Agenda item

The Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Customer First will attend the meeting in order to be held to account for matters within the remit of this committee.

The Portfolio Holder for Community Safety and Customer First, Councillor O’Brien, gave a presentation to the committee which included:

      Customer First

·        Customer First had handled approximately 45,000 calls each month and consistently received 90% + satisfaction ratings across a range of measures

·        In May 2011, Customer First successfully completed its annual assessment against the Customer Service Excellence Award and in addition had retained its ISO 9001 accreditation

·        The Customer First Community Interpreting Service took 600-700 bookings per month and was expected to give a budget surplus of £70,000 in 2011/2012

·        The Blue Badge scheme (for disabled car users and their carers) was to be modernised

·        the Better for Less programme continued to roll-out and had brought together customer service staff from across the Council into one place. The project would make £2.1 million savings and was on course to make £6 million savings over 3 years, a cumulative saving of £13 million over 4 years

·        The new Customer Contact team would have access to hand-held technology, allowing them to remain on the road and not have to return to the office to complete paperwork, allowing them to carry out more assessments and visits

·        By April 2013, he was committed to achieve the development of one telephone number (333333) to access council services. The exception to this would be for the Macmillan service, which would retain its separate number.

Legal

·        Legal services was re-structured in 2011 to reduce expenditure and
re-focus support in required areas

·        Children’s services was the largest work area and the team currently had 109 cases in court proceedings

·        Litigation – in the year to date, there had been 46 successful prosecutions for a variety of offences, including housing benefit fraud, flytipping and planning enforcement offences. The team also dealt with employment tribunals and contractual disputes

·        Licensing – the legal team recently successfully defended a Licensing Hearing Panel’s decision regarding a nightclub which was appealed to the Magistrate’s Court by the applicant, with costs awarded to the council

·        The legal teams also supported the democratic function, largely behind the scenes with report preparation and relevant legal implications

·        Licensing enforcement – the team worked closely with the police and other agencies and carried out regular visits, prioritising on high-risk premises

·        Local land charges – the small team of two people had dealt with just under 5,000 searches and brought in an income of over £200,000.

Members asked the Portfolio Holder about:

·        Were there stringent IT contingency plans for Customer First, as the customer contact system relied solely on technology, including the hand-held technology?

The Portfolio Holder gave his assurance that there was adequate backup to the technology used by the Customer First team.

·        Was the Customer First team being primed for being out-sourced?

Councillor O’Brien advised that there were no plans to outsource this service.

·        The modernisation of the blue badge scheme – would there be an increase in the cost of the badge, as these changes would cost the Council more money to administer?

Members were advised that a consultation had taken place about charging for the badge and, following that consultation, a charge of £10 was proposed in the budget for 2012/2013 to begin on 1 April 2012.

·        Members asked whether the legal section checked through employment contracts for consultants to ensure that they were not using a loophole in the tax system to avoid the payment of PAYE tax, as highlighted recently in the national news?

The Head of Legal responded on behalf of the Portfolio Holder advising that it depended on the individual department employing the contractor and some referred the contract to legal for examination. The Chief Executive added that most consultants were already self-employed or had set up a limited company – unlike the case referred to on the news. Members asked that the Portfolio Holder, in consultation with the Head of Legal, should consider enforcing that the legal section examined all contracts for consultants before employment commenced.

·        Was the Portfolio Holder aware of any delays to the rollout of the Better for Less programme and if so, would this have an impact on the forecast savings?

The Portfolio Holder responded that there were no delays in bringing the systems into place and, at the moment, everything was in line with the project schedule.

·        Following questions on bribery and anti-corruption legislation, the Head of Legal responded that the Audit Committee had previously requested a review into this matter which would be reported back through that committee, the Employment Matters Committee and Full Council.

Decision:

The Portfolio Holder was thanked for his presentation and the responses he had given.