Annual Report 2015-16

   Reporting formats for monthly and quarterly financial reports to Council were reviewed in
    2015/16 with improved performance graphs. These were reported to Council and made
    available on Council’s website for the community. Detailed capital works reports were also
    provided separately to keep a focus on progress with the Capital Works Program which had a
    much higher completion rate than previous years (see priority 4 for further details).
   Council continued to receive positive Queensland Audit Office results. We received an
    unqualified audit sign off for the 2014/15 financial statements and the interim 2015/16 audit
    conducted in early 2016 identified no significant issues that needed to be addressed. The
    Audit and Risk Committee continued to monitor our approach to managing risk and compliance
    with governance obligations.
   Our continuous improvement program resulted in reviews being completed for Local Laws,
    Libraries, Noosa Aquatic Centre, and Property & Facilities resulting in over 50
    recommendations that will contribute to efficiencies and improvements in the delivery of these
    services.

Corporate Plan Priority 2 – Great Customer Service
It goes without saying that our community expects and deserves great customer service. We aim
to increase the number of online services available to our community. We also aim to respond to
our customers as quickly as possible and to provide personal friendly service.

Key achievements include:
 There is continuing improvement in the management of our front line phone interface with our
   customers. Shortly after our establishment, too many customers were waiting too long on hold
   to have their phone calls answered. This has steadily been improving over the last two years
   with the introduction of “call back” facilities, better training for frontline customer service staff,
   the introduction of better information on answering queries, dedicated staff, and good
   management of the Customer Service Branch. In July 2014, average wait times were above
   75 seconds but during 2015/16, they were on average below 60 seconds.
 There continued to be high levels of Customer Requests (CRMs) during the year with February
   2016 having the highest total number of customer requests since we commenced in 2014
   (mainly rates and trees requests). In total, there were 17,015 CRMs lodged in 2015/16.
 The level of complaints about Council’s service to customers remains very low. Our KPIs show
   our completion rate of responding to CRMs is improving compared to previous years but can
   improve further. The main focus remains on our five most frequent customer requests
   (animals, garbage bins, tree requests, rates and roads).
 Council adopted a Customer Service Charter during 2015/16 that sets out our expected
   standards for our customers.
 Council continued to receive outstanding feedback from the community about customer service
   and services provided to the community generally. The two areas that continually receive the
   most positive feedback were parks and gardens and frontline customer service.
   “I wrote to you guys yesterday about a pot-hole opposite our business. When we arrived for
   work today it was fixed! I'm absolutely gobsmacked. You guys are the greatest. Please give
   credit to those that had this fixed so quickly.”
   Customer phoned to say thank you to the team who trimmed the trees in Poinciana Ave – a job
   well done!
   “G'day Council, We're newly arrived in the area after 10 years in the UK and I just wanted to
   say it's great to see awesome communal resources like Cooroy library with so many great
   resources/events and a social enterprise coffee shop to top it off! Much appreciated.”
   “Thanks so much for the beautiful golden penda street trees … great work, as usual!”
 Our internal staff survey undertaken in May 2016 included details of our staff attitude to
   customer service. Pleasingly, that question receives one of the highest scores in the internal
   staff survey with almost 83% of staff identifying that they can readily resolve a customer’s issue
   to the customer’s satisfaction.

Noosa Council Annual Report 2015/16                                                               Page 6