Issue - meetings
Interplay of allocations review with other housing options work.
Meeting: 03/11/2020 - Housing & Regeneration Scrutiny Sub Committee (Item 5)
5 Housing Options Service Delivery PDF 890 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Karen Swift, Divisional Director Housing & Regeneration, introduced the report, that highlighted what the council is doing to take customer improvement forward in the housing options service and address some of the key recommendations from the previous item (Item 5.4). Karen explained that the service is constantly reviewing the way teams are operating to improve service users’ customer experience.
Further to the officer presentation, the sub committee made the following observations.
· Recent feedback from residents to councillors indicated a poor customer experience for those accessing the council’s housing options team. Noted that housing options customers comprise some of the most desperate and vulnerable of the borough’s residents.
· Improving accessibility, readability and layout of electronic information such as the website, forms etc is critical to enable users to confidently access relevant information and could help to free capacity on telephone helplines. Officers will continue to liaise with digital team colleagues.
· Making it easier for users to contact their housing case worker directly, including a direct dial number, but also alternative contact details such as email.
· The Covid pandemic/lockdown period did have notable disruption to telephone service levels, but remedies were put in place quickly.
· Channel shifting can be a useful tool, but is critical it doesn’t lead to a reduction in service for vulnerable service users.
· The Council previously attained external accreditations for its customer services such as Charter Mark. Recommended that past experience and process is revisited to understand how previous high standards might be restored.
· Sub committee members requested data on customer-access related complaints and KPI performance from the housing options service.
· The council should seek to raise awareness of the intermediate housing register and the option of intermediate rent.
The Chair invited Councillor Sirajul Islam, Statutory Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Housing, to address the meeting. Councillor Islam provided some more detail on recent work to improve the housing options service.
RESOLVED that:
The briefing on the Housing Options Customer Access Project Recovery and Renewal is noted.