- Question to Kent County Council [with answer], 9 February 2012: Consultation on Customer Service Strategy
Question by Malcolm Robertson to Mike Hill "Delivering the Customer Service Strategy will only be successful if we build trust and credibility for it among KCC staff, our customers and our partners ….. The success of the Customer Service Strategy depends on it being communicated to ensure that staff, customers and partners know about it, feel consulted about it and support it" (Customer Service Strategy, p.23) . Will the Cabinet Member for Customer & Communities inform this council how customers, Members, staff and our partners were consulted and fully participated in the drafting of the Customer Service Strategy and specifically their consideration of: a) the principles* listed on page 2. of the strategy, and b) the five themes: Understanding our customers, p.7-8 Connecting with our customers - effectively and efficiently, p. 9-13 Empowering our staff to meet customer expectations, p. 14-16 Providing excellent quality and value to customers through better designed service delivery, p. 17-20 Improving customer experience working with our public service partners, p. 21-22 *The Principles: We will treat all our customers: with dignity and respect, keeping our promises, exceeding expectations wherever possible in a way that empowers them to take control and make informed choices fairly, offering transparent and easy to understand processes equally, providing a consistent customer experience regardless of how they choose to contact us We will continuously improve our services by: understanding who uses our services using customer insight, consultation and customer experience surveys understanding the customer journey providing easy access to a wide range of services working with partners to join up services in a way that makes sense to our customers providing greater efficiency by sharing accommodation with our partners We will behave as one council by: managing information and knowledge to remove duplication matching customer need with the appropriate response delivering value to the customer training our staff to a consistently high standard of customer service resolving customer queries at the first point of contact promoting channel migration to the most effective channel (Customer Service Strategy, p2.) Response The Customer Service Strategy has been developed in conjunction with customers, Members, staff and our partners and this is what we have done so far: We have used the work we have already done in the Gateways, Contact Centre and Libraries as the main building blocks for the Customer Service Strategy. This will be an ongoing process as we build on information received through customer insight and customer journeys - this is information direct from our customers which will be used to continuously improve services for people in Kent. We have established a Customer Relationship Team and they have already consulted with a wide range of people, including voluntary organisations and those representing minority groups. Members have been involved with the Strategy and in January agreed it was ready to be shared more widely. As part of the ongoing process we will be taking the emerging strategy to the new Cabinet Committees during the next few months. We have involved the full senior management team in KCC. The principles and themes of the new Customer Service Strategy came from the Challenger Group when we looked at their own experience of customer service and how it could be improved. Consultation with staff is ongoing but we have already taken into account comments made by front line Library, Gateway and Contact Centre staff. The Customer Relationship Team is talking to our partners and has already taken on board comments from the Police, Probation Service, District Councils and Public Health. As part of normal KCC process an equality impact assessment has been carried out and is being used to inform current thinking behind the strategy. The Strategy was launched to staff and members on 12 January 2012 using KNet and a series of road shows (28) will be taking place throughout the county during the next few months. The workshops will be based on a 'market place' concept to make sure we engage with and involve front line people. Published and promoted by Kent Liberal Democrats, Kent County Council, Sessions House, Maidstone Kent ME14 1XQ Printed (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
- Question to Kent County Council [with answer], 9 February 2012: Social Worker Allocation and Assessment
Question by Dan Daley to Cabinet Member for Specialist Childrens Services Following the inspections by OFSTED during 2010, 2,600 children were identified as being without an allocated social worker. Will the Cabinet Member for Specialist Childrens Services please say: a) how many days or weeks since referral each of these children had to wait for a social worker to be allocated, and b) how many days or weeks since referral each child waited for an initial assessment to be made by the allocated worker? Answer I would like to thank Mr Daley for his question and I'm sure he shares my commitment to improving Children's Services. Many Members have increased their knowledge of Children's Services through membership of the Children's Services Improvement Panel, the Corporate Parenting Panel, the Shadow a Social Worker Scheme, corporate parenting training and Council meetings and briefings. It is vital that we all take our role as corporate parents seriously to ensure thatKentnever again receives a poor OFSTED judgement for safeguarding the most vulnerable children in the county. To provide the level of detail requested by Mr Daley about allocation timescales would necessitate extensive analysis and this has not been possible within the timescales set by democratic services. However, I can provide assurances that the concerns regarding unallocated cases is something that I have taken very seriously, having had this issue brought to my attention as a result of the review undertaken by Malcolm Newsam who was appointed at the Leader's direction as the Interim Corporate Director for Specialist Children's Services. By February 2011, Mr Newsam had identified significant concerns about unallocated and un-assessed cases and about the backlog of work in the system and that some of these had been unallocated or un-assessed for many months. Action was taken immediately to address these concerns including ensuring that all looked after children and all those with a child protection plan were immediately allocated. Managers were also required to take action to ensure cases were assessed and allocated and to support this, additional resource was recruited by commissioning a peripatetic team to come intoKentto clear the backlog of un-assessed and unallocated work. This work was effective in achieving the allocation and assessment of children's cases. By 8 May 2011, there were a total of 338 unallocated cases, 71 of which had been unallocated for over 28 days. The backlog of the 2668 un-allocated cases had therefore been allocated by this time. Members will also recall that since July 2011 the number of unallocated cases has consistently been fewer than 200, showing that in addition to having successfully addressed the concerns regarding unallocated case work, Children's Services are now allocating all new cases in a timely manner. The most recent unallocated case reporting supports this, with 61 cases unallocated as at the 29 January 2012, of which only 6 were unallocated for over 28 days. In respect of timescales for carrying out initial assessments on unallocated cases, of the 2668 cases reviewed, 2021 cases had previously had an initial assessment, 1252 of these within 7 days of referral and 771 in more than 7 days. Subsequently, these cases had been held in a Team Leaders name pending allocation. A further 357 cases were referrals which had required the provision of information and advice only and therefore did not require allocation. The final 259 unallocated cases in the cohort were more recent referrals that had not been assessed at the time the review was carried out and were waiting for the assessment to progress. Of these, 50 subsequently had an initial assessment within 7 days of the referral, 179 had an initial assessment more than 7 days after the referral and, for a variety of reasons such as subsequently being found to be requests for information or advice, 30 did not require an assessment to take place and led to no further action. Published and promoted by Kent Liberal Democrats, Kent County Council, Sessions House, Maidstone Kent ME14 1XQ Printed (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
- Question to Kent County Council [with answer], 9 February 2012: Lorry Permits and Operation Stack
Question by Tim Prater to The Cabinet Member for Environment, Highways & Waste Given the Government announcement of charging foreign lorry drivers to drive on Our roads, and the long term stated aim by this Council of seeing such a scheme pay for a long term solution to Operation Stack, what reassurance has been received that Kent will see additional funding from this scheme to resolve Operation Stack and remove this long term burden on businesses, hauliers and residents? Response We greatly welcome the Government's recent announcement that they are to consult over the proposal to charge foreign heavy goods vehicles using UK roads, (in fact they are planning to charge all lorries but UK lorries will be able to claim a refund through reduced road tax). This is something which KCC has called for over many years. And as we made clear in our Growth without Gridlock transport strategy, we will seek a proportion of the revenue generated from this proposal to fund improvements and ensure greater resilience in Kent's strategic road infrastructure, including a long-term solution to Operation Stack, which as local Members will know, causes massive economic disruption to the county every time it is brought into use. The Government forecast that from 2015/16, the scheme will generate net revenue of around £23M. A significant percentage of the cost of the KCC solution to the problems caused by Operation Stack could be achieved from the revenue expected from the first year's charging of foreign lorries. I have heard the Road's Minister recently assert that none of this money will be going to KCC. But the fact remains that 87% of all international road haulage that arrives in the UK, arrives via the Dover Strait and with the planned port development at both Dover and Calais and this figure will increase further. Foreign lorries do not contribute a penny to the Treasury coffers, leaving the taxpayer (in particular Kent's council tax payers) to foot the bill for the external costs they cause. To compound the situation, foreign trucks fill up with diesel bought outside the UK, where fuel duty is far lower, so not only do they avoid contributing to the UK economy at the pumps, they also put UK hauliers at a massive commercial disadvantage. Clearly, ensuring that foreign lorries pay to use our roads is the right thing to do, after all many UK hauliers spend thousands every year on using roads in Europe via different road user charging schemes. Therefore at our next meeting with Mike Penning the Road's Minister, which is scheduled in three weeks time, we will be submitting a robust case calling for Kent's share of these new revenues to mitigate the adverse impact that foreign lorries have on Kent's roads, Kent's residents and Kent's businesses. Published and promoted by Kent Liberal Democrats, Kent County Council, Sessions House, Maidstone Kent ME14 1XQ Printed (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
- Question to Kent County Council [with answer], 9 February 2012: Blue Badge fee payment methods
Question by George Koowaree to the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health Along with increasing the Blue Badge issue fee from £2.00 to £10.00 KCC has restricted payment to 'payable by cheque only'* - there is no longer provision for applicants to pay by any other payment methods (i.e. postal order, debit card etc.); will the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health inform this council: a) if he was aware that KCC had imposed this restrictive payment practice on some of our most vulnerable residents and is not enabling access to a range of cost effective payment methods for all and b) how disadvantaged individuals who qualify for a badge but do not have a cheque book (i.e. those with a basic bank account*) are meant to pay for their blue badge? * Extract from blue badge application form http://bit.ly/zKaD1V * With a basic bank account you do not get a cheque book, source: The Money Advice Service - Basic Bank Accounts Guide http://bit.ly/AE93Fo Response The National Blue Badge permit scheme has been subject to a wide range of reforms within the last year in order to increase scrutiny of application, security of badges, reduce fraud and help Local Authority schemes become self funding. The most recent changes occurred on 1 January 2012 seeing an increase in badge costs from £2 to £10. With such a successful scheme, subject to strict assessment criteria, it will be inevitable that some applications will not be successful. The reason we withdrew accepting Postal Orders was due to the change in policy which came in from 1 January 2012 which means payment is only taken if an application is accepted. Returning a cheque is straightforward, as the applicant can destroy the cheque and no funds will be taken from their account. With Postal orders, fees are not refunded and the Post Office requires the original receipt to obtain a refund. As a result of feedback from several applicants, and discussions with the Blue Badge Team, the process was amended on 31 January 2012 so that Postal Orders can be accepted. All of the team that handle Blue Badge enquiries were made aware of this change late on the 31st. Our application form and frequently asked questions are currently being updated on kent.gov. We are asking anyone that chooses to pay by Postal Order, to ask the Post Office when they are purchasing their postal order, how to get a refund if necessary. If their application is declined, their postal order will be returned to them. We are currently looking into card payments options through the national online blue badge system. Once this has been developed and the Blue Badge Team has agreed a way forward, our website and application form will be updated as appropriate. We are currently working with the Customer Relationship Team to plot The Customers Journey on Blue Badge Applications and will ensure we follow national guidelines in this regard. We will of course continue to ensure cost effective and efficient payment methods are explored and offer choice to Service Users. Published and promoted by Kent Liberal Democrats, Kent County Council, Sessions House, Maidstone Kent ME14 1XQ Printed (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY
- Question to Kent County Council [with answer], 9 February 2012: Gateway Costs and Benefits
Question by Trudy Dean to Mike Hill, Cabinet Member for Customer & Communities Will the portfolio holder for Customer & Communities please state: a) how much the County Council has spent in both capital and revenue on the creation and the ongoing running costs to the 31 March 2012 for the Gateway centres; b) what evidence exists that the Gateway programme has reduced the costs of the County Council either by closing other outlets, or reducing transactional costs; and c) if there is any evidence that the number of people accessing our services (via the Gateways) has increased and if so by how many numerically and in percentage terms? Answer In the 5 years since this programme began, Gateway has achieved national recognition and is regarded as an exemplar of public sector customer service. a) Capital, Revenue and ongoing costs i) The total capital spend between April 2008 to March 2012 on the Gateway programme is £4.6m. This figure is net of capital contributions made by external partners. ii) The total Gateway revenue expenditure between April 2008 and March 2012 is £5.8m which covers the costs of the small strategic management team, 9 live projects (front-line staff and shared premises), two Gateway mobiles and the Customer Insight programme. iii) The ongoing running costs of the current network - £2.2million pa (as above). b) In relation to reduced costs by closing outlets or reducing transactional costs …. i) To date service consolidation with the Gateway programme has led to the closure of the Park Mall Gateway; of Associate House; and of the Day Opportunity Centre in Ashford. These have capital receipts and reduced lease costs attached to them. In Sheerness with the opening of the Sheerness Gateway the Skills Plus Centre and the Library are now surplus to requirements. It is worth noting too that the Gateway network is central to the FSC personalisation agenda providing Health and Occupational Therapy assessments at reduced transactional costs. Transactional costs and all costs are being examined closely in the context of the new Customer Service Strategy and the Make Buy Sell review of the Gateway operation. The Gateway Programme, along with Contact Centre are the first services to be the subject of formal 'Make Buy Sell Reviews'. The review will consider all options for the Gateway Programme including medium and long term improvements and will focus on value for money in conjunction with the scope of service and its partnership arrangements. It will clarify income and expenditure for the Gateway Programme and will consider the evidence on overall and transaction costs. The review on the Gateways Programme will be reporting early in the new financial year. c) The Gateway programme has grown incrementally and is now nearing completion. The following figures set out the comparative activity data for all customers served. It relates to the opening of new Gateway's and reflects the impact of the recession and breadth and relevance of accessible services. Year Number of Gateway locations Number of Customer Transactions Growth as a percentage on previous year 2009 7 183,527 2010 8 409,356 123.0% 2011 9 687,840 68.0% 2012 10 Estimate 1,200,000 74.5% The number of customer transactions had grown from 183,000 in 2009 to 687,000 last year an increase of 504,000 or 375%. Published and promoted by Kent Liberal Democrats, Kent County Council, Sessions House, Maidstone Kent ME14 1XQ Printed (hosted) by Prater Raines Ltd, 98 Sandgate High Street, Folkestone CT20 3BY