Agenda item

This report provides members with an overview of the Customer Services team’s performance in 2023/24. 

The Customer Services Team Leader provided members with an overview of the report, where she highlighted the outreach work the team had been completing since February 2024, the team had been visiting community hubs, Libraries and veteran breakfast clubs to assist people with navigating the website. She then drew members attention to Appendix 4 where it detailed the types of enquiries received, the largest number comes from Housing, WSCC and the councils’ cleansing services. The outreach team have built a bridge with those who previously may not have been able to contact us, not have wanted to engage with the council previously.  She confirmed that customer front facing services continued to be delivered at the Civic Centre, Littlehampton and Bognor Regis Town Hall (BRTH), where the most common enquiry was related to Council Tax queries.

          The Chair invited members to ask any questions, where a concern was raised relating to the set up in place at BRTH, relating to those visiting being provided with an area to discuss their queries that allowed for more privacy. An additional concern of safety was also raised relating to the stairs at the entrance of BRTH. Following further conversation on the concerns it was agreed that the concerns raised would be followed up with the councils Property and Estates Team for review. Councillor Turner was then invited to speak where he advised members that he commended the team for all their hard work on behalf of the council and its residents over the last year and asked officers in advance of the meeting that another ADC Member Briefing Visit to the Team be organised to emphasise our support for their hard work and to discuss relevant issues (improvements and difficulties) face to face with them. He also requested that the briefing be open to Parish Councillors and Clerks. The Customer Services Team Leader Thanked him for his kind words and recognition of the team’s effort and confirmed that the team would be pleased to host another briefing session, to include Parish Councillors and Clerks.  She confirmed that officers would review potential dates for this and confirm with members outside of the meeting.

          The Vice-Chair addressed the Committee referring to paragraph 4.6 in the report confirming that the Council App had recently been launched and was a brilliant tool for everyone to use particularly for waste collections and recycling information. He stated that everyone should be signposting people to the app as it was a great way for people to ‘self-serve’.

The Chair then invited the Group Head of Finance and Section 151 Officer to address the committee where he wanted to pick up on a comment made earlier in the meeting regarding the Key Performance Indicator CP7, he explained that although the results for this year showed that the team were slightly under target, the target had been met every quarter during 23/24 and performance of the team had been and remained exceptional.

          The Chair thanked the officers for the report and then checked the committee had no other questions or points they wanted to raise.