Agenda item

Report of the Director of Customer and Digital attached.

The Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, Social Justice and Wealth-Building (Councillor Aniela Bylinski Gelder) and the Directors of Customer and Digital (Paul Hussey), Neighbourhoods and Development (Jennifer Mullin) and Planning and Property (Jonathan Noad) presented an update on the work of the portfolio since May 2019 and responded to members’ comments and queries.

Key achievements for the portfolio included the response to the COVID-19 pandemic; changes to the Council Tax Support Scheme for 2000 residents; the implementation of ‘One Front Door’ model and the presence of the Citizens Advice Bureau in the Civic Centre; high customer satisfaction; and the development of the My Neighbourhood Community Hubs.

Members, however, alluded to the wide-reaching breadth of the portfolio and queried its appropriacy. Assurances were provided in response that the different areas of the portfolio link well together and underpin the practices of care for South Ribble residents.

In response to a query regarding learning from customer complaints, members were informed that complaints are thoroughly investigated with learning shared with the relevant department. Regular training sessions are also held for Gateway staff.

The committee sought clarification on the term ‘channel shift’ and how residents who cannot access services electronically can still engage with the council.

‘Channel shift’ was defined as the move from traditional methods of engagement to informal means such as social media and live chat. Assurances were provided, however, that traditional methods of communication would remain available for residents who could not access services digitally and that extensive training would be held for the public.

Further information on this would be available in due course.

Members were interested to note that work on the Council’s new website was in the advanced stages and a beta version would be available for members to test before Christmas 2020. It was anticipated that the new website would go live in the New Year.

An update on the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in South Ribble was also requested and members were informed that no dates had been confirmed for the arrival of the next cohort.

Discussion centred around the delivery of the portfolio’s projects and assurance was sought that sufficient resource and staff was available. In response, officers expressed confidence in the current capacity of staff. 

In response to questions around the decision-making and budgetary powers of the new My Neighbourhood Hubs, assurances were provided that the models were still in development but it was the Cabinet Member’s hope that decision-making would be more autonomous. Individual budgets would be allocated to each Hub with the option of applying for additional funding from a central budget consisting of £20,000 for larger-scale projects.

Further development of the My Neighbourhood Hubs would take place in early 2021 and this was identified as a key priority for the portfolio moving forwards, in addition to implementing the Community Wealth Building Action Plan.

The committee thanked the Cabinet Member and the Directors of Customer and Digital, Neighbourhoods and Development and Planning and Property for their attendance.

RESOLVED: (Unanimously)

That the Scrutiny Committee

1.    thanks the Cabinet Member for her detailed portfolio update and answering Members’ questions.

2.    commends the work of the portfolio since its creation last year.

3.    praises the Council’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and support provided to residents, businesses and communities.

4.    welcomes the reassurance that the My Neighbourhood Hub model would be developed for the new year.

5.    wishes the Cabinet Member well with her portfolio priorities moving forward.