Agenda item

Capita Performance Report

Capita representatives will be present to answer any questions on performance.

Minutes:

The Client Relationship Director introduced the item and the committee were informed that the report covered performance for the period from April to September 2022. It was noted that the Land Charges service met all of their key performance measures but for Customer Service calls (PI002), they failed to meet their KPI of being answered within an average of 20 seconds across the period. This was driven by significant issues with missed bins in the Havant area and with the annual garden waste renewals in Mendip. However, it was noted that performance against this PI was improving in recent months.

 

Council Tax and Benefits calls (PI004) also failed to meet their KPI of being answered within 60 seconds at any point throughout the period. The reason for this was due to the complexity of the customer enquiries, driven by the cost-of-living crisis, therefore needing more time on each call. Capita had confirmed that they were currently looking at the costs and benefits of recruiting more staff to call centres to address these issues, particular to help cover Revenues and Benefits.

 

The Revenue and Benefits service was experiencing high demand as the team had been  implementing the energy rebate scheme, which completed in September 2022. Also, the collection rate of council tax was ahead of the same point last year, although now showed signs of slowing down. The forthcoming Royal Mail strikes were expected to have an impact on this service and Capita confirmed that they were working with authorities to ensure alerts were in place to inform customers about possible delays. 

 

 

IT also met most of its KPIs across the period, occasionally priority 1 incidents could not be remedied during the period, but the Client Relationship Director confirmed that there were no significant worries around IT.

 

On rectification plans, the Client Relationship Director notified the committee that three rectification plans were still open; one related to VAT coding errors, although this had subsequently been closed outside of this reporting period, the second was for the management of committals/summonses for South and Vale District Councils which was nearly closed, and the third was about Socrata Land Charges data which was still open. Further information about all the points raised above were presented in the agenda pack to the meeting. 

 

 

The committee then asked about the changing nature of customer services calls and if the nature of calls could be tracked to help anticipate future calls. Officers noted that the changing nature of calls would be addressed in customer services update item, item 8 of the agenda.

 

On IT, members asked whether the South and Vale officers are working with Capita on the items that were recently raised in the internal audit, notably over cyber security. It was confirmed that an action tracker had been developed and that  regular meetings between the two organisations were in place to monitor progress in this area. 

 

Finally, members asked about how the red and amber colours for KPIs are tracked and what was used to determine the difference between them. The Client Relationship Director confirmed that there were percentage criteria, however, it was agreed that this context should be added to the next report to the committee. 

 

RESOLVED: to note the performance reported against contract measures.

 

Supporting documents:

 

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