Meeting documents

For Members to receive an update on the progress of the work taking place under the TfB Service Improvement Plan (The McCabe Review).  This will be the first of the updates as requested within the Committee’s inquiry recommendations.

Sean Rooney - Senior Manager, PLACE

Bob Cook – Interim Highways Manager

Kim Hills – Head of Highways and Transportation

Dr Joe Nethercoat – Senior Manager, PLACE

Papers:

·         TfB Improvement Plan

·         Cabinet Response; Select Committee Inquiry – TfB (Ringway Jacobs Contract)

The Chairman welcomed Sean Rooney, Senior Manager, Place, Bob Cook, Interim Highways Manager, Kim Hills, Head of Highways and Transportation and Dr Joe Nethercoat to the meeting.

Mr Cook began the update by explaining that part of his responsibility is the delivery of the improvement plan at a good achievable pace and to make sure the correct actions are embedded in the service.

Mr Cook took Members through the TfB Improvement Plan update on progress, during which the following key points were highlighted.

Sections 1-4 of the report explain the background, details, progress of the Improvement Plan and progress with the Service, the strategic objectives and direction of the contract.

The seven key themes of the Improvement Plan as follows;

Theme A – Architecture, roles and structure

Theme I – innovation/transformation

Theme P – progress

Theme S – strategy

Theme C – customer focus

Theme E – ETL Inquiry report issues

Theme U – Audit report issues

The early focus of the work was defining the strategic objectives for the contract and setting the direction of where the service wants to move in terms of improvement. Work has also taken place on the organisational structure within TfB.

The Local Area Technician (LATs) service has been re-organised.  The new structure and operating methods were implemented from the 2 January 2014 following consultation with Members. Consultation is currently taking place with employees on the proposals for a wider reorganisation of TfB.  The restructure will better align services with the client and create a more client facing approach to the organisational structure.

Good progress has been made with the Customer Focus Project.  One large piece of work undertaken is an independent Customer Journey mapping exercise.  This exercise was carried out by an external consultant and is now nearing completion.  A workshop took place last week at a senior level and actions are being planned to take the findings forward.

KPIs and benchmarking are part of the current focus.  There were actions from a recent audit report in terms of quality assurance and bringing more innovations to the contract.  It is hoped that the management information section of work will be completed by the next financial year.

Work on reviewing key policy areas has also begun.   A prioritised list of key policy areas which require reviewing and updating has been prepared.  A draft of the new Safety and Inspection Policy has been completed.  The aim is for the new policy to be submitted as a Cabinet Member decision in March.

Appendix A is a snapshot of the current status of the TfB Improvement Plan and detailed actions.  The plan is a live document which is updated constantly.  Thirteen further tasks have been completed since the report was written.

Section 4, Appendix C give some evidence of the service improving with extracts from recent emails, phone calls and tweets regarding the TfB Service.

During discussions, the following points made and questions asked;

The Chairman thanked Mr Cook for the very useful and helpful report in showing the progression made.  One minor observation is that the Environment, Transport and Locality Services Select Committee felt they very much informed the start of the McCabe review which is not reflected in the report.

The audit report into TfB was not that recent.  It was spring 2013 but throughout the inquiry the details and draft reports were not shared with the Committee.

The report is very encouraging.  Paragraph 2 on page 25 of the report advises that Member representation on the Strategic Board will be increased. How many members are currently on the Strategic Board, what is the proposed increase in membership and when will this take place.  At the moment the membership of the Strategic Board includes the Cabinet Member for Planning and Transportation.  This will increase to two Members of the Authority.  The decision has been delegated by Cabinet to Councillor Blake for consideration.  It is hoped the new arrangements will be in place by the next meeting of the Strategic Board on the 10 March 2014.

Page 24 refers to the new structure of the Local Area Technicians (LATs) following consultation with Members. The understanding is that in December Members were briefed about the proposed changes to the LAT service.  What did the Member consultation comprise of? One concern is the split of responsibility along the A41 which is a strategic road and clarification of which LATs are responsible. Proposals were put together within TfB which were then discussed at Senior Management and with Councillor Blake.  The concept was shared at the TfB Members conference on the 4 December.  The briefing in this instance was seen to be the consultation with Members. If major issues had emerged from the conference TfB would have gone back and made the changes.

Mr Hills explained that he joined the organisation as Head of Highways and Transportation within TfB on 2^nd December 2013 and was led to believe there had been discussions prior to the Conference on the 4^th December in particular with the Cabinet Member.  The new arrangements for LATs were implemented from 2^nd January. An update report has been requested for May/June. The progression and contract arrangements will be monitored and will be subject to review.  One of the changes that came into effect was most Members now only having to work with two LATs.

As the Authority is Member led, how will Members be included in the consultation on the proposal about the wider reorganisation to improve customer service and clarify roles?  Mr Hills explained that the formal 45 day consultation period with employees started week commencing 27 January 2014.  Obtaining Members views on the proposals would clearly be looked at. Discussions have taken place with the Cabinet Member but this can be expanded out to receive further feedback.

There have been some recent changes to TfB whereby different parts of the Service area such as road safety are being lost.  This could increase further complaints and the affect the running of TfB.  It is felt that there is not enough communication from TfB to keep Members updated and informed. Mr Hills explained that it is about engagement with Members of the Authority, parishes and members of the public to fully understand how the proposed changes to services are being taken forward and to receive feedback and respond and react to that.  Mr Hills added if Members have any concerns about the changes and particular parts of the business he would be keen to hear about this now to allow any issues to be taken into account going forward.

On page 29 of the report there is a statement about the Strategic Client carrying out regular monitoring of the quality of the works.  Has this process changed since the report from the ETL Select Committee as there was found to be problems with the Strategic Monitoring process in 2013 and are there examples of how this process has changed? There is one person who carries out regular checks for the client who is currently employed three days a week.  The service is looking to strengthen the post to full time and potentially have an additional post to carry out the same checks.  This is independent to the discussion taking place in regard to the overall structure.

A large section of the report deals with complaints, complaints management and a new quick reporting tool (Complaints Records Management system).  Is it possible to explain more about the system to give an understanding of what the system looks like and the line of reporting etc. Dr Nethercoat explained that there are two parts to the complaints process.  Formal complaints are investigated independently of TfB and Place service. Every complaint that comes in the service is recorded, monitored and progressed through the Councils corporate complaints system.

Under Theme C – Customer Focus, reference to made to high profile correspondence now being subject to additional scrutiny with systems revised to provide improved tracking and response.  Is it possible to define ‘high profile correspondence’ and the percentage for covering these in terms of complaint handling?  A new reporting system has recently been constructed which is based on the existing database structures.  The new system gives greater detail on areas of progression and areas of concern etc from which a report is automatically generated.  Work is currently taking place with Parish Councils to produce automatic reports which give CRN’s for their specific area.It is hoped that the Parishes will take up the possibility of receiving a weekly/monthly automated report on concerns relevant to their area. 

How would the new system benefit a member of the public/customer who has a concern about a pothole or a problem with a streetlight? Dr Nethercoat explained that part of the work that has taken place since the update given at the September meeting of the Committee is the Customer Journey Map. There were concerns that some complaints could fall into a ‘black hole’.  As part of the new intelligence system complaints can be progressed, tracked and dealt with in greater detail and cannot fall into a ‘black hole’.  One of the aims is to deal with any concerns before they become a complaint and to try and stop failure demand.

The report advises that correspondence turnaround has improved from around 28 days to 70% response in 5 working days and formal complaints have reduced by over 80% since the first recorded centrally (page 29).  The complaints data is held within the Authority not by the contractor.  The knowledge about how the complaints are resolved, lessons learnt etc is therefore within the County Council not the contractor. Dr Nethercoat explained that stage one complaints are investigated by the Complaints Team and are filtered through for a response from the Head of Highways and Transportation or Senior Manager, Place.  If the customer is not content that the complaint has been dealt with this becomes a stage two complaint which is sent to the Service Director, Customer Contact for a response.  If the customer is still not satisfied with the investigation carried out this then becomes a stage three complaint which is sent to the Head of Legal Services for further investigation. The number of complaints has reduced as responses have improved. When the process first started a lot of complaints were received as a result of the customer not being contacted or responded to.  The nature of the complaints is changing to challenging decisions such as why was the road closed.

How does the work on innovation of transformation fit in with the contractual percentage of reductions to be made each year in terms of promoting innovation? At the moment there is a system called Value Plus in place which is where TfB capture innovations.  Any innovations that come out of this new initiative will also be captured in Value Plus and will contribute to this. The Innovation Strategy document has just been received which will go to the Strategic Board in March.

One of the underlying concerns during the inquiry process was the lack of visibility of staff members and an understanding of who does what on a daily basis following significant changes within the County Council and TfB over the last few months. It would be useful to understand the membership of Project Board. A diagram detailing the structure of the TfB Project Teams & Governance will be circulated to Committee Members.

Action: Bob Cook

Compliments were given to the team for listening to, acting upon and implementing requests made by the Environment Select Committee.

The Chairman said that in future reports it would be useful to bear in mind that when the term ‘Members being consulted’ is used this is referring to the Cabinet Member which is different to Members of the wider Council.

The Chairman gave thanks on behalf of the Committee for the very detailed and candid report and for the work done.  He added that he is pleased to see a change in the attitude and a response to some of the long standing concerns on the TfB contract.  It is hoped that some of the positive changes which are starting to be seen will filter through the rest of the year and for residents to see improvements.

Any further notes/ information for the Committee can be circulated prior to the next formal review on the 2 September.

Action: Bob Cook