Agenda item

6.1.  The Chair welcomed to the meeting Mayor Phillip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney, Cllr Geoff Taylor, Cabinet Member for Finance and Customer Services, Cllr Rebecca Rennison, Mayoral Advisor for Advice Services and Homelessness Prevention, Ian Williams, Group Director Finance and Corporate Resources, Kay Brown, Director Customer Services and Rob Miller, Director of ICT from London Borough of Hackney.

 

6.2.  This performance review discussionwas aimed at establishing the approach that Overview and Scrutiny should take in conducting performance review of a service provision.

 

6.3.  The purpose of this session is for scrutiny to be assured that the performance monitoring information used by the responsible officer and Executive enables them to identify the risks, meet service users’ needs and carry out service improvements.

 

6.4.  The Commission selected a small number of service areas for review to look at the performance information, available and monitored by the Council in relation to that service provision.

 

6.5.  The service areas selected for this meeting were:

·  ICT

·  Revenues and Benefits

·  Council Tax

·  Temporary Accommodation

·  Hackney Service Centre.

 

6.6.  A report from the ICT service area is on pages 31-35 of the agenda and a presentation from the customer services is on pages 37-50 of the agenda.

 

6.7.  The service areas under customer services are: Revenues and Benefits, Hackney Service Centre (all front facing services including registrars) and housing needs (temporary accommodation).  The main points from the presentation were:

 

6.7.1.  Revenues and Benefits service areas is a long established service that the council holds a comprehensive suite of data for.  With data the Council has the ability to bench mark against other local authorities.

 

6.7.2.  The Housing Needs service is a more recent addition to customer services and the council does not hold the same level of comprehensive data like revenues and benefits.  The Customer Services Director is looking at a new system to help build up a comprehensive suite of data.

 

6.7.3.  The performance indicators in the report are statutory indicators the council is required to report on.

 

6.7.4.  The council tax collection target is 94%.  The performance information on revenue collection is the statutory information the service area is required to report.  From this data they monitor cash collection and the benefits awarded against outstanding net collectable debt.  Currently the Council is on track to achieve the target.  The Council has also increased the number of residents taking up the option to pay by direct debit.  Collection by direct debit takes longer to come in but this allows them to analyse collection and forecast income more accurately.

 

6.7.5.  Data is collected on customers who visit into the service centre.  The council has collated this data over 4 years and have used this data to monitor trends of footfall to the HSC and payment types.  As more services move online they will be monitoring the trends and impact of this on the footfall into the HSC.  They can also monitor online and credit card payments.

 

6.7.6.  Since the Council closed its staff counters in cashiers there have not been any major issues.  The kiosks are still open and the Council continues to monitor collections.

 

6.7.7.  Data on council tax and business rates are statutory returns.  This data is used to bench mark against other local authorities to track overall performance.  Hackney has improved performance whereby it has moved from the bottom of the group to the middle of the group.

 

6.7.8.  It was pointed out that Hackney would not experience the stability in population like boroughs such as Richmond.  It was noted Hackney’s population is transient because even though the borough has approximately 130,000 properties it issues 200,000 council tax bills because the population is so mobile.

 

6.7.9.  In regards to customer satisfaction one of the key statistics collected daily is first point of contact to resolution.  The Council uses a sample of this data to monitor customer satisfaction.  This data enables the service area to monitor how customers feel about services and assess if they are performing to target.  The council has found that when they experience problems with the IT system customer satisfaction dips.  Once the IT problems have been resolved customer satisfaction level increase. 

 

6.7.10.  There are plans to do a customer satisfaction survey later in the year.

 

6.7.11.  Housing benefit is an area they have to complete a statutory return to obtain their government funding.  The statutory target for housing benefit applications is 20 days.

 

6.7.12.  For this service staff can work from home and the measure is the number of applications completed.  The other test is a review of the number of errors, errors recorded as local authority errors.

 

6.7.13.  A big area of work for customer services will be implementing the changes to business rates.  Local authorities are anticipating an impact on the volume of business rates collected.  It was pointed out the council will not be responsible for setting the rate but will have the responsibility for collection.

 

6.7.14.  The housing needs service can track assessments completed, waiting list, bidding and bedroom sizes applied for.

 

6.7.15.  The service area can also track people who have applied to be on the council housing waiting list but not successful.  There are plans to carry out work to try to support those residents to remain in their property.

 

6.7.16.  For temporary accommodation it was pointed out most local authorities have experienced an increase in need.  They hold data on families in TA to monitor trends and how they can improve the situation.

 

6.7.17.  Following the implementation of the One Account the service can now see how long it takes for an application to complete.  Residents have access to online housing form and medical form to help them track progress.

 

6.7.18.  Within the service area the Director for Customer Service is also responsible for registrars, births and deaths.  The director has monthly data on births, deaths, citizenships and the passport checking service they carry out.

 

6.8.  ICT

 

6.8.1.  The graphs provided in the report refer to data for this financial year.

 

6.8.2.  The performance indicators show what they are measuring but not how the service contributes to service improves across the organisation.

 

6.8.3.  Performance is below some of the targets.

 

6.8.4.  The Director of ICT has regular meeting with the Mayor (Cabinet lead for ICT) to discuss improvements and performance.

 

6.8.5.  The ICT service uses the internal system to monitor performance.  The management team review dashboards to monitor the service’s performance, this is carried out fortnightly.  The monitoring process is used to identify trends and ensure a more detailed review is carried out as required.  A number of key priorities have been identified and the data is being used to improve service.

 

6.8.6.  ICT carried out a customer satisfaction survey and received 700 responses.  This exercise has identified that staff are willing to work with ICT.  In addition they regularly carry out customer reviews on 10% of calls logged.

 

6.8.7.  It was acknowledge the area of Freedom of Information (FOI) and DPA needed to improve and the service area was currently reviewing the process for FOIs.

 

6.8.8.  The service area currently has a backlog on access requests and there will be extra resource to support improvements to this backlog.

 

6.8.9.  ICT has been through a big period of change and a number of service rollouts across the organisation like parking, One Account and My Office.

 

6.8.10.  The ICT Director and his team are engaging with the service areas, in the past the approach taken has been to see it as a big procurement exercise.

 

6.8.11.  The Mayor is aware Councillors see a mixed picture.  There is work around a Members group to make sure members are informed about their services.

 

6.8.12.  It is critical to ICT that they collate business intelligence and data.

 

6.9.  Questions, Answers and Discussion

 

(i)  Member queried if the managers used another level of data to help them to monitor their management performance in addition to the performance indicators listed in the report.  Member enquired how this data was used.

 

The Group Director Finance and Corporate Resources explained there is a suite of management information produced monthly underneath the performance indicators.  The example was given of managers in the call centre having access to real time data on screen that shows them issues as they arise.  There is range of data that managers use to identify problems and this is also used to monitor long term trends. 

 

(ii)  Members asked officers if the indictors they were using to monitor performance gave an accurate picture of the work carried out.  Members enquired if there was an area of work being carrying out that was not reflected by the indicators or that did not demonstrate the outcomes achieved?

 

In response to this officers advised they carry out tests on their work.  The directors will carry out soft test to assess the impact of their work.  One such test is too periodically listen in on calls to understand the type of queries the front line staff are dealing with on a daily basis.

 

(iii)  Members referred to the passport checking and citizenship and enquired if the council has seen an increase in citizenship from other European countries.

 

The Director of Customer Services advised she could not report data on trends.  The current data shows there are approximately 30 people at each ceremony and they conduct the ceremonies twice a week.

 

(iv)  Members commented this exercise was to identify high level performance data that gives the health of the organisations.  Members asked officers to highlight 2 indicators that in their assessment would indicate the health of the borough and 2 measures from their suite of management data that would indicator the pressure on the service area?

 

The Group Director Finance and Corporate Resources advised in his opinion selecting 2 indicators for this size service area was not enough.  If he did need to select only 2 they would be business rates and housing. 

 

For housing this would be an indicator in the housing needs suite of data.  Length of time is not an indicator to demonstrate the health of the borough.  A hard indicator in the health of the borough would be housing.

 

Another indicator would be revenue collection.  The Council anticipates there is likely to be an impact from universal credit due to the way it is administered.

 

(v)  Members enquired if there was a particular indicator that would show the pressure points?

 

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Customer Services advised Members picking out key indicators to give you this type of information would require the discipline to change them as required.  They could be reviewed every year to assess if new indictors need to go in and others come out.

 

The Mayoral Advisor for Advice Services and Homelessness Prevention also suggested the first contact to resolution indictor would show the stress points in the organisation.

 

(vi)  Members referred to customer services and customer satisfaction.  Members asked how the customer service information was used to improve customer experience and if the council had an understanding as to why residents were visiting the HSC?

 

(vii)  Members enquired if the 20 days target for benefit applications was 20 days or 20 working days?

 

The Director of Customer Services confirmed the target was 20 working days. 

 

The increase in waiting times was linked to the complexity of the queries. The changes made to the system had moved simple queries online.  This means that the visitors to the HSC relate to complex queries.  The Council monitors the types of queries.

 

The customer service data collected is used to identify training needs, literature requirements, improve skills sets of staff and any changes to the revenues and benefits back office function.

 

(viii)  Members referred to the most vulnerable and enquired if the council was carrying out a survey for people living in hostels.

 

The Director of Customer Services advised they had completed implementation of the annual maintenance plan and plan to conduct a survey later in the year.

 

(ix)  Members commented ICT is required to improve the service and support the organisation through radical transformation.  Member enquired about the key indicators for the ICT system?

 

(x)  Members asked for officers to advice on how they measure strategic success, success that demonstrates that ICT is pushing boundaries and how it is making a difference?

 

The Director of ICT advised his service area will be interacting with a number of services.  An indicator of the health of the service area would be system available and resolution.  The service area is looking at a tighter set of PIs to see the bigger picture.

 

The service area has a staff member with the role of looking at ways of working to maximise use of technology in services.