Agenda item

To be presented by Mr Lloyd Jeffries, Service Director, Buckinghamshire Council.

Lloyd Jeffries, Service Director, Business Operations, Buckinghamshire Council (BC), stated that there were 405 full time equivalent staff in Business Operations who provided a number of services across BC.  The Customer Service Centres and Council Access Points (CAPs) were the front door to the Council for residents and Lloyd emphasised that he was always keen to receive feedback on how services could be improved.  From the end of November the Council would supplement the national test and trace scheme; when the national service was unable to contact someone their details would be passed to the Local Contract Tracing Service who would operate seven days a week for as long as was needed. 

During the October half term the Customer Service Centre provided a ‘helping hand’ and stepped in to support families whose children usually received free school meals and were struggling to feed them. In total, 27 families were supported and it was a great example of cross team working involving customer services, local emergency support, the localities team and libraries and a testament to how solutions could be put in place extremely quickly.

The Council was supporting the clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) residents over the winter period; there were approximately 20,000 CEV people living in Buckinghamshire and the Contact Centre staff would be involved in making contact to find out their needs. 

The following points were raised in discussion:

• In response to a query on whether the refurbished Marlow Library would be a CAP; Lloyd confirmed that it would be a CAP but it would be run by the Library Service.  Lloyd was responsible for the following CAPs:

• A CB member commented that there were a number of community libraries and asked if the volunteers would receive training.  Lloyd explained that if the community library was a dedicated CAP they would have had training pre-vesting day.  Training could be provided virtually if the software was in place.  [A slide deck was provided after the meeting, which included a list of all the CAPs, and had been appended to the minutes].
• In response to being asked whether it was hoped that Parish Councils (PCs) would help advertise the services available; Lloyd agreed it would be helpful and that it would be beneficial to obtain information from the PCs to ensure services were tailored to the residents’ needs and to improve services in the future.
• A councillor asked what the main issues were in the area.  Lloyd explained that on 1 April 2020 five councils had joined to form Buckinghamshire Council.  The existing service centres were in place with a multitude of systems and telephone numbers which were being combined to provide a consistent level of service across the county to form a better service for residents.  It had been challenging but the services had been managing well during the two lockdowns.

In response to being asked when BC would be able to provide enhanced support for businesses and local councillors; Lloyd advised that there was a Member Reference Group which focussed on building the future strategy and that he would provide an update at future CB meetings if it would be useful.