Agenda and minutes

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on the 7 December 2011.

The Minutes (copies of which had been circulated) of the meeting held on 7 December 2011 were approved as a correct record subject to:-

(i) The insertion of the following comment under Minute 3 ‘Eleven District Centres’:-

• “Concern was expressed in relation to the disparity between the length of time taken to process electronic forms and paper forms.”

(ii) The insertion of ‘and Marple’ after ‘Heald Green’ in the second bullet point under Minute 3 ‘Eleven District Centres’.

No declarations of interest were made.

To consider a report of the Head of Customer Services.

The report details the transactional online forms and establishes whether a business case exists for the development of transactional online forms for the three service areas:

·         Street lighting

·         Potholes and tripping hazards

·         Bulky refuse collection

The Panel is recommended to:-

(1) Consider the information presented in the report and recommended to give approval for a project to be undertaken to develop transactional online forms and associated work; and

(2) Request that progress be reported back to the Corporate, Resource Management and Governance Scrutiny Committee on a regular basis.

Officer Contact: Adrian Moores, Tel: 0161 474 5405, email: adrian.moores@stockport.gov.uk

The Head of Customer Services submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) detailing the progress on street lighting, potholes and tripping hazards and bulky refuse collection transactional online forms and to establish whether a business case existed for developing these transactional online forms.

Adam Forbes, (Waste Minimisation Manager, Stockport Council) and Andrew Suggett (Managing Agent Manager, Stockport Council) attended the meeting to answer questions from Councillors in relation to the current and proposed transactional online forms.

The Head of Customer Services summarised the progress of the Scrutiny Review to date and the variety of ICT programs used within the Council. He further explained that street lighting, potholes and tripping hazards and bulky refuse collections workshops had been held to discuss the current processes to report faults and the proposed redesigning and technical implications and costs for new transactional online forms.

The following comments were made/ issues raised:-

·         Members discussed using volunteers to provide additional support for Stockport Council services and partnership organisations.

• Members raised concerns in relation to duplicated fault reports and asked how often such duplications were recorded as a result of clusters of faulty street lights.
• A Member enquired about the level of information that an IP (Internet Protocol) address provided and whether as a result a user who was located abroad would be restricted from reporting an issue in the borough.
• Comments were made in relation to the advantages of the introduction of a structured, planned maintenance programme for highways over reactive maintenance.
• The Panel was of the view that members of the public should not be expected to give definitive measurements of potholes when reporting highway defects.
• A query was raised to how many Area Repair teams the Council had in operation. 
• When the public received an automated response after reporting a highways problem which stated that the response time was 10 days, whether this meant that the Area Repair Team would visit the reported defect within that timeframe.
• A query was raised in relation to the use of information obtained from members of the public who had reported a fault and in particular whether this was available on the Council’s website.
• A Member asked when a member of the public reported a problem were they informed of the indicated repair response / installation time.
• It was commented that the Highway Safety Inspections schedule and colour coded routes of when roads were to be inspected was available on the Council’s website.
• A member raised concern with regard to the potentialefficiencies when Contact Centre staff had to contact members of the public for additional information / relating to their original complaint.
• A discussion took place around the number of public enquiries made electronically and by telephone and the desire to reduce the number of telephone calls received at the Contact Centre by channel shifting towards the Council’s website.
• Comments were made with regard to the possibility of integrating transactional and benefits forms and questioned the cost and feasibility of this process.
• Questions  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

The Chair reported that the next meeting of the Panel scheduled for 28 March 2012 fell within the ‘Purdah’ pre-election period and that the Final Report would be circulated electronically to members for comments.

It was further explained that should the Panel wish to convene an additional meeting to discuss the Final Report, then this would be unable to take place until after the election on 3 May 2012.

RESOLVED – That the report be noted.