Portfolio Holder for Improvement and Innovation in attendance to answer questions relating to her Portfolio.

The Chairman welcomed Cllr Thornton, the Portfolio Holder for Improvement & Innovation to the meeting. The Portfolio Holder provided an overview of her remit including policy & performance, communications, customer service, business transformation, special projects, digital workforce, economic development and regeneration, equalities, Members and well-being. Some highlights included the IIP Platinum award which was key to attracting and developing staff to exceed their potentials. There were a lot of other projects being undertaken including meeting point, work within the economic development team including the West Kent Rural Grants Scheme. She was proud that Sevenoaks were one of the first local authorities to allocate the funding.

In response to questions Members were advised that following feedback from the last Scrutiny Committee the performance indicator around Customer Solutions was being developed to provide more meaningful data. It was important that there was the opportunity to follow up with customers and their interactions with Officers, not just through telephone calls, but web chat and emails. This data would be provided to the Committee once there was sufficient data. Customer Satisfaction Surveys were carried out every couple of years and another one would be due shortly. However, historically the Council had always performed very well and was higher than national averages.

In response to questions, which focused on staffing and retention, Members were advised that during the pandemic many people stayed and were not looking at new jobs due to the high levels of uncertainty. However, around 2022, there was movement and a lot of new people in a quick timescale and it was onlynow settling down. When staff left, they were invited to attend an exit interview which asks for reasons of leaving and it was recorded so that if trends occur, they could be addressed. Often reasons for leaving included moving to the private sector, as in general they paid higher salaries and the council was limited in financial terms. She noted there were still retention issues with Direct Services and the refuse teams. Long term sickness could not be planned for when this happened and could only work on estimations for the impact it may have to a service. However, she did not think that the Council was so lean that services could not be delivered, especially when the majority of performance indicators reflected that targets were being met.

In regards to questions on digital services, she advised that many were online already but this was something that was continually reviewed. It was though, important to note that not everyone wanted to solely use online services and so there had to be a balance but there was room to improve across all portfolios.

In response to a further question regarding policies and economic development and regeneration, the Portfolio Holder advised that she would provide a written response to the Councillor.

The Portfolio Holder responded to a question regarding innovation. In response she advised that it was important to be realistic in terms of what could be achieved and the local plan set out the clear objectives. Diving further into what innovation looked like it was important to continually strive to look for the new and different and see what was happening out there and it was important to balance this for the District. Some of the economic and regeneration projects could lead to the most innovation as far as touching on people’s lives by bringing something different to the District.

The Chairman thanked the Portfolio Holder for her attendance.