about the right amount. He also liked the size, but was concerned about who decided what part of the community news got into the Forester as it was a magazine for the district and not really for local parish or town councils. The items should be more general to the district and should not drill down too deeply.

Councillor Mrs R Brookes said that people need to be motivated to read this as people get a lot of junk mail through  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24.

The Deputy Chief Executive told the Panel that as they had now held three meetings, an interim report will be brought to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 11^th December. A verbal report will be brought to the November Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

To agree a date for the next meeting of this Panel.

The next meeting was agreed for Tuesday 25 November 2008 at 7.30pm.