Access to Services Audit Commission Inspection Report
24 pages
English

Access to Services Audit Commission Inspection Report

-

Le téléchargement nécessite un accès à la bibliothèque YouScribe
Tout savoir sur nos offres
24 pages
English
Le téléchargement nécessite un accès à la bibliothèque YouScribe
Tout savoir sur nos offres

Description

Inspection report July 2004 Access to Services Nottinghamshire County Council p 2 Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services Contents Summary 3 Background 3 Scoring the service 3 Recommendations 4 Report 6 Context 6 The locality 6 The council 6 The council’s best value review 7 How good is the service? 8 Are the aims clear and challenging? 8 Does the service meet these aims? 8 How does the performance compare? 12 Summary 14 What are the prospects for improvement to the service? 15 Summary 19 Appendices 21 Documents reviewed 21 Reality checks undertaken 21 List of people interviewed 22 Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services p 3 Summary Background 1 Nottinghamshire County Council is the eleventh largest local authority in the UK, situated in the East Midlands. The population is 750,000 of which 4.35 per cent are from minority ethnic communities compared to a national average of 13 per cent. 2 The county has a diverse economy including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, engineering, textiles and clothing, food, professional and financial services. There has been a decline in the traditional industries and a shift toward the service sector. Unemployment is below the national average, at 1.9 per cent and wage levels are higher than the regional average although lower than the all England figure. There is a wide range of affluence and deprivation within the county with some areas ranked in the top ten ...

Informations

Publié par
Nombre de lectures 53
Langue English

Extrait

Inspection report
July 2004


Access to
Services
Nottinghamshire County Council
p 2 Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services

Contents
Summary 3
Background 3
Scoring the service 3
Recommendations 4
Report 6
Context 6
The locality 6
The council 6
The council’s best value review 7
How good is the service? 8
Are the aims clear and challenging? 8
Does the service meet these aims? 8
How does the performance compare? 12
Summary 14
What are the prospects for improvement to the service? 15
Summary 19
Appendices 21
Documents reviewed 21
Reality checks undertaken 21
List of people interviewed 22

Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services p 3

Summary
Background
1 Nottinghamshire County Council is the eleventh largest local authority in the UK,
situated in the East Midlands. The population is 750,000 of which 4.35 per cent
are from minority ethnic communities compared to a national average of 13 per
cent.
2 The county has a diverse economy including healthcare, pharmaceuticals,
engineering, textiles and clothing, food, professional and financial services.
There has been a decline in the traditional industries and a shift toward the
service sector. Unemployment is below the national average, at 1.9 per cent and
wage levels are higher than the regional average although lower than the all
England figure. There is a wide range of affluence and deprivation within the
county with some areas ranked in the top ten per cent nationally.
3 The council is Labour led with 40 of the 63 seats.
4 employs 23,000 staff across all services and has an annual
expenditure of around £684 million.
5 The council’s access to services best value review (BVR) covered all
departments within the council.
Scoring the service
6 We have assessed the council as providing a ‘fair’ one-star service that has
promising prospects for improvement. Our judgements are based on the
evidence obtained during the inspection and are outlined below.
1Scoring chart : Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services
Prospects for improvement?
‘a fair service that
Poor Fair Good Excellent has promising
prospects for
Excellent
improvement’
Promising
A good
service?
Uncertain
Poor




1 The scoring chart displays performance in two dimensions. The horizontal axis shows how good the
service or function is now, on a scale ranging from no stars for a service that is poor (at the left-hand
end) to three stars for an excellent service (right-hand end). The vertical axis shows the improvement
prospects of the service, also on a four-point scale.

















p 4 Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services

7 Access to services within Nottinghamshire County Council is fair because:
the council provides high quality face to face access to services through its
county contact offices and outreach services;
the pilot contact centre is providing a similar level of services to telephone
callers for a limited number of services; and
the council has a good website.
8 However:
the county contact offices are not available throughout the county;
the contact centre is still a pilot;
the majority of incoming telephone calls still use the council’s fragmented
telephone network; and
the council doesn’t compare well with like councils for relevant national
performance indicators.
9 Access to the council’s services will probably improve because:
there is a clear commitment to improve access to services;
funding is in place to improve telephone access by expanding the contact
centre pilot to cover all council services;
there is a track record of improving customer access; and
the new customer management division is now responsible for co-ordinating
all key cross service access channels and establishing the development of
the council’s customer service and access approach.
10 However there are still some risks in place:
Customer care training is not mandatory throughout the council.
There is no clear detailed plan for the improvement of physical access to
services.
There is no systematic corporate learning from complaints to inform future
improvements to customer access.
Recommendations
11 To rise to the challenge of continuous improvement, councils need inspection
reports that offer practical pointers for improvement. In this context, we make the
following recommendations. The council should:
complete the work necessary to finalise its customer contact strategy so that
there is a clearly documented plan for achieving the council’s aims for
customer access across all delivery channels;
ensure that lessons are learnt corporately from complaints made by the
public, and that this is linked to the process for learning from consultation to
influence planning for future service delivery; and
increase the speed of implementing change to deliver timely and tangible
improvement across all access channels for all council services.

Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services p 5

12 We would like to thank the staff of Nottinghamshire County Council, particularly
Suzanne Lloyd, Andrew Muter, Margaret Radford and Moira Whelan, who made
us welcome and who met our requests efficiently and courteously.

Terry Atkins
Paul Higton
Inspectors

Dates of inspection: 10 May – 14 May 2004
Email: t-atkins@audit-commission.gov.uk
p-higton@a


For more information please contact:
Audit Commission Operations Directorate
Central Region
Bridge Business Park
Bridge Park Road
Thurmaston
Leicester LE4 8BL
www.audit-commission.gov.uk
0116 269 3311


p 6 Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services

Report
Context
13 This report has been prepared by the Audit Commission (‘the Commission’)
following an inspection under Section 10 of the Local Government Act 1999, and
issued in accordance with its duty under Section 13 of the 1999 Act.
The locality
14 Nottinghamshire County Council serves approximately 750,000 people. The
greatest concentrations of population are in the Greater Nottingham area and the
other main towns of Mansfield, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Newark,
Worksop and Retford. One of the key features of Nottinghamshire is its diverse
nature and the county is regarded as including three types of area: urban, rural
and former coalfield areas.
15 There is a higher than average proportion of people aged 20-24 in the county due
to the presence of two Nottingham based universities. The 2001 census showed
that 4.35 per cent of population of Nottinghamshire were from minority ethnic
backgrounds, compared with a national average of 13 per cent. Nottinghamshire
has significant communities originating from Italy and Eastern Europe.
16 Nottinghamshire’s economy has seen great change in recent years. In particular,
the decline of coal mining led to the loss of 54,000 jobs between 1961 and 2002,
while employment in the main manufacturing sector, textiles and clothing, halved
between 1991 and 1999. These job losses have accelerated in the last two
years. A continuing reliance on manufacturing industries is mirrored by under-
representation of service and knowledge-based industries.
17 The county comprises seven district and borough councils; Ashfield, Bassetlaw,
Broxtowe, Gedling, Mansfield, Newark and Sherwood and Rushcliffe. In the
2004 Deprivation of Indices, two of these are in the top 20 per cent of deprived
th th districts, Mansfield being ranked 36 and Ashfield 50 out of 354 districts.
thHowever Rushcliffe is in the bottom 20 per cent ranked 320 . Unemployment
stands at 1.9 per cent for the county which is lower than the region at 2.3 per cent
and all England at 2.5 per cent.
The council
18 Under local government reorganisation, the county was separated in 1998 from
the City of Nottingham, which now has unitary status.
19 The council has 63 elected members and is controlled by the Labour party who
have 40 seats. The Conservatives hold 20 seats and the Liberal Democrats
three seats. The council’s annual expenditure in 2003/04 was £684 million and it
employs 23,000 staff.
20 The council operates a leader and cabinet structure and is managed under six
directorates; chief executives, culture and community, education, environment,
resources and social services.
21 The council’s vision is presented in its strategic plan 2001/2005 “Building a
Future”. This includes making;
Nottinghamshire a safe, healthy prosperous and attractive county;
Nottinghamshire County Council into one of the top 20 councils in the UK;
and ‹



















Nottinghamshire County Council - Access to Services p 7

strong partnerships to deliver real benefits and ensuring all people and

  • Univers Univers
  • Ebooks Ebooks
  • Livres audio Livres audio
  • Presse Presse
  • Podcasts Podcasts
  • BD BD
  • Documents Documents