At its meeting on 12 February, Cabinet will consider a report on the Customer Experience Strategy. This item provides an opportunity for the Committee to comment on the report and make such recommendations to the Cabinet as it wishes. The report will be presented by Cllr Nigel Chapman and Helen Bishop,  Head of Business Improvement.

Councillors Bely-Summers and Arshad joined the meeting during this item.

Councillor Nigel Chapman, Cabinet Member for Safer Communities and Customer Focussed Services, introduced the report. People increasingly expected higher standards of customer engagement. The proposals in this report would contribute to that. Customer feedback showed that face to face engagement with Council staff was rated very highly. Digital engagement, however, was rated very poorly by comparison. The proposals sought to address that weakness in particular. The enhanced digital offer would not replace but run in parallel with existing services. Digital services were, generally, more economical to provide than face to face. The Council continued to invest in significant improvements to the  technological infrastructure, necessary to support the strategy. The Strategy was complemented by a robust action plan.

Helen Bishop, Head of Business Improvement, drew attention to the considerable consultation which had contributed to the development of the strategy, as outlined in the report.

In discussion the following matters were raised or discussed among others, some of which ranged beyond the scope of the strategy.

·         The use of the term ‘Customers’ in the strategy was considered, on balance, to be appropriate in the absence of a better alternative. The term embraced the very wide range of those for whom the Council provides a service.

·         KPIs for the strategy would include: making the £465k of efficiencies described in the report; seeing an improvement in customer satisfaction with their digital engagement with the Council; and an increase in the number of people using digital from the current 40% current rate

·         It was noted that there was currently no comparable strategy for the Council’s companies

·         There would be value in seeing a breakdown of customers’ satisfaction by type (eg business/ individual) which would assist in knowing where best to devote resources for improvement.

·         Data about digital access to services would identify ‘hot spots’ and also inform future decisions about deployment of resources

·         The need to continue to provide non-digital services for members of the community who did not, for whatever reason, have access to  digital services should, perhaps, be challenged. The vast majority did have access and it was counter intuitive (and expensive) to continue to provide non-digital services for an increasingly small proportion of the population whose needs might, perhaps,  be dealt with more economically, in a different and bespoke way.

·         While some interactions with the Council could be more swiftly and effectively dealt with digitally, experience showed that face to face engagement was often necessary or desirable where customers faced more complex or intractable problems.

·         Staff who deal with customers face to face in relation to straightforward matters could, as a matter of course,  advocate the use of digital enquiries in future (where the facility exists). Staff could also use the opportunity to alert customers to any Council consultations which might be underway at that time.

·         The Council’s website was being updated to take account of new guidance about accessibility

·          Thought might be given to monitoring the effectiveness of digital engagement using a ‘mystery shopper’ approach.

·         It was confirmed that there was sufficient budgetary resource to implement the strategy as set out in the report.

·         There was recognition of the desirability (and difficulty)  of engaging a much larger proportion of the City’s population with the Council’s activities/consultation exercises so as to contribute to the design and re-design of services in a way which best reflects their needs.

·         While it was not the purpose of the strategy to seek to address the wider issue of effective community and customer engagement there was recognition of the separate need for such a strategy.

·         The Council offered many services of which the community (particularly those who were vulnerable or  disadvantaged) might not be aware, such as the Home Improvement Agency.  There would be merit in finding more ways of disseminating information about them, via doctors’ surgeries for example and various forms of outreach.

·         The benefits of providing ‘one stop shop’ advice, via Community Centres, was recognised

·         It was noted that Council engagement with Oxford’s diverse communities was scheduled for Committee discussion at its April meeting.

In conclusion the Committee resolved to recommend to Cabinet that Council:

1.    Gives consideration to the variety of customer-groups the Council engages with, their specific needs and desired outcomes from their engagement, and the Council’s current performance in delivering those outcomes in the delivery and prioritisation of work within this strategy;

2.    Engages with GP surgeries and social prescriber fora to promote the availability of the HIA and other relevant services;

3.    Looks at future opportunities to increase democratic engagement in future iterations of the strategy;

4.    Develops a citizen engagement strategy to raise the level of engagement across all elements of its interface with the public; and

5.    As shareholder, ensures that a similar customer experience and service improvement exercise is undertaken in its wholly-owned companies, particularly Oxford Direct Services.