Modern public services

We will:

• Ensure that we meet our service standards when we respond to customers and that we regularly monitor and publish how well we are meeting our commitments.
• Deliver a consistent level of service across North Northamptonshire, ensuring customers are not disadvantaged by where they live.
• Understand and care about our customers’ concerns, demonstrating through our actions, that our customers matter to us.
• Establish processes and practices that ensure that customer queries are dealt with correctly at their first point of contact.
• Develop our systems, processes and practices to ensure that we provide a faster response to customers when they contact us via the telephone.
• Take responsibility for every contact received anywhere within the Council. If we cannot help, we will connect customers to other organisations that can assist where this is possible.
• Work with our customers to develop quality, joined-up services that are accessible to all.
• Enable customers to access more services and information online and in a way that is more accessible and preferable to them.

We will:

• Develop Community Hubs that are responsive to the needs of the local communities that they serve.
• Ensure Community Hubs empower local communities, playing host to a variety of support groups and external community organisations.
• Develop a partnership approach to service delivery and the provision of advice at Community Hubs including frontline staff, partner and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise Sector (VCSE) services where practicable. We will ensure a joined-up approach to meeting the needs of local communities.
• Ensure a common standard of council service is provided by each Community Hub, matching those provided in the Council’s customer service centres.
• Explore the feasibility of a mobile Community Hub that is responsive to the needs of smaller and more isolated communities.

We will:

• Strive to become an employer of choice for the local community and further afield.
• Develop and deliver a ‘Future Ways of Working’ Strategy that ensures we have the right approach to managing people, technology and our operational premises.
• Value and support our staff, offering them stability and flexibility as well as the opportunities for career development, to learn new skills and to innovate.
• Develop the skills of tomorrow’s workforce, increasing the use of apprenticeships, providing employment and training opportunities for young people locally.
• Deliver a strategy that helps embed and develop future working practices, building on the learning of remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Focus on developing a culture that values our staff and places their wellbeing and job satisfaction at the centre of what we do. We will work to retain staff and skills within the organisation.
• Invest in the development of our workforce. We will ensure our managers have the behaviours, skills and tools necessary to effectively manage and support their teams, working locally, remotely and flexibly.

We will:

• We will develop a ‘Future Ways of Working’ Strategy that ensures we are making the best, most responsible use of our property, technology and people resources.
• Develop an ICT Strategy that ensures that technology is an affordable enabler of better services, not an expensive barrier to improvement.
• Develop a People Strategy that ensures our staff are equipped with the right knowledge, skills and abilities to provide class leading services of the future.
• Develop a Property Strategy that ensures the Council makes the smartest use of the right property in the right place, in a way that is sustainable for both the environment and the Council’s budget and is conducive to the working practices of both today and tomorrow.
• Ensure that our working practices and use of operational premises minimise the negative impact on the environment.
• Use our technology to capture the right information in the right way to help provide better, more targeted services to our customers.
• Reduce the environmental impact of our operations through the smarter use of our buildings, technology and behaviours of staff.
• Support our most vulnerable residents with more responsive and informed services, enabled by the better use of technology. We will use technology responsibly to help us make early interventions and take preventative measures that help the local population.

We will:

• Ensure the cost of services represent good value for money for local people. We will provide good quality information to local residents and businesses about the resources available and how they are used for the benefit of the local community.
• Ensure we effectively communicate the capital investments that are being made in the local community.
• Place greater emphasis on the importance of procuring through local supply chains in order to better support the local economy.
• Champion social value through our contracts and supply chains to provide demonstrable added-value that supports local priorities.
• Ensure continued financial monitoring by the Executive and Scrutiny Committees, demonstrating that the Council is committed to open and transparent financial performance. 
• Ensure our governance processes are robust and support effective decision-making, and that the Medium-Term Financial Strategy reflects the significant challenges being faced and remains responsive to the uncertainties in the economy by continuing to deliver against savings targets.
• Review our Medium-Term Financial Plan as a live model and as a tool in assessing the financial viability of the Council.
• Ensure our savings plans are clearly communicated and linked to specific policy decisions, with the impact on service provision clearly articulated.
• Ensure we have the appropriate levels of reserves and that we closely monitor liquidity to underpin financial resilience.
• Provide support to members and officers responsible for managing budgets.
• Prepare the annual statement of accounts in an accurate and timely manner.

We will:

• Develop a strong performance culture that develops the performance of our staff, services and systems to ensure the delivery of the right service outcomes at the right time.
• Embed consistent and continuous performance management arrangements that provide timely, accurate and relevant performance information to inform both decision-making and scrutiny.
• Use performance information to develop high-quality, high-performing, award-winning services.
• Use data intelligently to assist with the improvement of services and where possible, deliver early interventions.
• Report performance information publicly, regularly and routinely, ensuring that the Council is open and transparent.