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Message
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Cllr David Alston
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Tuesday 25 May 2010 11:07:39 am
Should the Council have fewer face to face contact points and provide more services by telephone and the website, allowing more self service for customers? [Topic now closed]
The Council currently operates 37 Service Points across Highland and has a number of other offices that people can visit. It currently costs around £6.00 per contact to deal with enquiries face to face, £3.50 to deal with enquiries on the telephone and less than 50p for web site transactions. Last year the Council dealt with over 355,000 face to face contacts.
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Heather Urquhart
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Wednesday 26 May 2010 12:00:47 pm
Face to face public service
Seems a no brainer - less face to face contact
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John Boocock
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Wednesday 26 May 2010 1:10:41 pm
Website
Less face to face contact will only be workable if the Council's website is vastly improved.
Just look at Stirling Council's website to see an example of a good solid site which gives far more relevant information than Highland Council without being over wordy or difficult to navigate.
It takes 6 clicks to get to my councillor on Highland Council's website as opposed to 3 to get to a councillor on Stirling's site. It takes 12 moves to get to the details of my community council on the Highland website and only 4 to find a community council's details on Stirling's site. And the Stirling site includes far more readable and useful information about councillors.
Highland Council's website has a large number of unrelated items on its home page which rather than aiding navigation look to have grown like Topsy. There isn't even a site map link on the home page so you can work it out yourself.
If the council decides to save money by using web access it needs to ensure that the council website is readable by the lay operson. And of course closing libraries means that access to the internet will be restricted for those without home computers.......................
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Michelle Douglas
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Thursday 27 May 2010 8:35:43 am
Council access
I agree with Mr Boocock - Highland Council's website is complicated and not very user friendly. There are many better local authority websites out there and if the Council wishes people to make more use of online services they need to make sure these services are accessible and easy to use even for those with only basic web/computer knowledge.
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John Boocock
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Thursday 27 May 2010 9:43:46 am
Council Access
Michelle is right and all that is required is for the Council to look at best practice elsewhere. There is an underlying problem here though of how the Council deals with information. I went into a Service Point the other day to find out details regarding a local Draft Road Traffic Order which my Community Council has a keen interest in. Although the member of staff did her utmost to help (she was wonderful) we spent quite sometime to no avail. When I spoke to the Head of Roads and Transport about this he said that there was no obligation to post it on the website, but he agreed that it would be useful. Instead it will appear as a costly advert in a newspaper at some undefined date in the future - ie miss it and its gone. It also means that there is no on going record of these sorts of things.
A more effective web information strategy would not only save money on face to face and telephone enquiries but it would also mean that the staff could also find things more quickly and accurately when they were faced with live as opposed to online requests. I've just tried to find what exactly are the intentions of Highland Council in terms of information policy and other than the legalese associated with FOI requests there is nothing on its website. Funnily enough this is yet another example of a situation where investment in the short term would bring long term gains not only in financial terms but also in the way the Council operates in its dealings with the community.
Michelle's point about accessibility should also be allied to more access to the internet for all. At the moment the Council has no strategy for dealing with the reuse of non-redundant IT equipment, much of which could be put to use within the community rather than been sent down the road in bits for little or no tangible return. But that's another story which I'm working on at the moment 
John B
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Dave Voisey
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Thursday 27 May 2010 10:20:49 pm
Face to face public service
Service Point personnel are an essential service for those who are still computer shy. even the telephone can still be intimidating to some.
Remember that contact with Service Point staff is a two way process and these folk often do the work of advisor, social worker and confidant; the kind of work that is not in any rule book.
I have to agree with the previous comments about the Highland Council web pages. The designers have not grasped the fact that we - the public - are dim.
Keep it simple!
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Liz V
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Thursday 27 May 2010 10:29:21 pm
Service points
I agree with the previous replies - face to face is essential for many people; and the staff are really helpful. Also the website needs a lot of improvement.
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M Gowans
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Friday 28 May 2010 12:02:33 am
Expansion of the Alness Service Centre
I think the staff at the service centre in Alness do a great job. Although face-to-face contact is nice, waiting times in Church Street are unacceptable and may be the case elsewhere as well. I would suggest expanding the hours of the centre in Alness and decreasing the number of service points would be sensible and cost-effective. An overhaul of the poorly designed website would also help to move more transactions to the internet.
At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better.
- Barack Obama
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Cllr David Alston
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Friday 28 May 2010 10:21:28 am
Website
Thanks for your comments about our website. We recognise the importance of the website and are constantly seeking ways to improve the content and navigation. We are currently looking at improving how we deal with customer enquiries and making it easier for people to book or pay for services.
We endeavour to keep the home page topical and relevant, we constantly monitor the site to minimise the number of broken links and ensure material is accessible to all users. A site map on each page assists with the navigation and ensures that most people can find what they are looking for quickly.
I would be pleased to hear how other people find our website.
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Guy Newson
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Friday 28 May 2010 1:16:03 pm
Fewer face to face contacts
From a personal and selfish perspective I would have no objection to fewer face to face contact points and stronger reliance on web and telephone resources; this would also help access outside for working hours which often clash with my own working schedule. I also drive and for the few (if any) occassions where I need face to face contact I would not object to some travelling if this helps keep costs down.
However I can appreciate that for some people this may not be an appropriate solution. We must also not forget people whom are alone and face to face contact may have important mental health benefits.
Guy of Murkle
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John Boocock
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Monday 31 May 2010 2:30:58 pm
Website - Site map
I think you may have been misinformed about Highland Council's site map, David. A site map for a local authority should look something like, say, Leicester's at http://www.leicester.gov.uk/site-map/ It is hiearchical and allows for easy indexing by web search engines.
What Highland Council calls a search map is restrictive and is based on selective structures in the web site. Site Maps are discrete and include every page on a web site in a hierarchical format
This is why searches on Highland Council's website produce at best randomised results. The only way Highland Council can overcome this is by a complete redesign.
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D MacLeod
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Tuesday 01 June 2010 11:27:47 am
Face to face public services
I think the council have a moral duty to provide face to face public services throughout the area. Due to the spread out geographic area the council serves it is essential that face to face services are maintained in as many rural area as possible so that as many service users as possible are able to access council services. Having telephone and web based support as an alternative for those who wish to use it is satisfactory but face to face service is regarded as invaluable to many.
What's to say in the near future council telephone services are not tendered out to companies who are not even in the same geographical area, such as some are already doing!
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