How will Wokingham Borough Council provide the best possible services to our residents, when central government is reducing our budget by a painful £43.6 million over the next 3 years?
Part of the answer lies in something which doesn’t sound very exciting but is incredibly powerful – data.
Data drives the council’s evidence based decision making. It allows us to understand how we can make the greatest difference to our residents with limited resources. Understanding our communities helped us, for example, to make the decision on where best to site the new Family Hubs and the proposed Community Hubs, so that we could make the greatest difference to communities around the Borough. It helped us and our community partners to make the decision on how to distribute the Household Support Fund, so that it went to those residents who are most in need.
Data driven decision making has also enabled Wokingham Borough Council to reduce Highways’ customer complaint forms by an impressive 44.4% over the past 2 years.
A review of customer experience data in 2022 showed us that at the time, there was a concerning volume of resident complaints over Highways issues, as well as a high volume of repeat questions; issues being raised by multiple residents; and issues being raised with the wrong team.
The Highways, Communications, and IT teams therefore invested in additional resources to resolve these problems, with the aim of both serving the community better, and saving money by working more effectively.
The solutions that they identified included improving advance communication with residents about Highways issues, in particular upcoming roadworks; and training staff. For example, staff have been given the skills to gather the information needed to make sure a problem can be fixed the first time wherever possible, which has speeded up repairs.
Developing our use of technology was key in making progress. The team improved the Highways area of the Council website, to make it easier for users to report issues and find the information that they need at any time of the day or night. The tracking feature was improved, so that residents can get updates on issues which they’ve raised. Particular focus went into making it easier for customers to report issues in the right place. We are now encouraging residents to report all Highways actions needed via the website, with other communications being raised via the Highways General Enquiries form.
When residents report issues via the website, they are routed to the right place, meaning that answers are quicker and duplication can be eliminated. Issues raised via the Highways page of the council website are logged on an interactive map, so you can see whether a fault has already been reported and request updates if you would like this. If you raise a fault, you will also be given an indicative timescale for the repair, and you can also now request updates on the issue.
We aren’t complacent – there is always scope to do better – and we continuously review and make further improvements.
A recent independent review of the council’s systems has backed the current policy of incremental improvement. The expert review recommended that we make a number of specific improvements including dashboards to show progress of service requests, and further improvements to the Council website. A proposal is now being finalised to come to the Council Executive.
Our success in data driven decision making is possible because of Wokingham Borough Council’s investment in systems, training and staff in recent years. This has increased the Council’s capability to understand our communities (including gathering insights directly from residents in a structured way, and use the information to and make strategic decisions.
As a result, the Council now has a better understanding of our communities and the people that we serve. This helps us make the right decisions on how to use our limited resources to best serve our residents.
By Cllr Rachel Bishop-Firth
