Contact: Rory Fitzgerald, ext 7415, email [email protected]

1 Background

1.1 All departments are required to report annually on their monitoring of complaints and compliments. This report covers the period April 2004 to March 2005 for IT Services.

1.2 IT Services policy of benchmarking user satisfaction, actively seeking customer feedback through a monthly sample of users and regular contact through account managers, generates a great deal of comment on all aspects of IT Services. This pre-emptive, non confrontational approach means that feedback which might otherwise be critical of the service is generally provided in the spirit of collaboration and this reduces the volume of complaints. On balance, the comments are complimentary particularly about those areas of the service with which customers have direct contact, e.g. the Helpdesk.

1.3 For the purposes of this report, critical comments which are actively sought out through these surveys are treated separately from any complaints which customers or other stakeholders might raise. In all cases customers are kept informed of progress by their customer account manager.

1.4 A revised complaints monitoring procedure was introduced into IT Services during 2005 with the aim of improving the monitoring and reporting of complaints.

2 Complaints monitoring 2004/2005

2.1 Complaints fall into two main categories, i.e. complaints about the costs of IT and complaints about service performance and quality.

2.2 Customers have raised a number of complaints about IT costs which generally stem from a lack of understanding of the way service charges are derived and, in particular, the necessary contribution towards corporate infrastructure which is largely invisible to the user. This is being addressed through the IT Finance Group, drawn from across HCC, which has the role of scrutinising the prices charged by IT Services for each service offering. Scrutiny takes two forms, an analysis of the cost of each service component and a comparison, through benchmarking, with costs incurred for similar services in other organisations.

2.3 The work of the IT Finance group has dramatically reduced the volume of complaints about service costs. During 2004/05 seven complaints were registered about specific service costs. These included flat panel monitors, mobile phones, remote access to the network and Personal Digital assistants (PDAs). Following analysis of the costs we were able to reduce the prices of flat panel monitors and benchmarking evidence helped us to secure a significant reduction in mobile phone costs.

2.4 Complaints about service quality and performance are handled by individual service managers. Service performance standards are set out in a series of SLAs. A programme is underway to bring these up to date following a range off service developments.

2.5 During 2004/05 the continuing roll out of SAP generated several complaints from customers as early teething problems were being addressed. In particular the Hampshire primary Heads Conference expressed their deepest concerns about the introduction and management of Corporate IT Systems. These concerns are being addressed as part of the continuing SAP improvement programme.

2.6 Two complaints were also received following the delayed implementation of telephone connections to a school and an education centre. In both cases the coordination of complex orders across several suppliers led to errors and delays. Post implementation reviews were carried out and procedures amended to ensure that such orders are handled more efficiently in future.

2.7 There were a further 12 complaints about delays in delivering services, lack of communication about planned service interruptions, prohibition of adding unauthorised equipment to the corporate network and the quality of connections to remote sites. In all cases action has been taken to improve services and processes and to explain policies surrounding the use of the corporate network.

2.8 There were a further two complaints in which charges for services were disputed. These were investigated and resolved to both parties satisfaction.

2.9 None of the complaints have been escalated beyond the department and only one was escalated to the Director of IT Services. None of the complaints related to race issues.

3 Compliments monitoring 2004/05

3.1 Compliments are recorded less rigorously across the department. These are mostly recorded where they are collected as part of a customer feedback process, e.g. following the delivery of IT training courses.

3.2 In addition to the feedback forms, the IT training team recorded 17 compliments about services provided, notably on the high standard of the project management courses and the flexibility demonstrated by the team in meeting particular user needs.

3.3 The Help Desk receive a high number of compliments following the successful resolution of individual user problems.

3.4 Specific aspects of the services that have attracted praise include e-Recruitment, Hantsnet Passport, Hantsweb and the IT Services monthly newsletter.

4 Conclusions

4.1 IT Services actively seeks and encourages customer feedback across all service areas. This information is used to drive service improvement.

4.2 More needs to be done to record compliments as these are also recognised as valuable for service improvement.

Recommendations

1 That this report is noted.

2 That the IT Services complaints monitoring process is further developed to formally record compliments.

3 That the Committee continues to receive an annual complaints and compliments report.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

The following documents discuss facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and have been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list includes:

1. Published works

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None.