The Chairman of the Council to answer any questions by the public of which notice has been given no later than midday three clear working days before the day of the meeting in accordance with Council Procedure Rule No. 12.
Minutes:
The Chair invited Mr Morelli, a member of the public to ask his question. In the absence of the Leader of the Council, the Cabinet Member for Customers, Digital Transformation and Information, Councillor McCraw responded.
Question 1 Mr Thomas Morelli to Councillor John Ward, Leader of the Council
“Councillor John Ward has, on several recent occasions, sought to draw a distinction between the physical presence of Babergh in Sudbury being referred to as an ‘access point’ and as an ‘advice centre’ — with the latter being something Babergh has apparently “never run in any of [its] face-to-face locations”. Can Councillor Ward please therefore explain why the Babergh website referred to its location in Sudbury as the “Sudbury Advice Centre” until at least November of 2016?”
Response
The reason I felt it was important to make the distinction between access and advice is that the customer services provision we offer is focused on providing face to face supported access to Council services and wherever possible resolving that enquiry at the 1st point of contact. The word access reflects similar language used across several different Councils and best describes service provision offered.
I appreciate the language may have changed since we looked at our wider public access strategy back in 2016 to recognise there are other ‘advice’ led services such as citizens advice, where residents can access advice on a wide variety of topics, not just Council led services.
It’s important to acknowledge that our residents need change overtime, and that many people wish to access our services in different ways such as online* or via telephone. However, we understand some of our residents would still prefer to contact us via face to face, which is why we offer several in-person services to allow them to do so. In addition to our access point at Sudbury library, we have also resumed our pop ups in Hadleigh and Shotley.
At present we are seeing approx. 10 people at the Sudbury access point per day (since April). We have 2 officers based there, so this equates to 5 visits per officer, per day, which we feel is sufficient coverage.
*Between 2013 and 2019, the proportion of internet non-users in Suffolk has decreased at a faster rate than regional and national averages. In 2019, only 8.3% of Suffolk’s 16+ population never used the internet. This demand for more online led services is also reflected via our website visits increasing by 16% from 2,284,163 in 2017 to 2,638,391 in 2020.
Mr Morelli then asked a supplementary question to the Cabinet Member for Customers, Digital Transformation and Information.
Supplementary Question
Given that when the singular unified access point was present at the town hall, residents could go in and enquire about a town council service, a district council service or a county council service and given that this integration was something that Babergh has previously highlighted on its website, does Councillor Ward or Councillor McCraw agree that this has now been lost and does he feel that this has had any negative effect on the residents of Sudbury?
Response Councillor McCraw
In terms of the services and access necessary for the services provided by the Town Council and those supplied by the district council they would in fact be different and their requirements would be somewhat different. The two buildings as it happens are not very far apart and it would be perfectly possible to make an access on the same day to both locations. I don’t possess any figures for access to Sudbury Town Hall, that’s not fundamentally our business. The nature of our contract with Sudbury Town Hall changed as circumstances have done. I did mention that we have made changes and continue to make changes in our access to services. We are trying to provide appropriate services for the ways in which customers contact us. I’ve mentioned the pop-up services in Shotley and Hadleigh and we are hoping to offer places for people to gain self-service support. We also have a telephone point which is in Sudbury so customers can contact us on days when we are not there. We also have an iPad available for anybody, whilst Sudbury Library is open, customers again can self-service as they wish. We’ve also launched very recently our iPad lending scheme with the libraries so that customers can loan a Wi-Fi enabled tablet that will cost them no extra money it’s all ready to use to help them access online services at home. And as I’ve said, the level of service we are receiving ten customers per day, two officers two days a week means five officers work per day, and we believe that is sufficient.
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