Focus on the operation committee of Council

It’s timely to consider and better understand the close and critical link with the community to which we serve, and each month members who sit on the Operations committee receive a full suite of the complex and routine service areas of council

Councils are so much more than delivering water and roads, whilst I appreciate and understand these are essential services we are so much more than that.

If you have an inquiring mind and wonder what else??? I urge you to have a look at the Operations Committee agenda available publicly notified on the website each month. This is a valuable resource for the community as we and you come to grips with the wide and varied range of services offered and funded via the general rate.

Customer services is an important part of us doing business with you and it is therefore pleasing to record compliments from many of our customers and these along with complaints are acknowledged. We have recently started a measure of customer satisfaction using the Customer Service Request (CSR) when it analyses the number of CSR’s opened when customers are dissatisfied with the resolution, against those that are closed off in the satisfactory manner.

On average the customer services receive approximately 1500 emails per month, but phone calls remain our customers preferred method of contact.

Our customer services either at our libraries or service centres are often the interface with members of our community, they are a rich resource for our district and a valuable source of information for the customer.

The Amenities team also report through the Operations committee on many of the things that the customers service team receive feedback on particularly regarding district lawn mowing, public toilet cleaning, cemeteries, parks and reserves. These are assets that require daily, weekly or monthly attention and sometimes we are exposed to some minority who find favour in vandalising these critical assets, the report offers the costs of the vandalism on a monthly basis i.e toilet paper unravelled, beer bottles jammed down the toilet and graffiti not only do the costs of repair fall back on the ratepayer but our amenities team work incredibly hard fix these issues in a timely manner, this negligent and disrespectful behaviour really is costly and disappointing I feel frustrated with this unnecessary expense and I am certain many of you will agree.

If you have any questions – make an appointment or give me a call.