How may I help you?

On Tuesday, I spoke at a conference aimed at call centre managers. I was asked to speak to them about - you guessed it - performance management. Now I do know about performance management in general, but really I have very little experience of performance management within a call centre. Well, except that after university I worked in a couple of call centre jobs and in one I was sorta performance managed right out the door, but that's another story.

I had a couple of interesting examples. One was about good call handling stats but poor resolution at one London council - illustrating the importance of getting the "back office" right. And another example that I picked up from a conference in the Autumn:

David Cook [Chief Executive at Kettering] had the best "back to the floor" type tip. He regularly listens in on randomly selected customer calls to the council on tape on his drive home. This helps him get a finger on the pulse of what the main customer issues are, and also on how customer service is being handled in the council.

Well, as it turns out, I didn't get to use either of my examples. (I only had about 10 minutes to speak and the rest of the slot was "panel discussion" - which was actually an interesting format.) Instead what I concentrated on was the importance of call centres (and other transactional services) in collecting and using the large volume of customer data that's available. This will be of increasing importance as customer and community engagement is emphasised through the policy and performance debate. And managers need to be collecting information about not just their own services (call volumes, response times, resolution rates, etc) but providing information about the performance of other council services (e.g. street cleansing).

As a sector, we have to get smarter about how we use customer data. The LGA have already done some work in this area. Putting the customer first is a study into the use of customer information to manage performance. This looks at prioritising the use of customer data and customer segmentation. Together with case studies, it has lessons which are equally applicable to work with partners. We also need to use this data to triangulate evidence around citizen complaints - for example is a community call for action valid? Call centre data could help validate a councillor's decision to refer a matter to scrutiny (or not).

Another policy matter, which I didn't fully have time to explore, was the Varney Review and shared services - and in particular the impact on customer service and efficiency. Councils who are in the process of reviewing or revamping customer service functions will be wise to take heed of efficiency implications of running a call centre on their own without clubbing in with neighbouring councils or partners.


See also:

• A listing of citizen and user engagement resources.
• The IDeA's customer service peer review can help you assess whether transactional and call centre data is being used effectively in your partnership.
• Julia Bennett has summarised a range of Customer service issues in the Policy and Performance Community of Practice (free registration required).

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Toward an agreed improvement strategy

On Monday, I was lucky enough to be able to go to a conference on the central-local Improvement Strategy. I was there merely as a glorified notetaker, but it was still a great event (organised by my colleague Adrian Barker).

There are a lot of big challenges in the local governance and public sector policy environment and some exciting positive shifts in the way we'll be working - closer working between partners, greater engagement with citizens and customers and stronger, enhanced roles for front line councillors. At this conference, chief executives, senior political leaders, representatives from the Department of Communities and Local Government and regulators were all there to get their heads together around how we'll fashion new, more cohesive and effective ways of supporting improvement in local goverment through these challenges.

At the IDeA, we've long seen our role as working with local government, supporting improvement - and sometimes helping to lead improvement, too as we work with councils to innovate and to share those innovations more broadly within the sector.

Part of our approach to support is going to be how the IDeA helps local government help itself. Paul Coen, Chief Executive of the Local Government Association, spoke about the recently launched LGA campaign - raising the game in local government. Part of it is about taking responsibility for sector colleagues who need a helping hand.

Helping the public sector to help itself on regional or sub-regional basis, while capturing and sharing (and sometimes developing) the learning nationally were certainly some of the themes being explored in the groups I was with. It's too early yet to share headline findings, but we hope to be able to explore and share this debate with you over the coming months.

This is cross posted - (with pictures!) at the Policy and Performance Community of Practice (free registration required) at www.communities.idea.gov.uk








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Who do you run to...

...when there's no place to hide?

Lord Bruce Lockhart, Chair of the Local Government Association, is headlining a new ambitious approach to improving performance, outcomes and ways of working.

"The LGA is determined to seek radical solutions, and determined to put in place a robust and challenging action plan to ensure implementation. Many councils are leading through outstanding innovation. But there will be no hiding place for the poor performers"

Council leaders from across the political spectrum will today launch a
campaign to raise the game of authorities across the country.The key themes
include:

• Building visionary and ambitious leadership: making best use of both the political and managerial role
• Leading trusted and effective partnerships across the whole public sector
• Creating radically enhanced scrutiny: holding to account the council, the wider public sector, and service suppliers
• Devolving to residents and local organisations: engaging and communicating effectively, and enhancing frontline councillors' roles
• Ensuring outstanding improvement and transformation in service performance:innovation, value, efficiency and public access and satisfaction
  

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I think there's a growing awareness that we're all going to have raise our game in terms of performance management. I recently spoke to a group of officers from both North and South Tyneside about the challenges of the new policy environment as well as the lessons of the best in terms of what local government has already done on performance management. They were certainly ready to embrace those challenges and are making links across the water to support each other in that work.

Just like in North and South Tyneside, with this recognition that we're going to have raise our game, I think we're going to have to lean on each other a little bit more, too. And by that I mean sharing ideas and innovations (proactively) and asking for help with ideas and implementation from local authority and partner colleagues.

The IDeA wants to support the development of this approach and is creating spaces for online communties of practice at www.communities.idea.gov.uk. And we're not just creating spaces, we're also helping to facilitate online and face-to-face groups in collaborative working across the public sector, too. I and the team I work with facilitiate the Policy and Performance Community of Practice and a more specific group focused on performance management. And in the latter group, it just so happens you can find the slides (you'll need to be registered to view them) from my day long workshop with North and South Tyneside officers.

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Partnership quick hits

Topics: partnerships, crime, business, private sector, parish councils

Links to partnership news and examples

Innovation through partnership
Read about the liveability fund pilots and the successful work with neighbourhoods and communities on IDeA Knowledge

Together we can fight crime

Rising re-offending rates can only be brought under control with the support of local councils and their partners warned the Coalition on Social and Criminal Justice today. The coalition’s report, "Neighbourhood by neighbourhood: local action to reduce re-offending", says local organisations with local knowledge are best placed to work with the prison and probation services to help ex-offenders stay on the straight and narrow.

News from the Local Government Association

Parish pride in partnerships
Award-winning Staffordshire Connects partnership is honouring the role that parishes play in partnership, too.

Private and public sector crime fighting in partnership
An innovative partnership for sharing data and information between public agencies and business.

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I am not your maid

Topics: co-production, communications, littering, user and citizen responsibility, environment

Some years back, I was enjoying lunch with some colleagues outside. We were sitting on the grass on what must have been the first warm, dry day in a while. The wind kicked up and my sandwich wrapper blew away. It tumbled over the grass.

I spent a little while chasing that wrapper. You know, cartoon-style, almost reaching it and then it blowing a little further on - and me chasing it again. Eventually it blew into the road - and while I hate litter, I do have a healthy fear of traffic. I gave up - vowing internally to pick up another piece of rubbish in recompense.

A casual passer-by had watched the whole episode and said to me "I don't know why you bothered, you'd just be doing a council worker out of a job."

Those of us who work in the public sector know it doesn't quite work like that. There are lots of other things that council workers could be doing with their time other than picking up after me or anyone else. But it is astounding how many people casually litter.

Perhaps when you were a kid your parents may have said "I'm not your servant," or "I'm going to stop picking up your mess and soon enough you'll see what a sty we'd be living in." Well, mine did anyway. Some councils are saying the same thing now. "We're going to stop picking up after you for a while - and let's see how the filth mounts up."

It's a publicity stunt, but a worthy one. It shows local residents how much the council does normally, but also shows how we all have a responsibility to help keep our environment clean and tidy. The Local Government Association is encouraging councils to consider stopping street cleansing for a day or so.

Commenting on the idea, Cllr Paul Bettison, Chairman of the LGA Environment Board, said:“Using ‘shock tactics’ like stopping street cleaning services for 24 hours is an effective way of making people face up to how much litter is dropped on our streets every day.“Any council choosing to introduce a suspension in street cleaning services would hope to make people think twice about dropping their litter in the future. “The action would also demonstrate to people that their rubbish doesn’t magically disappear but that a hard working council street cleaner removes and disposes of their litter. Councils strive to keep where you live clean and tidy but if every single person did their bit to keep the local area litter free then tax payers would get an even better deal.”

Of course, it's not as easy all that. You have to tell people what you're doing and why you're doing it. You need to back it up with an effective message encouraging people to look after their own environment by not littering. From my youth in America, I will never forget anti-littering messages that played on both pride in the American landscape:



and negative regional stereotypes:



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