Published: Thursday 28 September 2023
The Council’s leadership team has formally agreed a new set of service standards that support our ongoing commitment to become a caring and competent Council.
After more than a year of consultation and development with residents, the standards will be implemented in every team to improve the level of service residents receive when they call, email or access Council services in person.
The standards are the first of their kind, with no other local authority designing authority-wide standards in partnership with residents.
The service standards have been split into three parts – how residents want to feel when they contact the Council, what the Council needs to do to achieve that and what staff and services need to do.
Read the new service standards in full.
Cllr Johnny Thalassites, lead member for finance, customer service and net zero Council said:
“Our new service standards are part of our continuing change following the Grenfell tragedy. By setting them we want to become the best Council we can be for our communities and build a positive legacy following the tragedy.
“After the tragedy, people told us we have failed to listen to our communities. These new service standards have been co-designed with residents where we have listened to their experiences with the Council and understood what they need from us.
“Our challenge now is to embed the standards across all of our services so that when someone picks up the phone, sends an email they are listened to and they know that the person responding cares about the outcome.”
What are service standards?
The new service standards are a collection of guidelines which set the bar for what a resident can expect when they contact the Council. They describe how residents want to feel, what the Council needs to do to achieve that and how council staff and services should respond.
For example:
- Residents want to feel that the person they speak to cares and that they have understand and made a record of why they are contacting the Council.
- To do that the Council needs to focus more on resolving residents’ issues than ticking boxes and make sure out IT systems mean residents don’t have to tell us the issue twice.
- Therefore staff and services need to have empathy when answering and enquiry, show they care and be human, transparent, honest and accountable.
How will staff learn about them and embed the service standards in their work?
Council staff have been consulted on the standards so know they are being introduced. Now that they have been formally agreed, staff have been invited to workshops to learn more and ask questions. There has also been an all-staff online Q&A with the chief executive and customer delivery team to explain the standards. Around council offices and buildings the standards will be available to see on our digital screens and noticeboards.
How did the Council consult?
Through a communications campaign, we ensured that we recruited a broad range of residents to be part of our resident user group so they could work with us to develop the new standards.
We've met with the User Group since summer 2022 and collectively drafted standards on how to improve our customer service across the Council, based on what our User Group have shared.
We then consulted on the proposed service standards in April and May this year with an online questionnaires for staff and residents and events for staff, residents and stakeholders.