Resident Questions for Housing Area Panel

 

Reference: C3.6

Question Title

Improving Communication with the Council

Date question raised

19/12/2022

Week of Area Panel

13/2/2023

Area in city

Central

Star rating applied by residents

3 stars – city wide

Deadline for officer response

9am on 19th January

Name of officer responding

Sam Warren

Officer job title

Community Engagement Officer

Resident Question

Issue:

Communication lines with the Council are often not good, and need improving.

Background:

Residents Associations deal with a wide range of issues, and often feel they are shunted from one department to another to try and get these addressed. This could be improved if there was a single point of contact as has happened in the past. 

Action requested:

Residents would like to be involved in some constructive discussion about the possibility of a single contact point and ways of resolving communication issues.

Officer Response

Officer contact details:

Sam.warren@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Officer Response:

Thanks for the question. Resident Associations do deal with a wide range of issues and navigating the council services can be very complex. In the first instance please contact your Community Engagement Officer if you need help to identify where to or who to talk to about a specific issue as they will try to put you in touch with the right officers or teams. However, we do recognise that this does not always lead to the problem being resolved and this can be frustrating for the residents.

 

I would like to suggest that we look at this in more detail at the Involvement and Empowerment Service Improvement Group, so we are able to have a clear understanding of the needs of residents and look at how to find some solutions. The I&E group have already begun to look at how to create a flow chart and some signposting documents for residents to help with understanding the many council services and departments and this could be part of a solution to this problem, alongside a specific point of contact.  

 

Please contact Hannah Barker (01273 296639) if you would like to attend the Involvement and Empowerment Group and are not already a member.

Action:

To be discussed in detail at the Involvement and Empowerment Group, to be added to the agenda.  

Start date:

Feb 2023

End date:

March 2023