Minutes:
Members received an officer presentation on a number of environment services for residents with a particular focus on improving customer service. The presentation covered:
• services
• contacts
• the customer journey
• understanding trends
• improving the experience
• reducing avoidable contact and
• improving efficiency.
Under these headings consideration was given to Neighbourhood Management services (Waste Collection, Street Cleansing including Graffiti and Drainage, Grounds Maintenance and Parks Management, Highways Enforcement and Trees) including numbers of customer contacts made in 2016/17 for waste and non-waste matters and a breakdown of contacts by channel. A comparison was also provided between reporting channels in 2012/13 compared to 2016/17.
Further detail outlined the quantity of 2016/17 customer reports received hourly over a 24hr period - most back office and Customer Service Centre reports being received between 9am to 5pm with online reports via Fix My Street (FMS) received more broadly during a 24hr period.
Following slides outlined the methodology of processing incoming reports. Details were also provided of Channel Shift and Channel ‘add’ for online waste and non-waste reporting from 2012. Levels of unjustified reports were highlighted for missed bin collections and street cleansing issues.
Further statistics highlighted reports of missed bin collections and non-waste matters by ward.
How reports and data are used for management and service improvement was also outlined along with details of how ICT is used. FMS and eForms are used by the public to report online and each Neighbourhood Officer has an iPad for mobile working with access to CONFIRM Connect, Nautoguide, and CRM Mobile software. Management also used officer feedback from the review of Neighbourhood Management.
Details of the PowerPoint presentation are at Appendix B.
Information additional to material in the PowerPoint slides was also conveyed in the presentation including points briefly summarised below:
· other services also use FMS e.g. Street Lighting;
· Grounds Maintenance, Street Cleansing, and Waste services are all covered by three local Neighbourhood Management teams (West Area, Central Area, and East Area);
· the high number of waste contacts received during 2015/16 can be attributed to a change in collection rounds and collection dates;
· FMS was not available in 2012/13 (having been introduced at a later date) and the numbers of reports received per channel that year reflect this;
· the majority of contacts are now made online;
· more online coverage has seen an increase in the number of contacts and this can pose challenges for staff;
· reports are now received every hour of the day through 24/7 online contact;
· to report a waste matter (e.g. missed bin collection), a resident can complete an appropriate eform which feeds into the Council’s CRM system. The contractor then investigates and if the report is valid, the contact is classified a justified report (rather than unjustified);
· FMS reports are directed to the Council’s CONFIRM system with the report then investigated and an online update provided to the reporter;
· the ‘Hot Spot’ analysis slide identifies where two or more reports of missed bins have been received;
· officer feedback from a review of Neighbourhood Management indicates a preference for one software package rather than three and this is an aspiration of Departmental management;
· from a SWOT analysis, strengths are considered to be the receipt of much information from online reporting which is seen as user friendly and accounts for a significant channel shift;
· weaknesses include the overall system being somewhat reactive rather than proactive and FMS enabling people to blog and go “off-topic” causing extra work for staff involved – the issues here being about gatekeeping and the level of unjustified reports;
· opportunities included making online selection a little more intuitive and preventing miscategorisation – it was about making the system slicker and there would be opportunity with the new environment contracts to improve in this area and the extra resources approved by Executive in August (three additional posts to deliver a dedicated Performance Monitoring and Business Support function) would also help;
· on threats, the position in regard to channel add and whether it was necessary to employ more staff was being monitored - a wider CRM deployment in the Council was also highlighted.
Following the presentation a number of comments were made and questions asked.
Highlighting complaints in the Bickley Ward about missed bin collections, the Vice-Chairman recounted a personal experience where a missed bin had been reported on three or four occasions with the bin not emptied by the following Friday. A resident whose paper collection had been regularly missed reported the matter by phone and was advised to report online; after three to four days the paper had not been collected. It was difficult to understand why the matter could not have been reported by phone, particularly as income is received from paper recycling. The Director of Environment asked for details of the resident and the particular case and investigations would be made. The resident was wrongly advised to report online (and the matter could have been accepted as a report by phone).
Noting the annual number of contacts received, statistics were sought on reports successfully actioned (Members usually hearing of adverse reports). However, data on successful outcomes was difficult to obtain from current systems and this would be a matter to consider in new contracts.
To help prevent online reporting as a blog, a limit on the number of words was suggested. However, a different software system might be used in the future where all reports are handled back-office, including online progress enquires; comments could also be added and all would be contained back-office. A “quick win” could well involve amending the missed collection e-form reporting facility to ensure customers saw details of delayed collections first before reporting.
To select an appropriate category when reporting and ensure a report is sent to the correct location first time, more categories were suggested. Officers were looking to stop misdirection and there were opportunities to have broad top level headings and more detailed categorisation at the next level. This could also be taken forward with the new environment contracts.
In some cases, reports were received by phone and online. Such duplicate reporting accounted for 13% of reports received.
Although FMS increased reporting and work, there were no constraints in the system to limit the number of reports. To highlight underperformance, it was useful to measure percentages and monitor other aspects; much more data was now available to officers since 2012 and the amount of data used daily had increased significantly. With better data to use more reports were coming through. It was also possible to compare missed bin performance with other authorities.
In some cases with street cleaning, reports had been received from prolific reporters before a street was due to be cleaned. Although there was no gatekeeping facility in the software, officers were looking to roll out a holding status for street cleansing to advise customers it was due on a forthcoming scheduled sweep.
The three systems used by Neighbourhood Officers (CONFIRM Connect,
Nautoguide, and CRM Mobile software) were historical LBB systems, also used by the Council’s contractors. Using three systems was not ideal and officers had recently started a review toward using one system. Much would be predicated by the future environment contracts; if one contractor the software could be used – with a number of contractors, it would be necessary to invest in new systems. It would be necessary to use the existing systems until 2019.
All software systems would be reviewed for the future and officers were starting the process to look at new software for waste. FMS was introduced in 2012 and more detail would be provided in the next level of systems.