Agenda item

(To receive a report which provides an update of Serco's performance against contractual Key Performance Indicators (KPI) specified in the Corporate Support Services Contract between January 2017 and May 2017.  The report also provides an update on the progress made on key transformation projects being undertaken by Serco)

The Board considered a report which provided an update of Serco's performance against contractual Key Performance Indicators (KPI) as specified in the Corporate Support Services Contract between January 2017 and May 2017.  With the addition of a new KPI, the total number for SERCO was 41.

Performance up to and including December 2016 had been previously reported to the Value for Money Scrutiny Committee at its meeting held on 28 February 2017.

The Board was required to seek reassurance about the performance of the Corporate Support Services Contract and provide feedback and challenge as required.

At this point, an addendum to the report was circulated which showed the performance of the Corporate Support Service Contract up to and including June 2017.  It was noted that the Overall KPI Performance Summary figures for June on the addendum were incorrect and should read 30 (instead of 29) for Target Service Level Achieved; and 2 (instead of 3) for Below Minimum Service Level.

The Officer reported that performance had been difficult for SERCO to manage and as a result, Service Credits had been applied totalling £2million since the beginning of the contract.  The level of Service Credits would fall over time as the service stabilised.

The Board discussed some of the KPIs in detail and the following points were noted:

Customer Service Centre (CSC)

·    It was highlighted that in May 2017, 17.53% of all calls to the CSC had been abandoned and 14.05% in the last month.  Officers advised that abandoned calls could be due to a number of reasons, for example, the caller terminating and calling back the next day, which the figures did not identify.  However, despite this, performance on this KPI was not as high as desired and both LCC and Serco had concerns;

·    It was highlighted that 100% of safeguarding calls were answered;

·    In relation to KPI 4 - % of total calls that are abandoned calls, this KPI had failed to be met and between January – April 2017, mitigation had been agreed, although no service credits had been taken.  It was confirmed that this was during the period when Mosaic had been introduced which could have reflected on this particular KPI.  Further information was requested by the board on how many calls had actually been abandoned and what the average call answering time was;

·    The report claimed that Serco had sampled a percentage of calls for the April/May performance information and clarity was sought by Members on how the samples were decided.  Officers confirmed that the quantity of sampling had been agreed at 30% as set out in the Book of Measures, and that 30% was chosen at random.  The Board requested further information on how the sampling was done;

·    Clarity was sought on the specialised staffing requirements in the Children's Hub of the CSC (which included safeguarding).  Officers confirmed this was something which had been discussed within the service with a view to relaxing the rules around answering children's calls so that more operators could deal with them.  There were currently 11 staff trained to deal with calls related to children's issues and this would increase once more people had received the training, which took approximately two to three months to complete;

·    In response to a question regarding staff retention, it was confirmed that on one occasion, 6 out of the 11 trained children's operators were absent from work and the CSC was not allowed to transfer children's related calls to untrained operators;

·    Officers reported that staff absence within the CSC was the highest it had ever been.  Absences were both long term and short and extra staff from Serco's Birmingham office had to be drafted in.  Serco had had difficulty retaining staff at the CSC, and the training requirements for new staff were lengthy;

·    A typical call taken by the CSC would take around 7-8 minutes, with a further 7 -8 minutes to enter details of the call into the system.  Work with LCC was being done to try and improve this process.  An operator was also able to call a person back at a mutually convenient time.  Working from home was also possible in certain circumstances;

·    A report by a third party, relied upon by Serco in order to meet a KPI was revealed to be faulty.  It was confirmed by Officers that the third party in question was Avaya/Vodafone who provided telephony within the CSC.  Serco was now rewriting the report and as a result, meeting the target (KPI 5 - % of contacts referred to in KPI 1,2&3 responded to within the timescale per month);

·    The Chairman of a scrutiny committee reported that his committee had previously received statistics for calls received, relating to their subject matter and suggested that this be resumed.  The Officer reported that CSC managers regularly met with all service leads within the Council to scrutinise the data from CSC calls related to their area.  The Chief Commercial Officer would look at bringing something back to the Board along these lines;

·    It was suggested whether there was a way of doing call backs to those on hold.  The Officer agreed to look into whether this was possible.

People Management

·    The performance for People Management in June 2017 had been the best performance so far for this category, and with only one KPI failure in May 2017, this area had shown improvement.

Information Management Technology (IMT)

·    IMT had shown good performance in May 2017, meeting 10 of 12 KPIs, however, only 8 had been met in June;

·    There was still room for improvement in IMT particularly as there were ongoing issues with the Service Desk.  Serco had involved support from its Birmingham office to help with this.

·    As part of the KPI review, all possible solutions were considered to improve performance, and if Serco was still struggling to meet targets, the Council would review the KPI.

Adult and Children's Services

·    Following a question from the Committee, Officers confirmed that maintained schools could opt out of Serco HR and finance services, however they would have to manage their own accounts, which could be burdensome for a small school.  So far 18 of 220 schools had withdrawn from Serco services.

·    There was discussion regarding the provision of tablets for use by staff working in the field.  Officers confirmed that Microsoft products were the least useful type of phone or tablet and that either an Android based system or an Apple product would more likely be chosen. 

RESOLVED

1.    That the Board be reassured regarding the performance of the Corporate Support Services Contract;

2.    That the further information requested by the Board be brought to the meeting on 26 October 2017.