2015-08-18 Planning and Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                               18 AUGUST 2015


   There continued to be high levels of CRMs (Customer Requests) during the year with
     peaks in October 2014 (dog registration) and January/February/March (rates and trees
     requests following storms). In total, there were 16,158 CRMs lodged in 2014/15. The
     level of complaints about Council’s service to customers remains very low. This belies
     the fact that our KPIs show that our completion rate of responding to CRMs can be
     improved. During 2014/15, Council received reports outlining details of customer
     requests for some of our most frequent customer requests (animals, garbage bins, tree
     requests and roads).
   Council continued to receive outstanding feedback from the community about
     customer service and services provided to the community generally. The two areas
     that received the most positive feedback were parks and gardens and frontline
     customer service.
     “I just wanted to give thanks to the staff who answer the phones at the council. I've
     only called a couple of times with queries, but both times the women answering were
     direct and helpful. Large companies could learn a lot from them.”
     “A Customer called as he wanted Council to know how “nice” it is to be connected to a
     human being and not an automated message service and for his enquiry to be dealt
     with within the call time.”
     “A Customer was impressed with Council’s quick response to a blocked drain. Request
     was acknowledged at 6.29am and staff were knocking on the customer’s door at 8am”
   Our internal staff survey included details of our staff attitude to customer service.
     Pleasingly, that question received the highest score in the internal staff survey with
     83% of staff identifying that they can resolve a customer’s issue to the customer’s
     satisfaction.

Corporate Plan Priority 3 – Community engagement and communication
We know that our community wants to be kept informed and we need to provide as much
information as possible via local media and to develop a better online presence. We will
involve the community in decision making on key issues affecting the future of Noosa.

Key achievements include:
   Council commenced a Queensland first for local government with a trial of a
     Community Jury. The first Jury has finished its deliberations and provided its report to
     Council on the topic – “What is the best option for minimising organic waste sent to
     landfill?” The second Community Jury is about to commence with a focus on river
     management.
   Council has undertaken a number of meetings across our region to engage with our
     community. Formal Council meetings have been held at Peregian Beach and Cooran
     during 2014/15. Councillors and the CEO have also held community information night
     meetings at Kin Kin, Pomona, Tewantin and Sunshine Beach.
   A survey of our community was undertaken to assert how they obtain access to
     information about Council. This survey was responded to by over 1,700 people and
     provided Council with valuable feedback on how our community wants to be engaged.
   The Project News updates were refined and published on a regular basis to provide
     information on capital works projects occurring in neighbourhoods.
   An e-newsletter format was developed and published. There is more to do with this
     publication and there is an opportunity to improve this in 2015/16. More frequent,
     more topical and a broader reach should be the focus in 2015/16. The Libraries and
     Galleries have continued their excellent e-news publication which has a wide reach.




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