Agenda item
The Digital Strategy and the Customer Experience
To receive a report from the Director of Performance, Policy and Partnerships providing an update on the Brent Digital Strategy 2017 – 2020 and its impact on the customer experience in accessing services. The report also provides an outline for the forthcoming Channel Strategy and seeks feedback from the Committee on its scope and the principles proposed to underpin the ways in which Brent Council will design and deliver its services across a range of contact channels to ensure accessibility and value for money.
Minutes:
Peter Gadsdon (Director Performance, Policy and Partnerships) introduced the report on the Brent Digital Strategy 2017-2020. The report provided an overview of the Digital Strategy, approved by Cabinet in June 2017 and outlined the proposed Channel Strategy currently in development. The Digital Strategy set out a vision for a programme of change, driven by use of new technologies, through which the priorities of the Brent 2020 plan could be met. In line with this, the Channel Strategy would help to provide clarity regarding the impact on the customer experience across all channels of contact with the council and ensure consistency in the quality of access.
Highlighting the key themes of the Digital Strategy, Peter Gadsdon advised that the work being undertaken focussed on enabling customers to access services online, via their preferred device at any time, whilst promoting self-help and digital inclusion. At the same time, a significant focus of the strategy was to address the needs of vulnerable service users who were not able to self-help or access services independently. For this cohort, the future experience for accessing services would be more tailored to their needs, including appointments, relational support in community based settings and earlier interventions by core services. The Digital Strategy also included an objective to ‘Trial radical approaches and develop innovative solutions for new models of service delivery’. Workstreams under this objective would trial and implement new technologies, including chatbots (virtual agents) and next generation telephony, across multiple council departments and service areas.
Peter Gadsdon outlined some of the work currently underway, advising that the council had invested in a new development team, which would be tasked with building a single system to replace and streamline a number of back-office systems. Another big investment in progress was the procurement of the new telephony system which would provide a much more flexible and responsive communications system for Brent.
In the subsequent discussion members sought an update on the progress made in reducing the number of publically advertised telephone numbers for council services, questioned whether the council had undertaken research regarding preferences for different automated telephone menu options and queried whether the website could be accessed in different languages. Questions were raised regarding response times with regard to emails and how to manage public expectations. Members expressed support for the Harlesden Community Hub model but noted that issues had been raised regarding uniformity and quality of service due to the range of different partners contributing to its delivery. It was subsequently queried whether this issue was being monitored and addressed. With regard to the Channel Strategy and the different contact channels identified, the committee emphasised that face-to-face was a broad category and questioned whether a consistent offer would be provided by all staff, including back-office staff who may be approached in the civic centre. Questions were raised regarding the council’s Client Index system and how this fit into the Digital Strategy, with comment particularly sought on the potential for achieving cost savings for the council by tailoring services and implementing social interventions. Questions were raised regarding contingencies should the council’s IT infrastructure fail and members queried what the council could do to expand the provision of high-speed broadband in the borough.
Sadie East (Head of Transformation) confirmed that the number of publically advertised telephone numbers had now been reduced to just under 100 from 230. Peter Gadsdon explained that this work was ongoing and the ambition was to reduce this to as small a number as possible. Work was also underway to replace generic department or team emails with electronic forms which would capture the information and direct the enquiry to the correct officer or service. It was considered appropriate for response times to written enquiries to be the same, irrespective of whether they were made by letter or email, as both required the same level of effort to investigate and prepare a response. An evaluation was required to assess customers’ preferred telephone menu systems and the use of chatbots/virtual agents would also be piloted. Chatbots would be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week and also had the functionality to log into systems and enter data. It was confirmed that the council’s website could already be accessed in a large number of different languages.
Addressing the committee’s queries on the Harlesden Community Hub pilot, Sadie East advised that this had been running two days a week for six months and proposals were being developed to roll out a similar model elsewhere in the borough. The pilot had been delivered in partnership with voluntary organisations and had been positively received by the community. The council was working with the Brent Community Advice Network to ensure that it was clear to customers using the service which members of staff could provide advice and which members of staff could provide more basic support. Peter Gadsdon advised that the pilot had helped to identify what services and support were needed locally to ensure a consistent offer could be deployed across the borough. Althea Loderick emphasised that the Customer Promise underpinned the work of all Council staff and this was reiterated at every opportunity from inductions and appraisals through to the Forward Together sessions.
Peter Gadsdon explained that the council’s Client Index system combined data from a large number of back-office systems and was used extensively by Fraud, Audit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax teams. Though useful, the Client Index was limited in its ability to facilitate predictive analysis. However, the council had been developing a product via IBM which would draw together data from the client index and other key data sets from the council and its partners including schools, the Youth Offending Service, Police, the Home Office and Health. This tool enabled the council to identify individuals appearing against multiple risk factors and could therefore be used to identify, for example, children at risk of sexual exploitation or gang activity. It was now being considered how to take this model forward and further expand its application for the council. Peter Gadsdon confirmed that at the point of data collection, the council informed the customer that the information would be shared across council systems. The process was more complex when sharing information between partner organisations and information governance agreements had to be established and privacy impact assessments undertaken. The council was prepared for the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations in May 2018.
The committee further heard from Peter Gadsdon that the council had mirrored data centres from which the council’s systems could be restored in the event that one failed. Digital Inclusion was a key strand of the Digital Strategy. It was hoped that as part of an OPDC bid, high-speed fibre broadband would be brought to Park Royal and to Harlesden. During the discussion, the Strategic Director of Resources agreed to seek an update on behalf of the committee from the Head of Customer Services regarding the status of a previously delivered initiative run by the council supporting residents in their use of IT.
The Chair thanked the officers and lead member for their contribution to the meeting.
RESOLVED:
i) That the Director of Performance, Policy and Partnerships be recommended to amend the list of contact channels for the proposed Channel Strategy, to include ‘contact via councillor’.
ii) That the Director of Performance, Policy and Partnerships ensure that the Digital Strategy and the aligned, Brent Channel Strategy are subject to regular review to ensure they remain fit for purpose and reflect changes to the technological landscape.
iii) That the Director of Performance, Policy and Partnerships ensure that monitoring is undertaken of the volume of contacts by channel to enable the council to better respond to any evident changes in preference for particular contact channels.
Supporting documents:
- 07. The Digital Strategy and the customer experience, item 7. PDF 120 KB
- 07a. Appendix 1, item 7. PDF 356 KB
- 07b. Appendix 2, item 7. PDF 1 MB
- 07c. Appendix 3, item 7. PDF 42 KB