Customer Services and Organisation Development Business Improvement Plan

The Communications & Engagement Team provides communications guidance and support across the organisation to manage reputation and ensure key audiences (internal and external) are aware of service delivery, developments, and change.

A particular focus for 2024/25 will be helping to drive behavioural change in key areas including sustainability and waste, UK Government Election communications, promoting the work of Council services, supporting major projects such as the new Lenzie Academy, and continuing to work on launching new Council, HSCP and EDLC websites to ensure a friendlier, user-centric experience when accessing information and services online.

Priorities include delivering communications plans and campaigns to support; Major Assets projects through the capital programme, the Glasgow City Deal project, Education, Community Planning Partnership, the Civic Office, HSCP and EDLC Trust.

The team continues to review evolving best practice including new channels and technology, developing the most appropriate approach for each target audience.

Key areas include:

• Reputation management - effective communications planning, media management, promotion and campaigns activity, guidance and advice
• Engagement with regional and national resilience partnerships - ensure consistent communications across local government in relation to the resilience agenda
• Digital communications – through website management and development, social media management and support, and evaluation of activity and emerging trends
• Internal communication and engagement – through the internal communications strategy and employee engagement activity in conjunction with HR colleagues
• Design – providing essential design to all Council services, EDLC and HSCP by creating a range of assets including posters, infographics, social media graphics and videos to ensure our communications remain dynamic, engaging and fresh
• Consultation and engagement – through the consultation and engagement strategy, continuing to develop improved online consultation functionality to better engage and report
• Accessibility – providing guidance and ensuring all communications comply with legislation – The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 -and good practice. The Team will continue to work closely with services to create inclusive and accessible content including videos, graphics and webpages.

Corporate Performance & Research

The Corporate Performance and Research team assumes the lead role in the development of performance and risk management, reporting and statistical support at a corporate level across all service areas.   The following key activities are performed:

• Ensuring Corporate Performance frameworks are in place which are fit for purpose, in line with our statutory obligations and aligned to our strategic planning priorities
• Providing support and assistance to all strategic groupings in the development of their strategic planning and performance reporting and ensuring consistency of reporting
• Ensuring adequate mechanisms are in place for Public Performance Reporting, meeting the needs of our communities and in line with our statutory obligations
• Leading in all elements of Corporate Benchmarking, including compliance with the Local Government Benchmarking Framework
• Undertaking area based research and statistical support to service areas, councillors, and our Community Planning Partnership, to inform future strategic priorities
• Provision of Data Support and analysis for all elements of Social Care for the Integrated Health and Social Care Partnership.
• Co-ordinating insurance cover renewals and insurance claims
• Supporting the risk culture and business continuity planning across the Council
• Delivery of our complaints management service in line with our complaints handling procedure and respond to all SPSO referrals.

Customer Services

Our Customer Services team provide frontline customer services across all channels through our Community Hubs for face-to-face services (including licensing and registration and on an appointment basis, telephone and online (website, email and social media). Service delivery will continue to flex across channels in line with demand. As far as possible, customer requests are met at first point of contact, providing back-office functionality with the necessary information to complete the required tasks. The Customer Services Charter will be updated and relaunched in 2023/24 and our approach to Customer service excellence, regardless of channel and priorities, includes:

• Continuing to provide accurate and timely responses to customer enquiries in line with seasonal priorities and changing service delivery
• The first point of contact for customers, regardless of channel, aligning resources to the area of greatest need dependent on volumes of engagement across each channel
• Effective use of technology and systems to deliver efficient services that meet expectations
• Provision of 24/7 emergency contact for community alarm customers and in support of Council emergencies, civil contingency, and business continuity incidents
• Delivery of reception services at Council offices and Enterprise Centres.

Human Resources & Organisational Development

The HR & OD Team is responsible for the provision of all aspects of people related support to the strategic teams including the review and development of the employment policy base ensuring compliance and best practice.

HR Business Partners support services to resolve business challenges and/or risks by identifying opportunities to ensure the best deployment of people resources. The team supports with the implementation of council priorities, including the implementation of Service re-design processes and support for cultural change and embedding of Organisational Development initiatives. Following Council decisions, a transformative approach will be adopted to review and align services on a locality based model to fulfil community priorities and implement the Workforce of the Future. A key priority of the team is to support workforce and succession planning across all strategic services by working with the leadership team, working in partnership with the People Development Function of OD to source and develop learning solutions to meet service needs, utilising and developing the new eLearning platform.

Operationally, support is provided to managers and employees through HR Case Advisers who provide advice and guidance on discipline, grievance, performance improvement and absence cases to ensure legal compliance and mitigation of risk. This approach is underpinned by the principles of early resolution, intervention and prevention of employee relations matters.

The Employee Services and Payroll team is responsible for all elements of transactional HR and Payroll activities. This also includes ensuring appropriate application of key terms and conditions with controls, processing and reconciliation activities are performed in line with established Council financial and structural approvals as well as national directives.

The Job Evaluation and Job sizing activities are taken forward through the established frameworks and governance for the respective schemes.

Communications & Engagement

• Continue to support the development of the new Council and HSCP websites ensuring accessibility standards are met, navigation is citizen centric, and format is user friendly
• Implementation of an effective comms plan for the new Lenzie Academy and Twechar Outdoor Pursuits Centre including project updates and reputational management
• Support for the Civic Office, and co-ordination and delivery of key events including the Community Champion Awards, Summer Challenge and Remembrance Sunday arrangements
• Supporting and delivering communications and engagement for the City Deal project including regular updates on Westerhill Development Road and Bishopbriggs Public Realm
• Delivering effective communication for the UK General Election including key voter messages relating to changes taking effect
• Creation and implementation of a new internal comms strategy and action plan including build and creation of the new intranet and new ways of communicating to reflect new senior management structure
• Continuing to grow our social media presence with increased use of video and data driven decision making.

Corporate Performance and Research

• Continued development of our Performance Management and reporting Framework to ensure it remains both meaningful and compliant with statutory guidance
• Analysis and dissemination of small area stats surrounding the publication schedule of the 2022 census data to inform future service delivery across the organisation
• Integration of the complaints management function into the team with a review of current systems and processes to ensure they remain adequate and fit for purpose
• Implementation of new statutory Child Friendly Complaints procedure
• Work with the business change team to provide continued dedicated reporting and analysis assistance in regards to the implementation of the Oracle Fusion system.
  Customer Services
• Continued delivery of effective customer services across all channels including digital, telephone and face to face (through appointments at our network of Community Hubs)
• Supporting implementation of new public space CCTV infrastructure including new monitoring equipment within the ERC to provide improved service and support safer communities objectives
• Implementation of new digital telecare service as part of wider analogue to digital programme, ensuring effective transition to new national shared platform
• Implementation of new Customer Relationship Management system to effectively co-ordinate customer services delivery through improved system with greater efficiency and data recording functionality. This will support development of further performance measures acriss the service and across all delivery channels
• Supporting the delivery of new waste management licences for garden waste, including participating in project planning group and supporting processing of applications through telephone and face to face channels.

Human Resources & Organisational Development

• Continued engagement with portfolio leadership teams to consider changes likely to impact on how we delivery services, developing the Workforce Strateg to meet pre planned or anticipated changes, ensuring we maintain the right skills and knowledge within the workforce to deliver strategic priorities
• Support the implementation of organisational change in accordance with the Principles of Change Strategy for the strategic service reviews inline with the new ways of working, locality based model and strategic objectives
• Continued focus and prioritisation on the need to mitigate a rise and continued improvement of sickness absence across the Council with emphasis around supporting employee wellbeing using data driven actions
• Review and development of key employment policy base including Performance Development Review documentation to support the Workforce Strategy
• Following the implementation of Oracle Fusion for Procurement and Finance, the next phase of this project will be to implement HR/Payroll activies to this new system. The scope of this work remains ongoing.