Submission - Performance Management - Customer and Local Services - 2 July 2021

Philip Le Feuvre House | P.O. Box 55 | La Motte Street | St Helier Jersey | JE4 8PE

Deputy Inna Gardiner

Chair, Public Accounts Committee

BY EMAIL 2 July 2021

Dear Deputy Gardiner

PAC follow-up request for performance management information – Customer and Local Services

I'm pleased to provide the responses below to your follow-up questions about performance management as set out in your letter dated 19th May 2021.

1. You advised you were to produce a quarterly performance report – can we see it?

The first GOJ quarterly performance report will be published at the end of August; CLS will not be publishing information separately.

2. We are still unclear if and how you measure customer satisfaction – can you explain?

We measure:

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): how satisfied a customer was with the help we provided

• Customer Effort (CES): how easy it was for the customer to get the help they needed

• Customer Sentiment (CSI): how interacting with our staff and services made the customer feel.

We measure these through asking customers when they phone our department if they are willing to take a short phone survey at the end of the call, and also have it on all email signatures with the 'click here to rate our service' button.

A copy of the questions can be found here.

3. Can you tell us what the specific criticisms of your department were in the Be Heard survey, and what measures have you taken to remedy them?

Within the department there was a lot of positive feedback from colleagues. As with any survey, areas for improvement have also been identified. CLS is aiming to increase colleague engagement and ensure colleagues can see their Be Heard feedback is being acted upon.

Seventeen workshops have been held across different CLS teams. Managers and Team Jersey leads worked with colleagues to identify points for improvement.

The four key areas identified for CLS to work on are:

• More time needed to get involved in projects and capacity to do things outside of very busy business-as-usual commitments

• Career development/progression pathways wanted

• More focussed training and an understanding of what is on offer

• Greater joined up working across CLS teams

The Be Heard feedback also feeds into the Culture and Engagement plan which will review progress on a monthly basis via the CLS People and Culture plan Board.

We also know from the Be Heard Staff survey results that flexible working is very important to colleagues.

We are keen to find out what works best for CLS employees and customers and we are taking part in a programme called Flex Positive' with support from an external specialist, Timewise. Two CLS teams have been selected to feed into this pilot. These teams were chosen as they reflect many of our teams which have high customer demands and expectations, and have colleagues with different work patterns within them. Workshops have been held with support from Timewise and CLS will update colleagues as it progresses.

4. The relatively limited role of the corporate team means that there is no explicit mechanism for considering the adequacy of resourcing of complaints across Government and reallocating resources where appropriate – how do you mitigate against this limitation in your department?

Good complaints handling is intrinsically linked with good operational and service delivery. Within GoJ we see the real benefits of complaints being resolved ideally at the front line when initially raised or investigated and learnt from by the team delivering the service. This resource is built into the operational teams and leadership capacity as a normal part of the roles, although the benefits of improved services and better complaints handling naturally mean resource is freed up to give even greater focus to continually improving services, rather than just fixing reactive problems identified by complaints

5. Where can we find a departmental breakdown of customer feedback themes'?

Key complaint themes are reported in customer feedback reporting. Work on improving the analytics and thematic analysis will be prioritised when we have completed system enhancements to our customer feedback reporting system.

Within CLS, the top three feedback themes since introduction of the new policy are:

• Consistency of information received

• How customers felt after an interaction with us

• Quality of service they received

6. What are the top three most important priorities for your department for the long term?

The CLS vision is to make it easy for customers.

Our top 3 priorities are:

• Leading on implementation of the government wide Customer Strategy

• Implementation of the GoJ Disability Strategy

• Transformation of our services to align with customers' life events and renewal of our aging IT business support systems to enable this change.

7. A number of initiatives set out in the Departmental Operational Business Plan for 2021 (pages 11-17) span several years. Can you please explain what milestones will be achieved in 2021 against each of these:

8. ITS. How will this programme practically change the way that Government Customer Services provides front line services to Islanders?

When  do  you  expect  to  see  these  changes  and  how  will  you  measure  their effectiveness and positive impact?

The ITS programme comes under the leadership of the Chief Operating Office. CLS is supporting implementation, alongside all GOJ departments. Whilst the scope of the programme doesn't include front line services and systems (benefits services and payments are not in the scope of ITS), there are two key areas of change that we expect to have a direct impact on the quality and availability of front-line services.

The first is the modernisation and streamlining of time consuming and often frustrating administrative processes that divert the attention of front-line staff from delivering service excellence. These changes will release capacity that can be re-directed to service delivery, allowing us to mitigate much of the impact of unfilled vacancies and to address some of the un-finished or even un-started improvement projects that we have. We expect to start to see these impacts through the first two releases, which cover core finance and supplier management and people services respectively and can measure these in-service availability and quality.

The second is the quality of data and information around our people, finances, suppliers, assets and inventory and our ability to make informed decisions in these key areas.

Better management of supply into our hospital means we don't lose theatre time and the risk of any stock shortages of essential items, such as supplies for key workers, is mitigated. Better management of critical island infrastructure (such as pumping

stations and sea walls), what they are, their service history and maintenance schedules will enable a better-informed investment strategy leading to a more effective use of capital funds. It will also allow us to direct planned and preventative maintenance activities at public priorities, reducing the possibility of severe incidents or issues with important infrastructure, like the energy from the waste plant or sewage systems, that would inconvenience Islanders. Additionally, smoother recruitment processes allow us to fill front line roles with the right people.

The changes to asset and inventory management are planned in the second half of the programme, following the first two releases. Specific customer service measures are less obvious here, but again we'd expect to see complaint levels fall and overall service satisfaction increase over time.

9. How are potential ways of improving your target operating model tracked and implemented following CLS SLT meetings?

CLS's monthly and quarterly performance review cycles are central to tracking Target Operating Model (TOM) effectiveness. Tactical operational changes are made on the basis of the performance results to tailor resourcing (the TOM was specifically designed to facilitate much easier movement or resources between teams) as well as process changes.

Strategic TOM evolution is rooted in CLS's business planning & change project implementation processes. These enable the delivery of service changes, which in turn may require changes to TOM structures and resourcing to enable optimal delivery of the planned changes.

Additionally, CLS runs a long-established ideas scheme which is open to all team members. All ideas are assessed for implementation with feedback being provided to submitters and a winner is chosen monthly.

Lastly, both customer feedback and the recent Be Heard survey are rich sources of ideas and feedback about the CLS TOM. Feasible suggestions are either implemented by operational teams in the same way as CLS ideas or more complex changes are fed into the business planning process.

10. How do the levels of funding match the performance criteria for your department? Have you identified the need for further resources and if so, what are they?

Similar to the above – the CLS performance management and business planning processes enable close tracking of performance across all service areas. As a result, resourcing can be re-balanced if needed and / or gaps identified.

Decisions to identify efficiencies or new service opportunities are also informed by the same data and criteria.

11. How do the Chief Minister and Assistant Minister(s) influence and oversee the resourcing and response to recommendations within the Recommendations Tracker?

 Recommendations of the C&AG and PAC tend to be operational in nature and implemented by officers within CLS. The recommendations tracker is reviewed regularly by the CLS SLT and resources are prioritised to act on recommendations as needed.

If any matters need to be brought to the attention of, or escalated to, the relevant Ministerial Team and / or Chief Minister, this takes place at weekly Ministerial meetings or on an ad hoc basis if more urgent or needing a dedicated meeting.

12. As per your Business Plan, we welcome your quantity success measures but what quality measures do you apply, for example re Complaints Handling'?

Quality measurement is important in all areas of CLS operational performance, and as part of day to day activities we operate a range of quality assurance processes.

In terms of complaints handling, our customer feedback management system means that all complaints are recorded, even when resolved immediately on the front line. An advisor records the action taken, and although the complaint is considered closed' it is still reviewed the section feedback manager to understand the issue and a light touch quality check confirms it has been appropriately handled.

We have recently introduced a quality assurance framework that will underpin complaints handling quality measurement across Government of Jersey. This is still in the roll out phase, although the Customer Feedback Manager does sample check CLS complaints to check they have been handled in line with policy, the quality of the response, and the accurate recording and lessons learnt captured. Going forward, the quality framework will also measure customer satisfaction of complaint handling and outcome and how we performed in respect to, quality of communication, policy adherence and process adherence.

13. You've told us that the Departmental Operational Business Plan sets out how the Local Services team plans to engage with community groups and voluntary sector groups – how do you measure success of that engagement strategy?

Feedback from our partners has been very positive with some significant developments across the clusters and mental health network. These partnerships included the development of a Financial Impact Action Group and ConnectMe which supported many islanders during the pandemic. Local Services continue to work in partnership with civil society, funders, and private providers to ensure strong partnerships across the community.

Measurements of success of community engagement are:

• Closer to Home event feedback from public and partners

• Partner participation with workshops to gather feedback

• Number of organisations regularly engaging with Closer to Home community events

• Number of organisations regularly engaging with cluster groups

• Monitoring of successful projects delivered in partnership by cluster groups

• Qualitative feedback received from GOJ, VCS and Parish partners

• Completed delivery of Closer to Home community events

• Regular meeting dates of all cluster groups

14. How will you update the CLS' Business Continuity Management Plan following the COVID-19 pandemic to account for other potential crises?

a. How will you incorporate the lessons learnt log' of your, and other, departments, to help facilitate change and improved response management?

CLS regularly contributes to the cross-GoJ BC working group, enabling sharing of experiences and implementation of best practise learned elsewhere.

CLS's Business Continuity Plan has been updated throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure learnings from this event are captured to improve BC measures. New processes have also been added to the BC plan to enable continuity of services with disruptions to workforce and buildings.

15. How are goals/objectives from My Conversations, My Goals collated to ensure that there is consistency between your department and the Government of Jersey?

CLS runs quarterly Director General presentation to all colleagues. These include communication of goals/objectives. Presentations identify linkages from Common Strategic Priorities (CSPs) and Government Plan commitments through to key CLS goals for the year within that framework. Quarterly updates are provided on these goals which flow into individual objectives via the MCMG process.

The graphic below shows the flow of objective setting from the island plan to CSP to gov plan to department plans

Additionally:

• Recent improvements to the MCMG approach and recording process make it more accessible and easier to report on. This enables managers to quality assure and see the flow of objectives being set.

• The links to individuals' personnel records will make for a much smoother eventual transition to the Integrated Technology Solution.

• Extra training and support materials are available to help through the Capable Manager Espresso sessions and online video tutorials

16. There are numerous strategies in place at any one-time, what mechanisms do you use to ensure they all work together at a departmental and divisional level?

The Government and Operational Business Planning processes enable a top-down approach and prioritisation of planned activities. Inter-departmental coordination takes place during the business planning process, with any specific dependencies being itemised in the published plans. The CPMO provides another layer of inter-departmental resource coordination and prioritisation during project implementation. Throughout the year there is good communication of progress on key strategies and engagement of colleagues through cross government forums such as ELT, OpsCo, SLG & SMG.

Departmental priorities, implementation progress and performance are reviewed and acted on via the performance review processes and are communicated within CLS using the quarterly DG presentations as covered above.

17. What input have you had in devising the succession planning toolkit and do you know when it is expected to be rolled out to Departments?

The succession planning toolkit has been developed by P&CS in collaboration with departments.

The strategic workforce planning toolkit, which covers succession planning, has already been shared at SLT level, and further improvements and refinements made based on feedback.

The agreed approach is to test the toolkit first prior to organisation wide rollout, and to do this in targeted areas via pilots in Q3 and Q4. These are:

CLS looks forward to reviewing the outcomes of these pilots and taking learnings forward in its own implementation.

18. What were the key takeaways from the latest colleague engagement survey for your department when it came to leadership and communication? What steps are you taking to improve in these areas?

We were proud of our strong scores in these areas in the Be Heard survey, confirming our past work in these topics has borne fruit. Our ongoing actions to learn and continue to develop are part of our people and culture plan.

There is, of course, always room for further improvement and we will be focussing on the four key areas mentioned earlier.

Progress updates will be provided in departmental comms to confirm that our people have been listened to and action is being taken as a result of their feedback.

19. What are your Department's top five risks? How do you reduce/mitigate them? There are three risks on the CLS risk log rated High after mitigation:

20. Looking forward to the next five years, which areas of performance management and performance enhancement are most important for your Department? What would success look like in these areas?

Our vision is to Make It Easy for customers. We will continue to ask for and listen to customer feedback. We will measure our performance and improve our services. We will achieve this by:

• Improving customer satisfaction,

• Reducing customer effort,

• Learning from customer sentiment - feedback & complaints, and

• Achieving service performance enhancements – for example through our Transform Programme.

Yours sincerely

Ian Burns

Director General – Customer and Local Services

T +44 (0)1534 447320 E i.burns@gov.je