Agenda item

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Officers provided the Panel with the Annual Communications update.  A copy of the presentation is attached.

The Chair thanked officers for the presentation and invited comments and questions from the Panel, as summarised below.

Communications

In response to a question in relation to how successful the communications had been, the Communications Officer responded that when the content had been gathered, for example the floorboards at the Guildhall, it was how much the content had been used elsewhere and how many people had engaged in the post put on social media. The footage which was gathered at the time had been used on The One Show and Channel 4 news, which benefitted this area, the journalists were not necessarily based in the area, so if the information could be provided to them, they were happy to take it.

The Communications and Engagement Officer added that there was a variety of different ways of measuring the activities that were carried out.  With some of the campaign work, other metrics were used and she cited the elections work which had been carried out last year and which had been measured by the number of people who could not vote because they did not have the correct ID.

In response to a comment regarding other media platforms that could be used, the Communications Officer advised that TikTok and Snapchat had been looked at.  The Council did have a Snapchat account which was rarely used, but could be considered if wanting to target young people and their parents.  In terms of TikTok, this was not used at the moment, but would be kept under review.

Council Information Centre

In response to a comment, the CIC Manager explained that in relation to the people who were regarded as digitally excluded, a lot of the different digital technology that was being brought in was aimed to help people like herself and other customers to deal with their enquiries, which in turn helped to free up capacity on the telephones, so that helped the advisors to be able to spend time with the customer.  She advised that in some instances advisors had spent 20-25 minutes on a call with a customer and often filled out a form on the customer’s behalf.

Councillor Mrs Spikings stated that this was not highlighted anywhere that help was available.  The CIC Manager agreed to take those comments on board and look into the matter.

The Chair added that it was the harder to reach groups that needed to be targeted and the message that staff were available on the telephones to speak to people and they were not forced to use the webchat.

The CIC Manager added that it was about giving customers choice regarding their chosen method of communication.

Councillor Blunt asked whether Artificial Intelligence was being used in the webchat.  The CIC Manager advised that AI was not being used at the moment but would look to use it in the future as it could help with quick and straightforward enquiries, which would free up advisor’s times for other things.

The CIC Manager also undertook to look at the options priority for when people called the Council.

Corporate Web Team

ICT Web Team Manager confirmed that the new intranet would share-point on-line.

He also explained that there was a Security Team that sat within the Technical Services remit.  He advised that there was a Security Officer starting soon within the team who would be responsible for IT safety. 

Reference was made to the ratings for the website and whether there was one thing that could be improved for users.

The ICT Web Team Manager advised that a number of metrics were used and what had been found was that people were not unnecessarily unhappy with the website, but it was the decisions that they were unhappy with particularly around planning applications.  The team was always open to feedback and invited the Panel to let him know of any comments / feedback.

Reference was made to the Licensing and Appeals area on the website not being very user friendly.  The ICT web Team Manager advised that the application sat within the Business Team, and he was aware that officers were keen to look at other options. 

The Chair referred to the decrease in the level of usage and asked whether people were accessing information in other ways ie. social media rather than the website.  The ICT Web Team Manager advised that this was probably correct, and it was important that people could access information in a way that they could understand.  What they did not want to see was phone calls increasing in the CIC.

The Chair thanked the Officers for the update and attending the meeting and asked for thanks to be passed to their teams.

RESOLVED: That the update was noted.