Agenda item

The Corporate and Customer Services Portfolio Holder presented the Customer Contact Service’s annual performance report for 2016 and congratulated officers on the service’s steady improvement and return to good performance.

Members were informed that the Contact Service was fully staffed and that good training, good quality and well informed staff was leading to good performance.

The Committee was informed that bin collection dates were changing from 27 February 2017 and a large volume of calls was expected. The Portfolio Holder explained the contingencies that were being put in place for this, such as extra staff and calls regarding bin complaints being redirected to a team that was being assembled to deal with missed bins. This would enable other important calls regarding issues such as homelessness and benefits for example, to continue to get through to the Contact Centre. The committee was informed that there was an option to outsource calls to UK based call centres if the volume of calls was so high that this was required. Knowledge acquired and lessons learned from the change to blue bin collections, was being used to inform this. The Portfolio Holder clarified that the changes were being made over a period of two weeks, so contingency plans would be in place for at least this time and may be in place for a month depending on the demand.

The following points were made:

·         The Contact Centre was congratulated for its improvements in performance.

·         The local member for Meldreth informed the Portfolio Holder that a large stretch of road in her area had not received a flyer regarding the changes to bin collections, though posters had been displayed in the village.

·         The committee was informed that information would also be made available regarding the change to bin collections on social media and the Council’s website.

·         The percentage of calls abandoned was queried and the committee was informed that the drop in performance had been due to a staffing shortage in August 2016, due to holidays and vacancies.

·         The service was not aware of any problems being raised with electronic forms by members of the public.

·         The committee was informed that abandoned calls from the same number were treated as separate abandoned calls.

·         The committee was informed that there would be an overlap in the contingency plans being in place for the change to bin collections, with council tax bills going out. Members were reminded that if needed, an outside provider could be used to help manage the volume of calls resulting from the changes in bin collections. Members were also reminded that the issuing of council tax bills was an annual billing for which processes and contingencies were in place.

·         The committee was informed that if a third party provider was used to help deal with the volume of bin collection calls, this would be funded by a salary underspend in the service.

·         Figures were requested for how many people used the Council’s website. The committee requested this be compared to the number of telephone calls to the Council. The committee was informed that this data was being gathered by the Digital by Default team.

The Scrutiny and Overview Committee NOTED the report.