Councillor Stewart presented the report and firstly thanked the Director, Heads of Service and Officers for their support, focus and dedication throughout the year to ensure that a good quality service had been delivered to Thurrock residents and to look at the tasks ahead.

Councillor Stewart highlighted the following areas of her report:

The Serco transition was a huge undertaking for staff and had been recognised by a national award from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development for Best Employee Relations Initiative 2016 and a Customer Contact Association Version 6 accreditation. This multi-functional front line team had been trained to cover a wide range of service issues and staff should be very proud of themselves.

There will be a full and thorough review of existing KPIs and other performance tools in 2016 keeping in line with recommendations made by the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Report in 2015/16.

Targets will no longer be categorised using KPI performance Red, Amber or Green (RAG status) instead there will be a simplified Achieved or Failed indicator.

That a ‘deep clean’ had started to reform the complaints system by removing the concern stage and all complaints will be dealt with swiftly. Officers would embrace complaints, learn from them and put measures in place to try and not make the same mistakes again. The Council will be more open and transparent and that reports will now be presented to the Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee before going to Cabinet so cross party discussions can take place and issues raised before the Portfolio Holders consider any reports.

Residents of Thurrock deserved the best service the Council can provide and the administration were listening and will offer better services which were fit for residents’ needs.

Councillor Piccolo thanked Councillor Stewart for her report and asked whether the changes in the KPI performance indicators would show that there were greater numbers of failed KPIs. Councillor Stewart stated that it may look like more have failed but this was not the case as the indicators only showed current in-year progress and more targets would be met as the year progressed. 

Councillor Spillman stated that having had experience of submitting complaints he was amazed that complaints could get to stage 3 without any complainant interview taking place and asked the Portfolio Holder if the department would consider a formal interview or consent from the complainant to be more involved to ensure scrutiny was taking place. Councillor Stewart stated she was unsure if this could be achieved for all cases due to legal and data protection issues but she would seek guidance from the Director and would report back to Councillor Spillman.

Councillor Gerrish thanked the Portfolio Holder for her report and asked when she expected the agency staff spend to be lowered. Councillor Stewart stated very soon and highlighted that the Conservative administration has had only four months to work at this issue whereas Labour had 6 years and 7 months to resolve it.  The Conservative administration would tackle this issue as best they can.

Councillor Collins asked the Portfolio Holder when the last residents survey was carried out. Councillor Stewart stated that she did not know but knew that one had not been done under the previous administration, so more than 7 years ago.