Service Standards

In the Council’s Customer Access Strategy, we committed to creating Service Standards with residents. We co-developed these with a group of residents who responded to an expression of interest form, indicating that they would like to work with the Council to do this.

We asked for your feedback on these draft Service Standards and whether you thought they were clear and easy to understand, and suggestions for improvement, and how the Council could be held to account and measure its progress.

We had 59 responses to the formal consultation survey and engaged with 76 residents in face to face consultation events.

You have inconsistent experiences when contacting the council - Some residents reflect that staff are helpful and friendly but are unable to resolve issues quickly and properly. Other resident feedback indicates that staff do not always treat residents with respect, kindness, or empathy.

You find that council communications are inaccessible and not inclusive – Residents say information needs to be available in other languages, and that the Council needs to do more to communicate and provide information for those that struggle to access Council Services for example if they have a learning difficulty, disability or need support with digital access.

There is a lack of Information about different council services and how to contact them - Residents feel we do not proactively share information about different Council Services or how to contact them; especially if they are not accessing information online.

You do not feel that the Council includes or consults you early enough in the process on the things that affect your lives – Residents who responded to our survey were asked if they felt included in decisions that are made about them/their families. A round a third of respondents (20 out of 47) said that they ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ felt included in decisions about them/their families.

• Inconsistent Experiences – We have designed a framework to understand how each Service is currently working and actions it will take to improve. We will trial the agreed approach in three services to identify good practices, as well as actions to support improvement which will be recorded in an action plan.
• Accessibility and Inclusion - We are exploring options for the council website to be translated into the most commonly spoken languages, as well as how we can gather and record more information on accessibility issues that make it harder for residents to access services, such as learning difficulties, disabilities, or lack of support with digital access. Work is also ongoing to use technology (CRM) that will support us to properly record resident needs and allow us to flag residents needs easily so that the organisation can work more proactively to support them.

• Lack of Information about Council Services – A review of our website has produced conclusions and recommendations. We are currently working to review, assess and implement the agreed changes. 
• Lack of Visible Council Officers in the Community – We are carrying out a face-to-face access pilot in community spaces to understand demand and impact. This will help us to understand what services and information residents would like to see and have access to; and where and when these need to be delivered to best support residents.
• A Need to Be Consulted Early in the Process about Council Decisions – From the very beginning, resident consultation has been a key part of the process to develop the service standards. We sought resident views on both the content and wording of the standards, to make sure that they were written in a way that was clear and easy to understand, that they would help you to hold the Council to account, and to understand how you felt our progress against the standards should be measured. The feedback you gave resulted in the development of two new standards, as well as changes to the wording of others. For example:
  • We added the standard ‘As a resident I want to feel that I am being treated as an individual’.
  • We added the word proactively to the standard ‘Which means staff and services need to proactively update residents every step of the way’ as the residents consulted made it clear that they expected us to take a more active role in contacting residents, rather than waiting for residents to contact us.

We developed some best practice guidance for staff about feeding back to residents to show how their viewpoints have been included in any decisions that have been made and communicated this to colleagues across the Council. 

You can view the Service Standards and the Implementation Plan on the Council website.

You can view the Council Plan on the Council website.