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ITEM CA13
CABINET
– 19 SEPTEMBER 2006
CORPORATE
GOVERNANCE SCRUTINY REVIEW OF CUSTOMER FOCUS
Comments by the Cabinet
Member for Change Management Introduction
- I have read the
Scrutiny Review in some detail and have the following comments to make.
I welcome the emphasis the Review places on customer service and customer
focus. Staff working in front-line areas will be grateful for the recognition
the Review gives for the way in which they deliver services. The underlying
thrust of what some of the specific recommendations are designed to
achieve is also welcome and there are many elements of that thrust which
I am happy to support.
- It is a shame,
however, that the recommendations are couched in terms of specific administrative
actions which in many cases no longer fit with the way the changing
culture of the Council is developing and restrict officers from taking
alternative courses of action to achieve the underlying objectives.
There is perhaps a broader lesson for Scrutiny Reviews here. Recommendations
for reviews of this type are most useful when they concentrate on principle,
policy and outcomes but do not restrict future flexible methods of delivery.
- In many areas,
too, I have problems with the methodological approach taken although
I recognise that this is standard fare with many scrutiny reviews. What
is missing is a sufficiently rigorous framework to provide a robust
audit trail between real evidence and recommendations. In this
case, I believe the absence of such a framework has let down the review
team who have approached the subject in good faith and with a desire
to be constructive.
- For example, in
common with the approach taken by many Scrutiny Reviews, this Review
relies heavily on anecdotal comment to colour and inform the points
the Review wishes to make. The anecdotal nature of these comments is
neither supported by corroborative evidence nor by any indication that
the comments have any wider currency than the individuals who made them.
- The material relating
to leadership within the council has been taken from the staff survey
without acknowledgement of its proper context or limitations and is
misleading and selective. The wording is infelicitous and open to misinterpretation.
In addition, given the comments made and the HR dimension behind much
of this, it is surprising that neither the head of HR nor any member
of the County Council Management Team (CCMT), apart from Stephen Capaldi,
was interviewed. There is also no indication of any direct HR input
which is surprising given the people element of providing customer service.
- The list of county
council interviewees is heavily dominated by middle managers. Not only
is this not representative but it is difficult to see the relevance
of why some were included at all. The list of external interviewees
is characterised by the absence of any direct individual customers and
by the presence of intermediary customers such as parish councils. In
addition, questionnaires appear to have been used only within Oxford
City and there seems to have been no methodology used to ensure that
the responses and the people who completed them are in any way representative
of the wider community.
- The section on
benchmarking, which could have been particularly useful, provides no
robust methodology and allows for no meaningful inter-council comparisons
of like with like. As a result it is difficult to see whether a score
of 62% to the question in our own staff survey "In my opinion, the
Council is committed to customer service" is good, average or bad.
In relation to Warwickshire County Council, for example, we are told
only that their target is one of 80% in meeting people’s needs – no
indication of how much the target is realised.
- My overall feeling,
therefore, is that there is much in this report which could be of quite
significant use to the Council but it needs additional work both in
the form of extra interviews and in relation to tightening the methodology.
This Review is perhaps a good example of where the panel might have
been better guided by an external customer relations consultant both
to provide input to the approach and to help tease out the valuable
nuggets of information and opinion the panel have produced. I and/or
the Chief Executive would be very happy to work with the review team
to suggest some additional areas to look at which might make the Review
more complete if this is the direction in which they wish to go with
their report. Some of the key isues are set out below and relate to
customer experience, internal customers and the role of councillors.
Service, Focus, Experience
- The Review seeks
to make the distinction between customer service and customer focus.
Those who attended Chris Daffy’s lecture at the Oxford Union event last
year will have heard him add a third stage – customer experience.
- For Daffy and
other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) specialists the move from
service-focus-experience is both incremental and sequential. Reliance
on service and focus alone are seen as both too narrow and too shallow.
- A key element
of this is the degree to which there is commitment across an organisation
to the customer’s total experience with the organisation. The Review
hints at this but does not go far enough in seeing this as an ultimate
goal. In particular, it underplays a key success factor in achieving
a good customer experience for our customers – the role of internal
customers.
Internal Customers
- My own experience
and the message of Daffy and others is unequivocal. Before organisations
can make any significant and lasting progress with their external customers,
they have to get internal customer service right. The analogy, of course,
is with a chain being only as strong as its weakest link.
- "If people
are not experiencing exceptional service from their colleagues inside
an organisation, they are incapable of delivering it to customers outside
the organisation. The creation of an internal culture of service must
therefore always precede any major efforts to improve external customer
service. This means that work must be done with people who may never
come into direct contact with external customers so that they understand
how they can and must support their colleagues who do. It will
also mean giving attention to all the systems and processes used by
the organisation to ensure they enable and do not disable the front
line delivery of excellent service." Chris Daffy
- It is my view
that in many of its recommendations the Review is encouraging the organisation
to run before it can walk. After all, the council’s customer service
strategy is still itself very much in its infancy. Whilst the Review
is right to warn of dangers and holes in the strategy, at this close
distance from the beginning of the customer service strategy it is difficult
to see how the Review can have apparently spotted wide ranging long-term
trends.
- Without more development
of the internal customer concept it is difficult to provide any context
for or to see the immediate relevance of many of the remarks about internal
staff attitudes.
- Indeed, as outlined
in the introduction, I have a fundamental problem with the methodology
adopted (which is common to many scrutiny reviews) of using selective
quotations from those interviewed to illustrate points where there is
no other empirical evidence to support the view. Given the number of
people interviewed it is difficult to see how claims can be made that
these views are widespread. The way they are used to colour conclusions
in the Review is, therefore, particularly unsound and unhelpful.
Customer Focus
- Government defines
customer focus in terms of "refocusing services around the needs
of the citizen as a customer of public services, rather than the problems
of those who provide the services. It signifies an organisational culture
that aims to address the needs, expectations and behaviours of the public,
and then adjusts every aspect of the organisation to align with customer
values. Achieving a Customer Focus across the public sector is one of
the fundamental requirements of the Modernising Government agenda. ……Modernising
Government means making sure that citizens and businesses come first.
We want public services that respond to users' needs and are not arranged
for the provider's convenience."
- In broad terms
the Review clearly has a similar definition in mind and talks of services
not being designed for the benefit of the professional. The general
thrust of this has, of course, to be correct and applies as much to
the private as to the public sector. But it is not difficult to see
why Daffy and others see this sort of statement as nothing more than
motherhood and apple pie – in his words, too narrow and too shallow.
- In the first place,
as the Review acknowledges, customer focus is limited in terms of the
way in which services are rationed and budgets are finite. Second, customer
focus is limited because the views and wishes of customers are often
unrealistic and contradictory. Thirdly, the County Council is not simply
an administrative service delivery vehicle but a political organisation.
The range, type and intensity of services delivered are the product
of the political direction set by the controlling administration rather
than an open competition between specialist pressure groups.
- A further limitation
on unbridled customer focus is the conflict which arises between what
people want us to do and what we are statutorily obliged to do. Given
the increasingly highly directional thrust of central government’s relationship
with local government it is very likely that the gap between local expectations
and what we do will grow and that we will have increasingly limited
opportunities to change this.
- The Review hints
at many of these limitations but does not pursue them to provide guidance
as to what customer focus means in the context of the circumstances
of this particular organisation or what the success factors for a successful
customer focus programme would be. Clearly, given the subjective and
individual nature of some of the limiting factors, a 100% satisfaction
rate is unobtainable. Yet the Review feels able to criticise current
satisfaction rates – even although they benchmark well – without having
established what an appropriate threshold would be for this County Council.
Saying ‘No’
- One of the great
services this Review does is to highlight the frequency with which the
County Council will need to say ‘no’. This is clearly the area where
many staff and politicians seem to feel most uncomfortable. Saying ‘no’,
however, goes beyond customer focus into customer experience. It is
a shame that the Review did not take the opportunity this provides to
put more flesh on the overall qualitative aspects of the customer experience
they would wish to see the Council provide. This is clearly not just
about managing expectations but also about the need to re-set (and sometimes
fundamentally) expectations in the first place.
Change Programme
- The Review acknowledges
the existence of the change programme and highlights three specific
initiatives. It also alludes to the organisational development (OD)
programme being developed.
- My view, however,
is that the Review has failed to pick up just how extensive the total
package of change is and has misunderstood the extent of the OD programme.
Even within the existing projects mentioned the effects are likely to
be radical in embedding a customer focus as part of the culture. In
particular, the balanced scorecard is expected to cascade down to an
individual appraisal level and the management competencies will be extended
to cover staff competencies.
- In addition, the
overall culture change programme (which is the overarching element of
the OD programme) will seek further to align the culture and corporate
success measures with the CHOICE acronym and the seven key words in
which customer focus already plays a key part.
- This has huge
implications for the current structures for delivering customer service/focus
within directorates and these are currently to be reviewed to ensure
that they still align with our objectives.
- It also has implications
for the sorts of mechanisms which the council has traditionally used
to pursue initiatives and which are still largely reflected in the detail
of the recommendations.
Councillors
- The Review makes
reference to the way in which councillors have a direct face to face
relationship with the Council’s customers. This is an important point.
- Councillors are
as much front-line troops for the authority as any social worker or
receptionist. It is a shame, therefore, that the Review does not go
on to develop how the role of the councillor can be more integrated
into the delivery of customer service, focus and experience. True, this
would require a culture change amongst Members as much as officers.
But achieving radical culture change is what we are about and the benefits
could be significant. Input from Members at this stage on this issue
would be of great value.
- In large measure
the Review falls into the trap of seeing customer service/focus as an
officer activity with only an ill-defined and peripheral role for members.
Senior Management Team
- CCMT and other
senior managers will have just cause to be resentful of the comments
as they stand which are made about lack of leadership. I wonder whether
the Review team really wanted to cast their net so wide in this area
or whether this is simply poor editing. This is especially so as, with
the exception of Stephen Capaldi, no interviews took place with members
of CCMT.
- In addition, an
implication could be drawn from paragraph 96 of the report that the
Chief Executive was uncommitted to customer service/focus which would
be completely untrue. Both she and CCMT (and the members of the Change
Management Board) are fully committed. That commitment also of course
fully extends to the Cabinet.
- Equally concerning
is the way in which statistics have been extracted from the staff survey
without appreciation of context. More detailed input from the head of
HR should have taken place and would have revealed just how limited
leadership information is in terms of the conclusions which can be drawn
from it. These sorts of leadership questions are increasingly seen as
of little intrinsic value as they are over-influenced by proximity to
the centre. As you move up the tiers results improve.
- It could be argued
that this says something about the way in which we communicate internally.
I would agree with this. This is why a cross-silo officer communications
group is being put together to look at the extent and means by which
we communicate. I would like this to be innovative and imaginative in
its thinking and not to be restricted to newsletters and current ‘established’
means of communication.
Charter Mark
- I welcome the
comments on Charter Mark.
- However, I am
not sure that the Review sufficiently appreciates the implications which
our approach to Charter Mark will have on customer service/focus.
- Like the Review
I agree that Charter Mark has the potential to make the single greatest
advance in the way we approach customer service/focus. However, we should
be under no illusion about the cost of this. Whilst there will be continuing
activity in terms of customer service training, Charter Mark will be
the focus of our customer service programme for the life of this administration.
Other customer initiatives will only be pursued to the extent that they
do not detract focus and resources from Charter Mark.
OWIS
- I thought I had
clarified the position with regard to OWIS but am happy to do so again.
OWIS is not a project which will be taken forward in the short term
but remains a medium-long term objective. When it is ready to be taken
forward the business case for it will need to be re-reviewed and it
will be subject to the more stringent project management criteria we
now employ and which this administration has been keen to see introduced.
I would, therefore, expect to see a revised Project Implementation Document
(PID) in due course.
- In the budget
papers for 2006/7, I set out a list of ICT projects in priority order.
The list was not arbitrary but was based on an assessment of which projects
were required as sine qua nons before we could even contemplate
a successful OWIS design and implementation.
- Until these projects
– which include universal payments and a range of forms and documentation
projects – have been implemented I would have grave doubts that OWIS
could be implemented within an acceptable level of risk.
- The funding of
these projects is in part dependent on the release of the provision
currently retained against the resolution by government of local pensions.
Thames Valley Police
(TVP)
- Including a case
study of TVP was instructive. However, it also illustrated the way in
which customer focus and customer service are confused within organisations.
Whilst the TVP Strategic Paper purports to concentrate on customer focus,
the principle success measure illustrated is in the speed of answering
phones – which is customer service. Indeed, my experience of the police
in South Oxfordshire is that little has changed in terms of customer
focus or with real consultation and listening to the public.
Recommendations
- To quote Chris
Daffy again: "It’s … essential to ensure that any changes and/or
improvements that are made will stick and not simply revert back to
how they were once the programme or phase is completed….. The best way
we've found of achieving this is to focus the whole organisation on
the Total Customer Experience and then make sure that everyone knows
the part they play in creating it."
- I suspect that
the Review team would agree fully with at least the first part of this
quote and perhaps with the second. However, given that I believe more
work could be done to deepen this review it is premature to comment
on the individual recommendations in the light of this.
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