Issue - meetings

Councillor Crystall, Leader of the Council, submitted a report that provided Members with an update in respect of performance against LEAF priorities over the 2024/25 year, and the proposed amended LEAF priorities for the 2025/26 year onwards.

Councillor Crystall said that the first corporate plan was presented to council in February 2024. He said that this document had been refreshed with some amendments. He welcomed comments, suggestions and questions from the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Councillor E Buckmaster asked for clarification to the changes in the Annual Report, and he asked for some of the important examples. Councillor Crystall said that there was an addition in the first section of the corporate plan which was to strive to achieve excellent customer service.

Members were advised about a further addition which was to engage the community in local government reorganisation. The Leader said that under the environmentally focussed section, there was an addition which was maximising the positive environmental impacts of the delivery of the new waste contract.

The Leader explained that there was a modified section marked as new, which was encouraging residents to play their part in supporting local wildlife and improving our natural environmental and supporting the delivery of the Hertfordshire Nature Recovery Strategy. Lastly, he said that there was a new item under the heading acting with the community, entitled creating a new long asset management plan based on community values.

Councillor Crystall advised that there were modifications to wording where policies were originally being developed and now being implemented. Councillor Wyllie asked what the council would be doing differently to achieve excellent customer service.

Councillor Crystall said that a council would always strive to achieve excellent customer service. He said that the corporate plan provided a focus for how Officers behaved, and the kind of things that they treated as the most important.

Councillor Dumont said that the council was seeking to achieve a nationally recognised accreditation or award known as customer service excellence. He said that Officers had recently engaged with an assessment body, and an internal audit and assessment which involved collating information about systems and processes, and this was due to be completed by the end of June.

Members were advised that this information would be reviewed by the accreditation body for review and audit. The Council would be informed after this whether the accreditation standard had been met.

Councillor Nicholls expressed a concern regarding inclusivity in customer services. She cited an example of a resident who did not have access a computer and had struggled to get answers to a council tax support query by telephone. She asked if there was a drive to making the digital service more comprehensive to free up telephone capacity for people who struggled online.

The Director for Regeneration, Customer and Commercial Services said that the general direction of travel was to address more queries digitally to free up more time for the complex queries to be handled face to face in the reception with customer services.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77