Customer Insight Report 2022/23
Our vision: Getting things right first time, every time
Planned council wide improvements
Performance Management Framework
Our Customer Experience Vision
DRAFT
26th June 2023
Customer Insight Report 2022/23
Our vision: Getting things right first time, every time
Planned council wide improvements
Performance Management Framework
Our Customer Experience Vision
DRAFT
26th June 2023
The purpose of this Customer Insight report is to bring together the information collected about the customer experience of using Brighton & Hove City Council services in 2022/23.
Our customers include everyone who lives, works, visits or does business in Brighton & Hove. Customers include those who need to interact with the council as well as those the council must interact with, such as where we have a duty of care.
This report presents what we currently know about our customer services. Our aim is to ensure we better understand the needs of all our customers, and to learn and grow consistently from the feedback we receive, in order to improve the customer experience.
The
standards and principles within the promise do not only apply to
staff who work directly with customers, but all staff who work for
the council, including those in support services such as Human
resources, IT & Digital, Finance, Legal. This ensures a
consistency of approach and provides staff who do deal directly
with customers the appropriate infrastructure, tools, and support
to deliver the best customer experience.
Our Customer Experience Vision describes how we intend to deliver
on the Customer Promise and has been refreshed following customer
feedback. These two documents are at the heart of our
Customer Experience Strategy
that was approved at the Policy & Resources Committee in
December 2019.
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Customer
Satisfaction
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Councillor Enquiries
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Reason for contact |
Requests received |
Requests responded to within 5 working days |
On time % |
Requests responded to over 5 working days |
Average number of days to respond |
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1 |
Rubbish or recycling collection |
33 |
25 |
76% |
8 |
3.8 |
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2 |
Repairs - day to day, including emergencies |
26 |
23 |
88% |
3 |
2.9 |
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3 |
Potholes |
17 |
15 |
88% |
2 |
2.8 |
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4 |
Parking Permits |
14 |
14 |
100% |
0 |
2.6 |
|
5 |
Condition of your rented accommodation |
13 |
12 |
92% |
1 |
2.6 |
|
6 |
Parking Enforcement |
12 |
8 |
67% |
4 |
6.4 |
|
7 |
Payment of council tax |
12 |
10 |
83% |
2 |
3.3 |
|
8 |
Pavements (broken, uneven or unsafe) |
10 |
6 |
60% |
4 |
4.7 |
|
9 |
Access to public toilets |
9 |
9 |
100% |
0 |
1.6 |
|
10 |
Condition of beach |
9 |
3 |
33% |
6 |
5.3 |
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Customer
contact
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Online Form |
Total |
% of all submissions |
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1 |
Council Tax: Send us a message |
30248 |
11% |
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2 |
Missed Collections: Refuse |
26568 |
10% |
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3 |
Missed Collections: Recycle |
13089 |
5% |
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4 |
My Bins |
9641 |
4% |
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5 |
Contact Parking Services: Permits: resident parking |
8732 |
3% |
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6 |
Council Tax Discount |
8228 |
3% |
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7 |
Council Tax: Move out of area |
7918 |
3% |
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8 |
Council Tax: Move into area |
7686 |
3% |
|
9 |
Council Tax: Move within area |
7466 |
3% |
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10 |
Council Tax: Tell us about a change of tenants |
6471 |
2% |
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Equalities Data
Summary
The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination on the basis of the following 'protected characteristics': age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race/ethnicity, religion or belief, sex (gender), sexual orientation.
All customers have the right to be protected from discrimination, harassment or victimisation based on their protected characteristics.
Understanding the protected characteristics of people living, working in and visiting the city helps us to be fair, accessible, and appropriate when we make policies, deliver services, and employ people. The council is committed to becoming Fair and Inclusive and is working with the community to shape our Anti-Racism Strategy and Accessible City Strategy.
Supporting and developing good customer experience in relation to the city’s diverse communities is a central aim of the council. Customers may experience numerous barriers to accessing services or need different support to achieve the right outcomes for them. Where these barriers or needs are related to legally protected characteristics, the council has a duty to consider how to remove these barriers, reduce disadvantage and promote equality of opportunity.
The equalities data presented below is taken from responses to the satisfaction survey provided through the corporate consultation portal and does not include results from independent surveys carried out within services or by associated partner. Therefore, the results presented as an average of all respondents, in the summary below, differs from the data presented as the overall customer satisfaction score (page 5).
Information on the city demographic is taken from the last census which was conducted in 2021.
72% (4,175) of respondents to the satisfaction survey agreed to provide equalities data out of a total 5,803 responses.
Only 23% of respondents who did not choose to provide equalities data (382/1,628) were satisfied with the level of customer service, significantly lower than the average of all respondents (-18%) and those who provided equalities data (-24%).
51% of respondents who provided equalities data (2,125) found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 6% more than the average of all respondents; 45% (5,803) and 22% higher than respondents who did not provide equalities data, 29% (472/1,628).
† From the 4,175 respondents who provided equalities data; 4,037 (70% of all respondents) provided their ethnicity
† Of the 4,037 respondents, 703 (16.8%) are from a Black & Minority Ethnic background[1] (city demographic 26%)
† 49% of respondents who identified as BME found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 2% less than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (51%)
† From the 4,175 respondents who provided equalities data; 3,625 (63% of all respondents) provided their sexual orientation
† Of the 3,625 respondents, 600 respondents (17%) identified as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB) (city demographic 11%)
† 44% of respondents who identified as other found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 7% lower than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (51%)
Day to day activity limited due to health or a disability
† From the 4,175 respondents who provided equalities data; 4,002 (69% of all respondents) provided data on whether their day-to-day activities were limited due to health or disability
† Of the 4,002 respondents, 626 (16%) are limited in day-to-day activities due to a long-term health problem or disability (city demographic 11.5%) with 565 respondents (14%) indicating they are limited a lot in day-to-day activities due to a long-term health problem or disability (city demographic 8%)
† 51% of respondents who identified as having their day-to-day activity limited due to health or a disability found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 6% more than the average of all respondents (45%)
Satisfaction by age
† From the 4,175 respondents who provided equalities data; 4,026 (69% of all respondents) provided data on their age
† Of the 4,026 respondents, 2,621 (65%) are age 16 to 64 (city demographic 71%), 1,403 (35%) are age 65 years or older (city demographic 14%)
† Respondents who are age 20 to 39 were on average 9% less satisfied (38%) than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (47%)
† 39% of respondents who are age 20 to 39 found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 12% less than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (51%)
† 56% of respondents who are aged 50 years or older found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 5% more than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (51%) and 8% higher than those who are age 16 to 64
Satisfaction by gender
† From the 4,175 respondents who provided equalities data; 4,157 (72% of all respondents) provided data on their gender
† Of the 4,157 respondents, 2,138 (51%) identified as female (city demographic 51%), 1,924 (46%) identified as male (city demographic 49%) and 31 (1%) identified as other
† Respondents who identified as male were on average 2% more satisfied (49%) than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (47%)
† 53% of respondents who identified as male found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 2% higher than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (51%)
† 47% of respondents who identified as female were satisfied with the level of customer service, the same as the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (47%)
† 51% of respondents who identified as female found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 6% higher than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information who provided equalities information (51%)
† Respondents who identified as ‘other’ were on average 2% less satisfied (45%) than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (47%)
† 35% of respondents who identified as ‘other’ found council services fairly easy or very easy to access or use, 16% lower than the average of all respondents who provided equalities information (51%)
By customer we mean, any user of council services, voluntary or involuntary. This includes residents, visitors to the city, businesses, students, service users and their representatives.
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Brighton & Hove’s population is estimated at 277,200 |
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121,400 households |
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130,000 Council Taxpayers |
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The population registered to vote is 204,291 |
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16,400 receiving housing benefit |
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31,800 children attending school |
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11,300 Business rate payers |
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11,550 council owned dwellings |
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1,020km of footpaths |
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624km of carriageway |
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98 parks and open spaces |
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12km of coastline |
Our
Services|
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City Environment5.5 million refuse collections per year 2 million recycling collections per year 700 miles of pavement cleaned per year |
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Parking and Transport360,000 visitor permits issued per year 57,000 resident permits issued per year 6,300 concessionary bus passes issued per year 4,500 Blue Badge issued per year 1,200 business permits issued per year 14,387 permits for roadworks granted per year |
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Development Management (Planning)3,700 applications received per year 2,650 applications approved per year |
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Housing Management11,592 council tenancies 2,290 leasehold flats in council blocks |
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Housing Needs2,800 applications for social housing per year 1,800 units of temporary accommodation 1,700 open cases for prevention, intervention, advice 1,150 emergency placements and transfers per year |
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Health & Adult Social Care4,700 care assessments or reviews conducted per year 4,350 people receiving long term adult social care service 1,300 people receive short term intensive support per year 30,200 items of daily living equipment issued |
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Families, Children & Learning5,450 children with special education needs receive support in schools 2,150 children attend our children’s centres and nurseries 1,950 children supported by social work to be safe (including children in care) 500 receive family support |
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Registrars3,400 births registered per year 2,500 deaths registered per year 1,300 marriages registered and officiated per year 580 new British naturalisation certificates issued per year |
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Libraries14 libraries across the city 978,000 items issued per year 680,000 visits to libraries per year 19,100 unique users of public computers in libraries per year |
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Bereavement2,000 cremations per year 350 burials per year 1,250 deaths reported to the Coroner’s Office per year |
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Benefits19,100 receiving help with council tax 3,250 new claims assessed per year 2,500 applications assessed for emergency help per year |
Planned council
wide improvements
What actions are we taking as a council?
Delivering good customer service isn’t just a one-off initiative, it’s a continual process of culture change - reviewing, redesigning, monitoring, training, learning and listening. We will continue to embed and reinforce the good practices that are already in place across the organisation and will find innovative ways to keep improving the way that services are delivered. The following examples show some of the key actions planned.
In Person Accessibility
We are reviewing our Customer Service Centre provision, to ensure that we are as accessible as possible to those who need additional support to use council services, or who do not have access to the internet or a telephone. This includes providing support and signposting for those at risk of digital exclusion. We will also be strengthening the links between our frontline customer service advisors and specialist officers so that timely and appropriate support can be provided to customers visiting our centres. We will be exploring providing council contact points across the city (such as Libraries and Family Hubs) to make accessing services even easier if additional support is needed.
Improved Online Services
It is more important than ever that the council delivers services in relevant and modern ways, to make it easier for customers to access the services they need. We have invested in improving online services which enable customers to self-serve for simple transactions (such as buying a parking permit, applying for school places or amending council tax information). This means that customers can use services and access information at a time convenient to them, without having to travel or wait in a telephone queue. If customers use self-service options when they can, this also enables the council to use more of its limited resources to support those customers who are unable to self-serve or have more complex enquiries and needs. According to research conducted by the Office of National Statistics (2020), we know that in Brighton & Hove we have a higher percentage of residents who use the internet (97.7%), compared to the South East of England (94.2%) and the UK as a whole (92.1%). Online services, including the design and content of the council website, are subject to continuous review, improvement and refinement based on customer need, accessibility and advancements in available technology.
Mystery Shopping
Another way in which we will be quality assuring our service delivery and customer experience is by conducting mystery shopping exercises. These exercises will be designed to test organisational compliance with our customer promise, as well as helping identify any systemic barriers or issues that customers experience in their real-life interactions with the council.
Planned Service Improvements
What actions are services planning to take?
† Wholesale review of methods of access to improve response times to residents.
† Review of forms and process to increase immediate resolution and prevention and ensure, if required, enquiries are passed to the most appropriate team in a timely way.
† Continue to focus on learning from complaints and customer feedback in Health & Adult Social Care monthly performance meetings to identify actions needed and monitoring of progress around these.
† We now have improved our internal communication channels with the customer service teams in Hove Town Hall and Bartholomew House, so that they can contact Housing Benefit staff when customers require in person support. This means that face to face support can be provided at the time, without the need for an appointment being made at a later date.
† Our phone line opening days have increased since November 2022, from 4 days to 5 days. Our opening times are now Mon- Fri from 9am to 1.30pm. Phone lines are closed in the afternoon to focus staff resources on processing claims and returning calls to customers who have called that morning to provide detailed responses to their queries.
† We are looking at all our online forms and literature to ensure they are more straight forward and jargon-free. We will clearly advertise our new opening times and ways to contact us.
† We continue to regularly review how we manage our service and interact with the public in light of the migration of the Housing Benefit caseload over to Universal Credit. We monitor the numbers contacting the service by phone call, email and in person, adapting how we resource our interaction with the public accordingly.
† Improve processing times by using technology to improve the customer journey
† Work with the customer service centres to ensure adequate provision is in place for customers who require assistance due to digital exclusion.
† Review the webpages to ensure information is clear and easy to use.
† Provide more control, efficiency and consistency in how we respond to customer contact including encouraging the use of the Contact Management System to improve the customer journey.
† Engage and consult with customers using customer feedback to adopt a more customer centric approach including a focus on targeting service users who have been ‘under-reached and under-served’ in the past.
† Reviewing the quality, availability, and accessibility of all Families, Children & Learning content published online, to ensure that service information in the public domain is consistent and accurate, promoting the best way to contact the service.
† Review and find solutions for persistent missed collections.
† Deliver digitisation projects to improve service delivery and communications with residents such as Digital Cityclean and a new system to manage the allotment service.
† We are continuing to commit resources to support the directorate objective of developing, initiating, delivering and driving change to modernise the council and improve service to customers. We are collaborating closely with our colleagues in IT&D to introduce an improved digital offer for customers under the MyAccount service. This offer is designed to provide increased automation for core Council Tax transactions and lead to an improved customer experience and response times across the service.
† Analysis of customer demand, with a particular focus on digital contact, to support the development of the improved digital offer.
† Dynamic management of our phone opening times to match resources with the known trends of customer demand. This includes continuing to offer a dedicated phone service to financially vulnerable residents in the city who are struggling to pay their council tax and increasing resources at our busier times and reducing those resources during lower demand periods to support other work, for example the collaboration with IT&D on the digital service.
† Introduce and embed a new triage service in Homelessness & Housing Options, centralising all customer channels into a single team, providing customers and partners with a single point of contact to access housing advice and support.
† Establish more effective case management practices to ensure applications are progressed in a timely way and customers are kept informed of the steps that we are taking, and they need to take, to prevent their homelessness.
† Develop an online single-access portal for customers who are seeking housing advice, want to join the housing register or update their records and see the action being taken on their application.
† Improve our housing register application and change of circumstances online form to make it quicker and easier for applicants to apply or notify us of any changes.
† We will consider our customer service offer to tenants, focusing on ensuring that the way customers contact our service meets their needs in the best way possible.
† We will consider the Housing Management Service’s operating model to ensure it makes best use of resources to meet our obligations as a landlord.
† We will begin to collect the new Tenant Satisfaction Measures, a core set of statutory measure that all social landlords will have to meet and report against. These measures will be used to inform our future service delivery.
† We will review, and provide staff training, on how we communicate with customers and other services, focusing particularly on how we meet the Customer Promise while adapting to the council’s future ways of working.
† Look to improve communication across the service which includes updating residents on changes to appointments or information: Trade teams to improve communication with residents when they have called into Helpdesk and requested an update/information. Many trade teams have recently recruited new planners to try and improve communication levels as they will then be more able to accommodate more frequent call back requests and book in more appointments. Resources have been increased with Housing Repairs to improve first contact communication and case management.
† Continuously improve training methods for new starters to develop knowledge and understanding: Recent implementation of Repairs Finder for new members of staff on Repairs Helpdesk, this software improves the accuracy and detail of raising jobs and assists with training of new members of staff as well as aiding longer serving members of staff to be certain on the details they are inputting and ensuring all questions are asked to diagnose the problem. This has improved job accuracy as trade teams now require much less clarification on certain job descriptions/locations.
† Further implement various methods for residents to report repairs so that it is easily accessible for all: The Housing Online accounts have recently been rolled out to 2,000 homes whereby residents can now report repairs online using Interfinder, rather than calling or emailing. This reduces wait times for other residents that do need to call as well as alleviate pressure for the Repairs Helpdesk during busy periods.
† Ensure new website makes it clear how people can contact us, including phone opening hours.
† Collect customer survey results at point of transaction to gain more responses to improve customer engagement and satisfaction.
† Ensure adequate provision is in place for customers who require assistance due to digital exclusion.
† Regular customer service training for officers
† Implement Planning Enforcement Modernisation Programme to improve the timeliness and responsiveness of the service
† Implement improvements to the Planning website to allow more transparency and self-service.
† Review website information in response to customer comments to ensure information is as simple and clear as possible.
† Ensure that email correspondence responds appropriately and fully to customer queries at first point of contact to minimise repeat contact.
† Develop ceremonies ‘FAQs’ on website for most common queries and embed link in correspondence.
† Consider new ways of gathering feedback.
† Make use of the Contact Management System to provide more control, efficiency, accountability and consistency in customer contact. This will remove confusion over the best way to contact the service by having a single point of contact that is more manageable for both staff and managers. We are now in the process of rolling out the system within Transport Projects and Traffic Management.
† Improve the quality, accountability, and accessibility of information about Transport services on the Brighton & Hove City Council website. We are working closely with IT to make our webpages more user friendly.
† Ensure we engage and consult with our residents/stakeholders on transport projects to ensure we are engaging with under-represented groups within the city.
Contact Us
We welcome any suggestions, questions or other feedback about this report, please contact:
Jenny.Garlick@brighton-hove.gov.uk Customer Experience Manager
Luke.Hamblin@brighton-hove.gov.uk Corporate Performance & Risk Management Lead
Victoria.Paling@brighton-hove.gov.uk Customer Experience Lead
Rima.Desai@brighton-hove.gov.uk Assistant Director – Customer, Modernisation & Performance Insight
Images used in this report were created by:
‘Bank workers providing service’, ‘cartero dando paquete al cliente oficina correos’, ‘people using online apps’: pch.vector
‘Character illustration people holding speech bubbles’, ‘Character illustration people with internet message icons’, ‘Illustration of avatar communication concept’: rawpixel.com
‘illustration landing page with news icon’, ‘thumbs up sticker’: freepik
‘call center service illustration’: studiogstock
Appendices
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Customer Insightis one element of our Performance Management Framework that sets out how the council manages performance, to achieve our purposeas set out in the Corporate Plan.
Website
We will:
• aim to have the council websiteavailable for 24 hours a day all yearround
• continually improveour online servicesto meet your needs
• ensure our online servicesare accessible and simple to use
• let you know about other ways of contacting us
Face to face
We will:
• make sure our customer service buildings are welcoming, safe, fully accessible and designed to make it easy to get the help you need
• aim to greet you within five minutes of arrival and see you on averagewithin 20 minutes.At busier times, we will aim to let you know how long you may have to wait
• let you know about other ways of contacting us
Written communication
We will:
• ensure all service email addresses have an ‘automatic reply’ whichclearly explains what will happen next
• aim to keep average response times within 10 workingdays. At busiertimes, we will aim to let you know how long you may have to wait
• let you know aboutother ways of contacting us
Social media
We will:
• be clear how we will respondto any queries received
• share relevantinformation and keep this up to date
• let you know aboutother ways of contacting us
Telephones
We will:
• aim to keep averagewaiting times under 10 minutes. At busier times, we will aim to let you know how long you may have to wait
• update voicemails and telephone messages regularly to hold accurate information
• aim to respond to voicemails withinone working day
• let you know about other ways of contacting
[1]In line with the Census 2021 data Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) is defined as all ethnic groups other than White English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British
