Venue: Council Chamber - Port Talbot Civic Centre. View directions
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Report
of the Assistant Chief Executive and Chief Digital Officer Additional documents: Minutes: The
Committee was updated on the progress made to date, to address the proposals
for improvement contained within the Wales Audit Office’s Annual Improvement
Report 2017-2018. Members
discussed the importance of widening the scope of scrutiny, including the
public having more involvement and participation, by way of tweeting questions
into meetings, for example. Public speaking was already a recognised form of
public engagement in meetings of the Planning Committee. In
response, officers advised that the Democratic Services Committee had been
commissioned by Council to take forward a project regarding webcasting, as well
as public participation in the democratic process. Results would be fed back to
all Council in 2020. Training
and development of Members was discussed. A yearly questionnaire is circulated
to Members, asking for topics they would like training on. Additionally,
training topics were identified through performance development reviews,
officer input, committee discussions and external regulators. The topics for
training were then prioritised at the Democratic Services Committee. A set of
measures for evaluating the effectiveness of the training programme had also been
identified. Following
scrutiny, the report was noted. |
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Pre-Decision Scrutiny Minutes: The
Committee scrutinised the following Cabinet items: Quarter
1 Key Performance Indicators Members
queried the increase in abandoned telephone calls in English to the contact centre,
and noted that a number of strategies had recently been put in place to prevent
this happening going forward. This included the employment of 6 new modern
apprentices in the last 12 months, with transferrable skills across the contact
centre and one stop shops. Members
sought assurances that suitable measures had been put in place to ensure
flexibility, with reference to CP/101 – CS/002a (customer services – average
time (seconds) to answer telephone calls in Welsh). It was noted that it had taken
several attempts to recruit suitable Welsh speakers, in order to replace those
lost through natural wastage. In addition there was now 50% less staff within
the service than in previous years. It
was anticipated that the new voice and telephony service linked to the main
council phone number would automate a percentage of call responses, and this
would help to reduce the average time taken to answer calls, and also reduce
the number of contact centre staff needed to route calls. Additional council
services were going online, which would release employees’ time to speak with
callers with more complex queries. Members
were interested in receiving further information about regular queries which
came into the contact centre and the one stop shops – for example, bus passes
and disabled blue badges. CP/015
(the percentage of schools that have adopted suitable programmes to address
violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence) was discussed, in
light of the ‘red’ (Red/Amber/Green – RAG) performance status. Officers from
the Education, Leisure and Lifelong Learning (ELLL) directorate were working
with schools and the youth service to put support mechanisms in place. The
Director of ELLL would be engaging with LLAN (Primary Head Teacher Group) and
NASH (National Association of Secondary Headteachers)
in order for schools to be able to highlight where there was an issue. Members
discussed whether reference/incident numbers were given to callers in order to
be able to track a query from start to finish. Officers advised Members to feed
back any specific examples of callers’ queries which they felt had not been
followed through to an acceptable conclusion. Members
were pleased to note there had been a reduction in the number of working days
lost to sickness absence per employee, when compared to the same quarter last
year. Despite
trying to make online services easier for members of the public to use, the
importance of face to face interaction was still important. An example of the
need for face to face engagement was the number of older and disabled people
unable to reapply for their bus passes online – an initiative by Transport for
Wales. Following
scrutiny, the report was noted. Corporate
Plan 2018-22 Annual Report Members queried the meaning of the term ‘affordable housing’ and noted that this referred to the Welsh Government’s definition, as detailed within a Welsh Government Technical ... view the full minutes text for item 2. |
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Forward Work Programme 2019/20 PDF 73 KB Minutes: The
Committee noted the Forward Work Programme for 2019/20. |