Hertfordshire County Council s12

Agenda Item No. HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL 4 HERTFORSHIRE LOCAL & LIBRARIES CABINET PANEL

THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2011 AT 10.00 AM

CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTRE

Report of the Director of Health and Community Services

Author: Michael Francis, Head of Customer Service 01992 556994

Lead Officer: Iain MacBeath, Assistant Director Performance & Business Support Telephone: 01992 556363

Executive Member: Christopher Hayward, Hertfordshire Local & Libraries

1 Purpose of Report

1.1 To provide members with an update on the history, current operating model and future development of the Customer Service Centre (CSC).

2 Background

History

2.1 The business case for the CSC was developed and approved in 1998 and a contract for the design, build and operation was awarded to Capita. The centre commenced operation in Stevenage in October 1999, one of the first Local Authority centres of its type. From that date, the CSC dealt with all public telephone calls to the Libraries and consumer advice calls to Trading Standards. During the following year, other services were migrated to the CSC and by the end of 2000 the centre was dealing with calls for every County Council service.

2.2 Key milestones are shown in table 1 below.

1999  CSC opens for business  Introduction of an automated telephone library book renewals capability 2000  Launch of the HertsDirect.org website 2001  Introduction of on-line library book renewals – the first transactional capability on HertsDirect.org  Free school meals and admissions calls transfer to the CSC  Highways calls transfer to CSC 2003  CSC achieves Contact Centre Association

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 1 Global Standard accreditation 2005  Re-tender of the CSC contract, awarded to Vertex 2009  Migration to 0300 telephone numbers 2010  February: Change to operating model for children’s social care, to provide more detailed advice and information at the first point of contact.  Re-tender as part of the Shared Managed Services contract. Awarded to Serco at expiry of Vertex contract. 2011  April: launch of redesigned HertsDirect.org  April – HCC and CSC take on concessionary fares  August: pilot of change to operating model for adult social care, to provide more detailed advice and information at the first point of contact.  30 November: Vertex contract expires and Serco assume responsibility for the CSC. Table 1: Key milestones

Service Delivery

2.3 The CSC operates for 67 hours a week, from 8.00am to 8.00pm on weekdays and from 9.00am to 4.00pm on Saturday. It deals with telephone calls, emails (from HertsDirect.org) and some paper mail.

2.4 The CSC employs between 70 and 80 full time equivalent staff, working a variety of full and part time hours. The variation reflects seasonal fluctuations in demand and the busiest months of the year are always September and January. A comprehensive training programme is delivered, commencing with induction and customer care training for new starters, followed by phased training on the various service areas and regular, on-going refresher training. Typically, new staff will take calls for one or two lines of service and will increase the range of services over a period of time.

2.5 The published telephone numbers are listed in table 2 below. The 0300 series of numbers is reserved for public sector and not-for-profit organisations. Calls to 0300 numbers cost no more than calls to numbers starting with 01 or 02 and they may count towards any inclusive minutes in a phone contract in the same way. Technology is employed to ensure that calls on each number are delivered only to the staff trained to deal with them.

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 2 Telephone Enquiry about... number General enquiries 0300 123 4040 Minicom (Textphone) users 0300 123 4041 Archives and Local Studies 0300 123 4049 Children’s Services 0300 123 4043 Education benefits (inc free school meals) 0300 123 4048 Environment and Roads 0300 123 4047 Fire Safety enquiries 0300 123 4046 Health and Community Services (inc adult social care 0300 123 4042 and disability) Libraries 0300 123 4049 Passenger Transport (inc concessionary fares) 0300 123 4050 Registration Service 0300 123 4045 WasteAware 0300 123 4051 Table 2: Public Telephone Numbers

Development

2.6 The CSC is a critical component in the transformation of customer services, which will achieve savings by improving the customer journey. The key principles underpinning the transformation are:

 A ‘customer led’ approach where customers are able to self-serve at times and in places which are most convenient to them.  A ‘tell us once’ approach where customers are able to provide information once and this is shared across the council’s and other appropriate public services.  A ‘one and done’ approach where customers are able to give information at the first point of contact and where as much of the service response as possible can be provided at that initial point of contact.

2.7 Projects are underway as part of the Council for the Future programme to deliver the savings based on these principles. Additionally, as part of its bid for the SMS contract, Serco has proposed a number of areas in which further savings can be achieved, either by building upon the existing projects, or broadening the scope to other areas of activity. Work to develop and approve the initial set of business cases began soon after contract award and plans for implementation of the first of these in early 2012, relating to Herts Highways, are at an advanced stage. Further business cases will be developed in due course.

3 Performance

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 3 Activity Analysis

3.1 In the 12 months to the end of July 2011, the CSC dealt with 744,000 enquiries, of which 639,000 were telephone calls and 105,000 non- telephone items (email and paper). The volume of activity has been on a declining trend during the life of the operation, most noticeably for telephone calls, reflecting the channel shift of activity to self service. Table 3 illustrates the decline.

Financial year Total enquiries dealt with by the CSC (000s)

2006/07 821

2007/08 796

2008/09 780

2009/10 762 Table 3: Enquiries at the CSC - Volume trends 2006 to 2010

3.2 Analysis of the enquiries received at the CSC by service type is shown in figure 1.

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 4 General enquiries CS Safeguarding 16.5% 13.3%

Libraries CS Education 11.9% 20.6%

Passenger transport 8.6% Highways HCS 8.9% 20.3%

Figure 1: Enquiries at the CSC - Service type April-July 2011

Standards

3.3 The performance of the CSC is measured against a number of key output indicators which are based on the customer experience. These are:

 Customer satisfaction  Number of complaints received  Quality of call handling (process and content)  First time resolution  Average time to answer phone calls  Time of response for non-phone enquiries

3.4 Generally, performance against the indicators has been reasonable, though periods of exceptional and unexpected demand can cause temporary deterioration in response times. Customer satisfaction has remained consistently high throughout the life of the CSC.

4 Case Studies

4.1 The CSC deals with a wide variety of enquiries across all Council services, ranging from simple questions and routine transactions, to complex case-related enquiries. The CSC has appropriate access to the Council’s relevant operational systems, as well as to the core database

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 5 of general information, which also feeds HertsDirect.org and Compass but is known at the CSC as Infobase. Illustrative summaries of call handling processes for two contrasting service areas follow.

Libraries

4.2 Before calls to the Library telephone number are delivered to the CSC, callers wishing to renew items are offered the option to use an automated telephone service, which processes the renewals without staff intervention. Table 4 shows the percentage of renewals carried out through each of the possible routes over a ten year period, illustrating the significant shift towards self service via the website and the automated telephone service that has been achieved. Fewer than 10% of renewals now require staff intervention.

0.0% A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D A A D p u p u p u p u p u p u p u p u p u p u p u e e e e e e e e e e e r g r g r g r g r g r g r g r g r g r g r g c c c c c c c c c c c ------0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Phone to staff Phone to automated system HertsDIrect Table 3: Remote renewals activity by channel 2000 to 2010

4.3 Callers who do not select the automated renewals option (and any who have attempted to use the automated renewals process but have been unsuccessful) are answered at the CSC. The nature of the enquiries is wide ranging and in general will result in one of the following outcomes:

 Catalogue enquiries, reservation or renewals, dealt with by accessing the Library operating system.  Booking to use a PC in a Library, dealt with by accessing the Library booking system.  General information enquiries, answered by reference to Infobase.  Specialised enquiries, such as those for which the information is not available in electronic format, requiring transfer to the relevant Library or specialist team (e.g. Central Resource Library or Archives & Local Studies).

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 6 Typically, more than 80% of enquiries will be completed at the CSC.

Children’s Service - Safeguarding

4.4 Before calls to the Children’s Services number are delivered to the CSC, callers are asked to indicate if they are calling about social care or child protection. If the caller selects this option, the call is delivered to a CSC advisor trained to deal with this type of call. Procedures are in place to ensure that any call of this type which arrives through any other route is only dealt with by an appropriately trained member of staff.

4.5 The CSC advisor will establish the nature of the call and gather preliminary information sufficient to determine the appropriate method for dealing with the caller. The CSC advisors have access to the Integrated Children’s Service client database to facilitate the preliminary information gathering.

4.6 If the call is about an open case which is allocated to a caseworker in Children’s Services, the CSC advisor will transfer the call, or take a message and record details in the system for secure electronic transmission to the case worker as appropriate. Alternative procedures are in place for urgent, high risk calls when the allocated worker is not immediately available.

4.7 If the call is not about an open case, the CSC advisor will gather sufficient information to determine whether the case meets the agreed threshold for referral to Safeguarding and Specialist Services.

4.8 If it meets the criteria, then the call is referred to the relevant area-based assessment or child protection team in Children’s Services for further action. If it does not, then the call is referred to Children’s Services Targeted Advice Service, a multi-agency team based alongside the CSC in Stevenage. In either case, the system transmits the information securely and electronically to the relevant team and there are alternative procedures in place for urgent, high risk calls.

4.9 In an unannounced OFSTED inspection in May 2011, the following written feedback was received from the inspector:

“Highly effective arrangements are now in place to provide a consistent and coherent response to children and young people who may be at risk. The customer service model is robust and ensures that information is comprehensively collated and supports good quality decision making and subsequent actions to safeguard children.”

5 Member Visits

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 7 5.1 All members are welcome to visit the CSC by prior arrangement to observe and listen to calls. Please contact Michael Francis, Head of Customer Service on 01992 556994 or by email to [email protected]

6 Financial Implications

6.1 There are no financial implications associated with this report.

7 Recommendations

7.1 The Panel is invited to note and comment upon the report.

Background Papers

0ccf658bad723fa4463dd89c84479edb.doc 8