DURHAM COUNTY COUNCIL CORPORATE ISSUES OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

Transcription

1 DURHAM COUNTY COUNCIL CORPORATE ISSUES OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMITTEE At a Meeting of Corporate Issues Overview and Scrutiny Committee held in Committee Room 2 - County Hall, Durham on Thursday 27 January 2011 at am Present: Councillor B Avery (Chairman) Members of the Committee: Councillors E Murphy (Vice-Chair), J Armstrong, J Bell, G Bleasdale, P Brookes, A Cox, N Harrison, J Lethbridge, P May, B Myers, P Stradling and M Wilkes Apologies: Apologies for absence were received from Councillors S Hugill and S Robinson 1 Minutes of the meeting held 12th November 2010 The Minutes of the Meeting held on 12 November 2010 were confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair. Matters Arising The Overview and Scrutiny Manager explained that The Customer Services Manager would be providing an overview on the Customer Relations Management (CRM) system as part of the Customer First Strategy. Councillor May referred to the lack of Member consultation over new access points and commented that there still had been no consultation. The Overview and Scrutiny Manager advised that Councillor Shield had written to the Assistant Chief Executive and himself regarding concerns over consultation and engagement with Members. A response had been provided to Councillor Shield and a copy would be forwarded to him. 2 Declarations of Interest, if any. There were no declarations of interest. 3 Customer Relationship Management - Presentation by the Customer Services Manager. Mr C Etherington, Customer Services Manager gave a presentation and live demonstration of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system (for copy, see file of Minutes).

2 The CRM system was currently used for Clean and Green, refuse and recycling, anti social behaviour, highways action line and complaints/foi. Members support staff were currently being trained in the Members casework system. The CRM had an early warning system and escalations in place for corporate complaints and freedom of information requests. All contacts made via the DCC website were captured on the CRM. The CRM system was also integrated with My Durham, the street lighting system and the GIS system which enabled accurate capture of incidents and an improved visual reporting tool by viewing on a map. The CRM captured 60,000 transactions per month. The data was fed into the Customer Profiling (Mosaic) project and the footfall analysis informed the Access Point Strategy. Each service area had a dedicated CRM operator, with over 200 employees trained on the system. Future CRM developments included GIS integration for Highways Action Line Members casework system Client incident database (violence and aggression) Housing solutions database Street wardens/pest Control Mobile solution Priority Correspondence systems Bulky Waste Concessions System The Customer Services Manager gave a live demonstration on how the CRM system operated. Corporate complaints were dealt with as follows: Task transactions created on CRM and routed to the appropriate Service Area groups (and appropriate Complaints Officers) end date set for 7 working days. An notification was automatically sent to the appropriate Complaints Officers for the Service Area identified on the complaint to inform them of a new complaint received Early warning automatically sent on 6 th working day of complaint being open Complaint was going to breach automatically sent on 7 th working day of complaint being open Escalation automatically sent to Head of Service for Service Area dealing with complaint on 8 th working day Reminder to Head of Service every 5 th working day if complaint remained open Councillor Wilkes queried the timescale to receive an acknowledgement once a complaint had been submitted as it was currently taking between 7 and 9 working days. The Customer Services Manager explained that an acknowledgement should be received within 2 working days and in an ideal world would be the same day but the system was reliant on an Officer physically logging the complaint. There was a

3 lot of work still to be carried out on integration and improvements were still to be made to the system. Councillor May commented that it would be an efficient system providing the information/complaint was inputted correctly and timely. He added that he would like to access information from the system himself. The Customer Services Manager explained that there were issues around confidentiality and data protection but work was currently ongoing on area based reports for Members. Mr P Mitchell, Business Analyst explained that Members support staff were currently being trained to enable Members access to the system. Councillor May referred to the mobile telephones that were supplied to Members which could be used to report for example, highway issues and felt they could be integrated and work well with the CRM system. The Customer Services Manager advised that they were looking at a digital TV channel but if smartphones were used then they could work well with the system. An App for the Iphone had been launched for the public to sent requests into the Council. The Business Analyst advised that the staff in Street Lighting captured details on their PDAs which linked to the back office system. The CRM integrated with the GIS system. Councillor Barker commented that updating the committee may not get the information out to other Members of the Council and felt that the CRM system should be communicated to all Members. He queried how soon he could gain access to the form to submit complaints directly into the system. The Customer Services Manager explained that there was an online complaints form on the website and training would be given to Members Support Officers. Councillor Barker queried what happened to issues regarding safeguarding and how they linked into the system. The Customer Services Manager explained that safeguarding issues used the CID system and the Customer Focus Board discussed how to integrate the systems. Councillor Wilkes commented that he had previously received a list of the types of reports that had been submitted for his local area and felt that this would be helpful if they could be provided to Members on a monthly basis. The Business Analyst explained that every service request was shown on the GIS support and he would liaison with Members Support. RESOLVED that an update on the Channel Migration Strategy be provided at a future meeting. 4 Quarter /11 Performance Management Report. Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Chief Executive which gave details of overall progress against key performance indicators and explored areas of underperformance in respect of the Altogether Better Council priority theme (for copy, see file of Minutes).

4 The report gave details of the second quarterly performance management report. Section 1 covered the Altogether Better Council overview of performance, section 2 covered the index of performance indicators, section 3 covered the indicator analysis reports and section 4 detailed the indicator tables. Risk management and locality reporting were integrated into the report. Ms J Haworth, Head of Planning and Performance gave a presentation on the performance of the Altogether Better Council, highlighted performance and areas for improvement together with new reporting areas of diversity and customer service and complaints. 91% of the Council Plan actions had been achieved or were on track with 10 out of 16 key performance indicators already achieving or close to target. Of the 6 that were below target, 1 was improving. 78% of residents were satisfied with the way the Council was ran and 73% of FOI requests had been answered within statutory deadlines which was a huge improvement. Areas for improvement included: % of Equality Impact Assessments completed on time only 67% of EIA had been completed on time Invoices paid within 30 days 82% of invoices were paid on time against a target of 97% Average time (in calendar days) taken to process all new claims and change events in housing benefit/council tax benefit 19.7 days against a target of 11 days Members were advised that there was an ongoing programme of improvement for performance management which included timeliness of data, more geographic analysis, cost/vfm data, escalation of detailed service level data and review of the indicator set. Councillor Avery queried when the Benefits Section would be moving to offices in Green Lane, Spennymoor. Mr I Ferguson, Divisional Head of Revenues and Benefits advised that the first of the staff would move on 14 February 2011 and the remainder during the summer months. Councillor Wilkes referred to the number of FOI requests and queried the accuracy of the figures. He referred to a recent request he had submitted which he felt should not have been handled as an FOI. The Head of Planning and Performance advised that the figures were for quarter 2 and recorded via the CRM system to ensure accuracy. The comments regarding boundaries of the FOI process would be considered and she would respond to Councillor Wilkes direct.

5 Councillor May referred to invoices paid on time and queried if some of the smaller companies would suffer if the purchase order was not processed on time. Mr T Hope, Principal Finance Officer explained that it was not onerous for businesses to quote purchase order numbers and the Council did everything for businesses struggling with payment. Councillor Wilkes queried if there were delays with invoices being paid internally between departments as it had taken 9 months to have a payment transferred from Members budgets. The Chair suggested that a small working party could be established to investigate this issue. The Overview and Scrutiny Manager explained that he would liaise with Councillor Wilkes and the Principal Finance Officer to progress the suggestion. RESOLVED that the Overview and Scrutiny Manager liaise with Councillor Wilkes and the Principal Finance Officer to establish a working party to investigate delays in internal payments. 5 Managing Sickness Absence Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Human Resources which provided an overview of Durham County Council s approach to managing and monitoring sickness absence (for copy, see file of Minutes). The new Sickness Absence Management policy was implemented in October 2010 which promoted a consistent approach towards managing sickness absence across the authority. The aim of the policy was to provide a framework for reducing the level of sickness absence whilst supporting employees in their return to work. The Council had a corporate target of 8.75 days sickness absence per full time equivalent employee (FTE) for the financial year 2010/11. The absence rate for the 12 month period to 30 September 2010 was 8.84 days. The report detailed the comparison of sickness absence over the past year divided into service area. The annual rate reduced from 8.25 days per fte in March 2009 to 7.75 days in December 2009, however there had been an increase to 8.84 days. The national figure for the public sector was 9.6 days. Appendix 2 demonstrated the comparison between the old County Council results for the period from 2005/06 to December The rate of the unitary Authority initially declined when compared with the old County, possibly because of the relatively smaller number of staff being added to the overall calculation. However, improved data collection methods over the last 12 months were possibly a factor in contributing to the rise. Work was ongoing regarding the improvement of the quality and depth of the sickness data recorded. Significant work had been carried out by HR colleagues to

6 improve sickness reporting to ensure consistency with regard to the definition of the sickness calculation and to improve data quality. For consistency, the County Council had continued to use the old Best Value Performance Indicator BVPI12 method for calculating sickness absence data. The Head of Human Resources advised that there was no nationally recognised model for costing sickness absence figures. There were significant costs associated with sickness absence which also needed to be addressed and could often be difficult to quantify. Therefore, any model used to cost the financial implications associated with sickness absence in productivity terms may not accurately reflect the true costs for the Council in managing sickness absence. Appendix 3 provided a brief description of some of the different methods for calculating sickness absence. Councillor May queried if it was the intention to share with employees how much it cost the Council in sickness absence and were employees allowed discounts to leisure facilities. The Head of Human Resources explained that it was a positive idea to share with employees. With regard to leisure facilities, the County Council inherited a number of employee benefits from the District Council s, leisure colleagues were currently evaluating schemes to ascertain if they would continue. The facility at Police HQ had now closed. Councillor Wilkes explained that an estimate of sickness pay to employees was 13m. At Durham City Council there had been a breakdown provided of the days when sickness occurred and more than 50% were attributed to a Monday or Friday. A policy was introduced where a doctor s certificate was required on the 4th day of sickness which reduced the sickness levels considerably. He queried how long it was before an employee reported their sickness to a Senior Officer, when a doctor s note was required and if there was any breakdown available of the days when employees were sick. The Head of Human Resources explained that an employee must report to their manager on the first day of sickness and a self certification provided on the seventh working day. No breakdown was available for the days employees were sick although collation of this information could be investigated together with the possibility of reduction in the number of days required to submit a doctor s note. Councillor Stradling commented that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had conducted a review previously on sickness absence and once there was stability in the workforce, it could be added to the work programme. RESOLVED that (i) sickness absence be monitored via performance reporting on a quarterly basis (ii) breakdown on the days employees were sick and the reduction in days required to submit a doctor s sick note be investigated further