Issue - meetings

To consider a report which provides and update on Customer Services.

(Report attached)

A report was received which set out the key information in respect of customer service for the fourth quarter of 2011/12.

It was noted that the numbers of complaints received by the Council was remaining relatively static, but that staff were being encouraged to record complaints in order to drive forward service delivery. The trends that were emerging from the data was that many of the problems that occurred were ones of communication rather than service failure. It was also noted that, whilst there were targets for dealing with complaints, the focus was very much on getting matters resolved the first time. Failure demand seemed to be reducing across the authority and new measures were being employed to gauge customer satisfaction such as a customer call-back scheme.

With respect to the timescales within which complaints were to be responded to it was suggested that more information might be provided as to the actual time it was taking to respond rather than simply recording how many responses met the target time.

RESOLVED that

the update for the period 1st January 2012 – 31st March 2012 be noted.