Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
"Call in" of Council's decision to spend £1.6 million on consultants
This evening at 5:00 pm there will be a meeting of the Council's Scrutiny Committee at the Civic Centre for the purpose of considering a decision by the Leader of the Council to spend £1.6 million on consultants for advice on how to raise the standard of service provided by the Council's call centre.
The meeting follows on a "call in" of the decision by Liberal Democrat Councillors.
Improvement at the call centre is certainly needed because approximately 1 call in 3 is not answered at all and because only 17 % are answered within the target time.
However, the jargon-laden report which has led to the decision to hire consultants does not give any confidence that hiring consultants is the way to improver matters, Here is a sample:
5.3. Outlined in the table below are the key projects within the CST programme:
Customer Services Develop’t (CSD)
Future access channel and service transformation (3 tier model)
• End to End Business Process Re-engineering
• Detailed design and requirements gathering
• Migration of services to contact centre, CSCs and web
Our view is that what the council needs to do to improve customer services is answer the phone and deal with residents’ enquiries quickly, resolving the problems they have raised. That means hiring more people to do the job and training them properly, not spending £1.6 million in producing yet more management speak.
In addition to operating the call-in procedure, we have launched an e petition to stop this waste of money. It can be accessed at http://eepurl.com/Dj8B5
David Schmitz
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Harringay Ward
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
-
I believe the figure of about one in three calls answered, is an official Haringey statistic, indeed something they've used as evidence of the need to spend this huge sum on consultants.
Therein lies a hint that there's already information about the state of the telephone answering. It suggests they've done a survey: it would be interesting to know more about any such research.
What I'm getting at is that, a rational analysis of the data already in the possession of the council, by intelligent people willing to take responsibility for their decisions, is what is needed.
The decision makers also need to be possessed of that rare thing, common sense.
I am staggered that the council can conjure up £1,600,000 for any purpose, let alone for the purposes of blowing on consultants for instruction on picking up the phone and dealing with residents.It has waste of money written over it.
-
Permalink Reply by Laura on
-
Could someone clarify? Mr Schmitz says "Improvement at the call centre is certainly needed because approximately 1 call in 3 is not answered"
Mr Carter says "I believe the figure of about one in three calls answered, is an official Haringey statistic"
What is it? one in three answered or one in three not answered?
-
-
Laura, sorry, my mistake. I should have typed, about one in three calls unanswered.
Clearly the council has data about the performance of its customer services, already.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
Tackling residents' problems and dealing with their enquiries is not just about answering the phone more quickly.
In any organisation, getting through is vital. Getting though to a human being makes a nice change. Getting through to someone pleasant and polite is a bonus; and I can honestly say that is my experience of "front line" Haringey staff. And I do mean without first identifying myself as a councillor.
The problem is what happens next. Does the person answering understand the problem? Do they have to stick to a script? Can they help solve a problem or refer residents to someone who can?
The documents presented to the Leader and her "cabinet" appear to be moving in entirely the opposite direction. As I predicted in 2008 the future is to be Artificial Intelligence. "Digital becoming the primary channel through which customers interact with the council."
The trouble is, when I made this prediction I thought I was joking.
Is there actually any merit in the proposals being discussed this evening? It's impossible to say. The LibDems and others are having fun pointing out that the reports are stuffed with management technobabble.
Of course, mystifying management jargon is precisely the wrong way to discuss changes which are supposedly about: "Developing a new relationship with customers that builds trust and confidence and a customer service culture that extends beyond the front office."
In other words, they've fallen at the first hurdle. If the Dear Leader had an ounce of political nous she would have insisted the reports were translated into Plain English.
The contempt shown by Cllr Kober for the Council's "customers" is shown by the fact that she is not even bothering to attend the Scrutiny meeting this evening. Instead she's sending Cllr Joe Goldberg to take any flak. So expect more high speed bluster and blather.
— Tottenham Hale ward councillor. Note: quotes are from the Report to Cllr Claire Kober dated 30 July 2013; Procurement of a Strategic Partner to support the Customer Services Transformation Programme CSTP
-
-
insisted the reports were translated into Plain English.
Yes. I think this should be a general rule about this in order to promote plain English.
So often, officers and would-be-consultants hide behind jargon or Alan's Obfustian/technobabble. Often this is to shield emptiness. More need to speak up and say, The King has no clothes!
Customer services: it's not rocket science and there's no need to pay space-programme consultancy fees.
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
That's how they win elections. They tick off every single voter. In 2010 it came down to 15 votes in Harringay. I agree but the red gang do it as much as the yellow gang.
-
Permalink Reply by VIX on
-
Ha ha ha, oh boy, they really are a bunch of money squandering twits. £1.6 million for some suited blager (sorry 'consultant') to tell you to hire more staff to answer the phones?
-
-
More staff? Or maybe more computers? HaringAi is back. Press 1 to speak to a machine.
"Can you send someone round to remove the dumped rubbish?"
"Affirmative Vix, I read you. But I'm sorry, Vix, I'm afraid I can't do that."
"What's the problem?"
"I think, Vix, you know what the problem is, just as well as I do."
"What are you talking about?"
"This Waste Management Plan is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it."
-
-
Also, is this "Council Scrutiny Committee" open to the public and/or being broadcast online?
Thanks to anyone.
-
-
It's open to the public. But unfortunately not webcast as it's in Committee Room 5 at the Civic Centre.
It starts at 5pm so you need to get going!
P.S. of course it should be webcast. But hey, this is Haringey.
-
Permalink Reply by 24g2s8fz5ir06 on
-
that surprises me - I can't think of a single time when I have called the Council and got no response at all. Whether it was a helpful response is another matter, but I am usually talking to someone quite quickly.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
