The EAP Connected Communities met to receive feedback on two aspects of the council's customer service provision and to note the Executive Forward Plan - December 2024 to March 2025, which lists the key decisions the council plans to make in the coming months.

The meeting also considered the minutes of its previous meeting, which was held on Friday 18th October 2024.

Customer Service Outreach Programme

Simon Mills, the Assistant Director of Customer Experience, asked the Committee to provide feedback on a proposed restructuring of the council's Customer Service Outreach Programme.

The existing programme was inherited from the legacy councils that were merged to form North Northamptonshire Council in 2021. Under the current arrangements, customer service staff are based at five council buildings and three community-managed libraries:

• Bowling Green Road, Kettering
• East Northamptonshire House, Thrapston
• Newton Road, Rushden
• The Cube, Corby
• Tithe Barn, Wellingborough
• Burton Latimer Library
• Desborough Library
• Rothwell Library

The report proposed that the Council should close its outreach services at Burton Latimer, Desborough and Rothwell Libraries and pilot a scheme of offering outreach services from other community locations across the authority area.

The report argued that this is necessary to ensure equality of service provision across North Northamptonshire, to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with cohorts of the community that may not otherwise have contact with the council, and to deliver better value for money.

The report set out that in 2023/24 the service assisted 600 customers at the three library outreach locations, at an average cost of £65.30 per interaction. The report contrasted this with the success of the council's website, which received 2.3 million visits during the same period, representing an increase of 18.5% year-on-year.

The pilot has seen outreach services offered from six locations across the council area:

• Veterans Breakfast Club, Kettering General Hospital
• Mawsley Community Centre, Mawsley
• Bozeat, Wellingborough
• Community Larder, Hemmingwell Community & Skills Centre, Wellingborough
• Cornerstone Methodist Church, Kingsbrook, Corby
• Oundle Library, Oundle

The report noted that the Oundle Library outreach service will be delivered from the library once it reopens following a fire.

Future Digital Customer Experience Developments

David West, Head of Digital, and Steven Miller, Website Team Leader for Content and Forms, updated the committee on future plans for the development of the council's digital customer experience.

The meeting heard that the council had approximately four million customer interactions per year, of which 3.5 million were web sessions. The remaining interactions were made up of over 300,000 telephone calls to customer services, 125,000 emails and 75,000 face-to-face interactions.

The meeting heard that there were 386 online forms on the council's website, which had been used to complete 139,000 transactions in the first six months of 2024/25. Over the same period, residents had made 132,000 payments to the council online, totalling £23.4m.

The meeting also heard about the key performance indicators used to monitor the performance of the council's website. Data privacy was reported as being at 100%, while the website's accessibility rating stood at 99%, placing it within the top ten council websites in the UK. The meeting heard that the council was working towards achieving an accessibility rating of 100%. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/1529) place a legal duty on local authorities to ensure their websites meet accessibility standards.

The meeting heard about a number of recent and planned improvements to the council's website, including:

• unification of key digital services so that residents only need to use a single website, forms package and customer relationship management (CRM) system to interact with the council
• the development of a new development platform to enable the creation of more complex online transactions
• the development of a single intranet platform for staff
• development of a process to ensure insight and data-led improvements
• a programme of user research to understand the needs of the website's users
• improvements to the website's search functionality

The meeting heard that the following future developments were also being considered:

• Introduction of artificial intelligence-powered features to improve the experience of searching and browsing the website
• Introduction of a web chat facility, potentially using a combination of human customer service agents and AI chatbots
• Improvements to the website's mobile experience, including the possibility of developing a dedicated mobile app
• Introduction of user accounts, which would enable residents to track their visit history on the council website
• Increased personalisation of the website experience
• Use of digital marketing to promote events and news and engage residents
• Introduction of e-newsletters
• Development of microsites for specific services and initiatives

Executive Forward Plan

The committee noted the Executive Forward Plan - December 2024 to March 2025.

The Executive Forward Plan sets out the key decisions that the Executive are likely to take in the coming months. The plan is updated and published monthly.

Key decisions are defined in legislation as decisions which:

(a) are likely to result in the local authority incurring expenditure which is significant having regard to the local authority’s budget for the service or function to which the decision relates; or (b) are likely to be significant in terms of their effects on communities living or working in an area comprising two or more wards or electoral divisions in the area of the local authority.

Under the Council's constitution, 'significant expenditure' is defined as any expenditure in excess of £500,000.

The report highlighted a number of key decisions that were of relevance to the EAP, including:

• Approval of the Customer Service Outreach Programme, scheduled for a decision at the Executive meeting on 19 December 2024
• Approval of a new Climate Change Strategy for North Northamptonshire, scheduled for a decision at the Executive meeting on 16 January 2025. The report noted that a public consultation on the draft strategy was due to take place during September and October 2024
• Adoption of the Wellingborough and Rushden Area Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan, scheduled for a decision at the Executive meeting on 13 March 2025. The report noted that a public consultation on the final LCWIP report had taken place between 16 September and 27 October 2024.

Forward List of Items for the EAP

The committee noted the Forward List of Items for the EAP.

The Forward List of Items for the EAP sets out the potential items for discussion at future meetings of the EAP. It lists the Member Case Management System, and Communications, Consultation and Engagement as issues that may be considered at a future meeting.