Issue - items at meetings - Customer Access Phase 2

Report of Acting Director of Housing (copy attached).

37 .1   The Committee considered an update report of the Acting Director of Housing concerning the review of customer access arrangements for the Housing Management Service and presented a number of proposals for consideration by Committee Members.

37.2    Councillor Fryer asked whether sharing space with the Children and Young People’s Trust was purely office sharing or if there would be a particular benefit in having the CYPT staff in the office.    The Head of Customer Access & Business Improvement reported that the CYPT staff needed accommodation.  Space had become available in Lavender Street as housing teams were working more closely together at the Supercentre. 

37.3    John Melson mentioned that there was already a free phone number for Mears.  He asked why this number could not be used as the basis for the proposal in the report.  The Assistant Director, Housing Management agreed that it would make sense to eventually have a single number.  Initially, there would be a number for repairs and another number for the remainder of tenant management matters.

37.4    Chris Kift pointed out that many lines were still 292929.  He stressed that there was no point in phoning this number as there was often no response.   This needed to be sorted out.  Councillor Mears felt that Mr Kift had made a good point.  Freephones were useful as long as someone answered them.  

37.5    Councillor Simpson agreed that it was a good idea to reduce the number of different telephone numbers.  This was more efficient.  However it could be a problem for older tenants.  A sizable proportion of older tenants were not happy with new telephone systems.  Councillor Simpson was worried that the option would be lost for face to face contact. 

37.6    The Chairman stressed that it was not proposed to close services in local offices, or to reduce face to face contact. 

37.7    The Head of Customer Access & Business Improvement reported that the council now had specialist teams and wanted to highlight how residents could access services in a better way, if they chose to.  The council wanted more staff out on the estates and for them to work more effectively.   

37.8    Stewart Gover made the point that tenancy management was an entirely different matter to repairs and maintenance.  He considered that one number would not be appropriate.   

37.9         Beverley Weaver referred to 2.1 of the report regarding a single point of contact.  She mentioned that tenants were not notified when officers were moved to another office.  She also questioned how officers would be able to spend more time out of the office, and how older tenants would access their housing officer.  The Chairman stressed that the housing officers would stay the same and the service would be accessible.   The Head of Customer Access & Business Improvement agreed that there were no plans to change that aspect of the service.  The proposals would bring about more effective working and would enable officers to make visits to tenants such as the elderly.  

37.10  Chris Kift considered the report to be good and supported the idea of a single point of contact.  However, he pointed out that some people still had dial phones.  He hoped that even with one point of contact, it would still be possible for people to contact individual officers.

37.11  Beverley Weaver questioned whether one point of contact would reach all tenants.

37.12  The Head of Customer Access & Business Improvement informed the Committee that trials at Selsfield Drive had shown that 80% of queries could easily be dealt with by Housing Management Advisors.  She hoped that residents would trust Housing Management Advisors to be effective.  The idea was to deal with the majority of queries at the first point of contact.  Face to face contact in housing offices would not change and was likely to improve.

37.13  David Murtagh confirmed that tenants using Selfield Drive were receiving answers to questions and were happier as a result.   

37.14  Tom Whiting informed the meeting that he had no problem with Selsfield Drive.  He had not noticed any change, but confirmed he had always received a good service.

37.15  RESOLVED – That the following proposals that are being considered by Phase 2 of the Customer Access Review be noted, along with the above comments of Members.     

            (1) A single point of contact is established for all Tenancy Management telephone calls, emails and written enquiries.

(2) That one free phone and one local number is introduced for Repairs and Tenancy management and telecoms technology is utilised to route calls to the correct destinations.

(3) That some Children & Young People’s Trust services are provided from the Lavender Street Housing Office as part of a co-location arrangement with  local housing area staff continuing to be based at that housing office. 

(4) That work continues on looking at providing access to housing management services through ‘Community Contact Points’ in libraries.

Note: Stewart Gover abstained from agreeing resolutions 1 & 2 above.