To receive questions from members of the public which have been submitted in advance of the meeting in accordance with the executive procedure rules.
Minutes:
The following public questions were asked at the meeting.
“Why do the public not get replies to the vast majority of questions asked via the environment call centre helpline and what are the council doing to correct this.
Will the council change what they publish & promise the public in regard to replies within certain timescales to reflect what happens in practice?”
Response from the executive member for resources
“Over the last year more than 230,000 customers have called on our environment line and on average 81% of calls were answered within 45 seconds. When you average out the time customers waited to get through over the past year, it falls well below a minute at 55 seconds.
The council is committed to improving to customer services as can be shown from the much improved website launched today.
Every customer enquiry is important to us and we will continue to ensure that high standards are reinforced within our customer service centre.
We are reviewing our existing performance metrics within the customer service centre and will ensure that the focus remains on quality, response times and resolution at the first point of contact where possible.
We remain committed to improving customer service and the changes to the website give us the opportunity to deliver those improvements.
The council has recently commissioned a review of customer contact for environment services & will use the review to develop effective ways of reducing avoidable contact where possible.
If there are specific examples where you have not received the high level of customer service that we expect I will be happy to discuss those with you.”
The chair, Councillor Nick Stanton thanked Mr Hayes for bringing the matter to the Council’s attention.
“How will long term partnering contractors for delivery of major works, work collaboratively with council take advantage of Government Incentives for benefit of its residents? What is the council doing in readiness for renewable heat Incentives that will start in April 2011?”
Response from the deputy leader and executive member for housing
“The new partnering contracts have been procured in a way that encourages collaboration and innovation not only in the delivery of major works, but also through securing additional resources from government and other agencies for the benefit of residents. For instance, it is intended that the new contractors will work with the Council on a range of energy efficiency bids including Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT), Retrofit for the Future, and Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP). A number of the proposed new contractors already have a successful history of securing and delivering incentive resources for the benefit of residents in Southwark and across London.
In respect of Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), the Council has been closely monitoring all aspects of government energy and carbon reduction policy. It is highly likely that the council will be able to make use of both the introduction of Feed in Tariffs (FIT) this coming financial year (for electricity generating renewable technologies) and the proposed RHI (for heat generating renewable technologies).
The council note that unlike the FIT regime, the RHI will apply to all scales of heat generation and this will mean that the council's communal heating schemes could benefit from income from RHI tariffs. We believe that there is an inconsistency in government approach to large scale gas fired combined heat and power (CHP) - which would receive neither FIT nor RHI income - and less optimal domestic scale gas 'micro-CHP' which will receive FIT tariff income. The council will be responding with these concerns, and others to the current RHI consultation.
Using other existing sources of funding the council has already embarked on a number of projects which would supply heat generated by biomass (wood sourced) and waste derived fuels to communally heated estates. The aim of such projects is always to :
· reduce carbon emissions
· reduce fuel costs to the council, and hence to tenants and homeowners
· reduce dependence on use of gas (and hence being locked in to a traded commodity that is highly volatile in price with a long term trend to increase in price)
The council will take into account the predicted price impact of the RHI on these projects.”