Agenda and minutes

Although not a member of the Commission, Councillor Sood, (Assistant City Mayor – Communities and Equalities), submitted apologies for absence, as she regularly attended the Commission’s meetings.

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business to be discussed.

No declarations of interest were made.

The Minutes of the meeting of the Neighbourhood Services and Community Involvement Scrutiny Commission held on 6 September 2017 are attached and Members are asked to confirm them as a correct record.

AGREED:

That the minutes of the meeting of the Neighbourhood Services and Community Involvement Scrutiny Commission held on 6 September 2017 be confirmed as a correct record.

To note progress on actions agreed at the previous meeting and not reported elsewhere on the agenda (if any).

The Vice-Chair reminded Members that, further to item 1 of the agreed matters under minute 23, “Social Welfare Advice Re-Procurement”, a letter had been sent in response to the consultation, setting out the issues raised by the Commission.  This letter had been circulated to all members of the Commission.

On behalf of the Commission, the Vice-Chair congratulated Councillor Malik, the former Chair of this Commission, on his appointment as an Assistant City Mayor and wished him well in his new role.

The Vice-Chair also thanked Councillor Waddington, who had recently ceased to be an Assistant City Mayor, for her regular attendance at this Commission, her contribution to debates at Commission meetings and her engagement with the Commission’s work.

The Monitoring Officer to report on the receipt of any petitions submitted in accordance with the Council’s procedures.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no petitions had been received.

The Monitoring Officer to report on the receipt of any questions, representations and statements of case submitted in accordance with the Council’s procedures.

The Monitoring Officer reported that no questions, representations or statements of case had been received.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance submits a report that provides scrutiny with a summary of the channel shift programme including the vision for the programme and current key areas of activity. Scrutiny is asked to consider the report and make any comments about the current work of the programme.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance presented a report summarising the Council’s channel shift programme.  The current key areas of activity were outlined, including the move to putting routine and high volume transactions on the Council’s website and rationalising telephone contact.

The Director drew attention to the following points:

·           MyAccount, customers’ online portal in to the new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, had been operating for about a year.  There currently were approximately 30,000 users, who could make approximately 70 different transactions through the system

·           Feedback on MyAccount had been very positive and was being used to constantly improve customers’ experience of the system;

·           Self-service facilities were being installed in various locations across the city, in conjunction with the Council’s Transforming Neighbourhood Services programme.  These included those for self-scanning of documents;

·           Automated transactions were those where an on-line request fed directly to the service concerned, so there was no requirement for someone to complete a form and / or key the information in to an IT system.  This was progressing well, with many previous inefficiencies being addressed;

·           Future plans included consideration of introducing a “web chat” facility, potentially in 2018, through a telephony service;

·           Monitoring of the measures being introduced showed a reduction in the number of telephone calls being made to the Customer Service helpline and a corresponding increase in on-line transactions;

·           The efficiency of a process was measured by mapping the process currently being used, business opportunities this presented, the impact of channel shift on that particular process, and measurement after channel shift had completed of any savings made and changes in customer contact.

Members expressed concern that people who could not use computers were being disadvantaged.  An example was given of a form that stated that people could do transactions by telephone, computer or face-to-face, but this was not reflected in the experience received in the Customer Service Centre for that enquiry. The Director asked for details to be provided, so that this could be followed up.  Members expressed concerns that, where residents were not able to use ICT, the contact was being redirected through Councillors’ enquiries.

Members asked for confirmation of who was leading the programme at Executive level and whether a programme manager had been recruited.  The Director confirmed that the City Mayor was the Executive Lead and a Programme Manager had started in this current week.

There also had been problems with forms being unavailable on-line.  For example, school admissions were now processed on-line, but there had been problems with the forms not being available when people were trying to use them.  The Senior Project Manager advised the Commission that this problem had been resolved, although Members were asked to notify officers if it happened again.

Members suggested that a further barrier to channel shift was the way in which self-service kiosks were being introduced.  In one location it was known that no member of staff had been available to help people use newly installed kiosks for over two weeks.  Staff  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35.

The Director, Delivery, Communications and Political Governance submits a report that provides an overview of the role of the Community Language Service and the services it provides. The Neighbourhood Services and Community Involvement Scrutiny Commission is asked to review and comment on the report.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance submitted a report giving an overview of the Council’s approach to the provision of community languages, and in particular the role of the Community Language Service.  The Vice-Chair reminded Members that this report had been requested at the meeting of this Commission held on 12 July 2017, (minute 11, “Portfolio Overview July 2017”, referred).

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance noted that it would not be possible to employ a team that spoke all of the languages for which services were provided.  Some members of the team could interpret some languages, but if other languages were needed, freelance translators were used.

The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance noted that it would not be possible to employ a team that spoke all of the languages for which services were provided.  Some members of the team could interpret some languages, but if other languages were needed, freelance translators and interpreters were used.  Most of the freelance workers were locally based, but for some much less common languages it was sometimes necessary to source them via a national database.

Work internal and external to the Council was undertaken, with charges being made for the latter.  This work was undertaken on a reactive basis, as the high turnover of translators made it inefficient to provide training in specific tasks, such a form filling, or to have community “champions” for specific languages. 

Consideration needed to be given to The Council’s Public Sector Duty to ensure there were no barriers to residents accessing the services they needed, as language could be a barrier.  The Council’s Equalities team worked with services to help address this.  On occasions challenges had been made about the languages used for information distributed in the city, but these challenges had not been upheld, as the Council’s use of community languages had been found to be good.

Members enquired whether the Council employed an officer dedicated to assisting refugees and others arriving in the city with no, or minimal, English language skills.  In reply, the Director advised that this work was undertaken across a number of service areas.

Members stressed the need to ensure that all documents were produced in plain language and abbreviations should be avoided, to help the general public’s understanding of those documents.  It was suggested that one example of a document not meeting those standards was the letter sent out with Council Tax information.

AGREED:

1)    That the Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance be asked to identify whether one language predominates in the requests for interpretation and translation received by Children’s Services teams; and

2)    That the report be noted.

The current work programme for the Commission is attached.  The Commission is asked to consider this and make comments and/or amendments as it considers necessary.

The Commission noted that a draft scoping document had been prepared for a review of knife crime in the city.  Officers had been requested to also prepare a report on actions being taken in the city on this issue.  It was anticipated that the scoping document and report would both be considered at the Commission’s next meeting.

Members suggested that information on work being done by the Council to address barriers created by language and IT skills be brought to the next meeting of the Commission.  The Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance advised the Commission that consideration would be given to whether this fell within this Commission’s remit, or that of Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission, and a report would be presented to this Commission if appropriate. 

Members noted that the Housing Scrutiny Commission would be considering a report on work being done to reduce the impact of the government’s welfare reforms on city residents and asked that members of this Commission be invited to attend the Housing Scrutiny Commission for that discussion.

AGREED:

1)     That the Director of Delivery, Communications and Political Governance be asked to determine whether consideration of the barriers created by language and IT skills falls within the remit of this Commission and, if it does, to present a report to its next meeting on what work the Council is doing to address these barriers;

2)     That the Democratic and Civic Support Manager be asked to liaise with the Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Commission to  request that members of this Commission be invited to attend the meeting of the Housing Scrutiny Commission at which consideration is to be given to work being done to reduce the impact of the government’s welfare reforms on city residents; and

3)     That this Commission’s work programme be received and noted.

The meeting closed at 6.50 pm