Exclusive by Alan Quick

CREDITON Town Council’s efforts to retain a monthly Mid Devon District Council (MDDC) surgery service at the Council Offices MDDC owns in the town, hit a stumbling block this week when district councillors failed to back a scheme to re-instate the service.

The Mayor of Crediton and chairman of Crediton Town Council, Cllr Frank Letch, who is a district councillor for Crediton and has been campaigning for the re-instatement of the service, put a proposal to MDDC, which was discussed at a meeting of the council’s Community Policy Development Group on Tuesday, September 26.

He asked that the service which MDDC recently withdrew at Crediton and Cullompton be re-implemented on a monthly basis.

Speaking about the meeting, Mr Letch told the "Courier": "The arguments presented in no way represented a review, they were simply a re-iteration of the same old arguments, that Tiverton is the centre of Mid Devon District Council and should therefore keep the five day-a-week face-to-face service.

"The motion to maintain the status quo (no surgeries at Cullompton or Crediton) was proposed by the Group Chairman, the vote was six in favour of his motion and three against, namely Cllrs Eileen Andrews, Ron Dolley and me.

"I will not let it lie there; I intend to put a motion to Full Council that Mid Devon District Council carry out a real review of the customer services offered at Tiverton with a view to bringing them in line with the rest of the District."

COUNCIL REVIEW

Liz Reeves, head of customer services at MDDC put forward a briefing paper review which was considered at the meeting.

She said: "As part of a decision to rationalise council services and meet a balanced budget, the council withdrew its staff and services from the offices in Crediton on April 1, 2016.

"A proposed amendment to the budget to retain services at the Crediton Office was put forward at the meeting of full council on February 24, 2016. This proposal was supported by four councillors (plus one abstention), with the rest of the council voting against. As such officers implemented the decision as agreed by council.

"When this full-time service ended the staff employed in Crediton were made redundant and the budget removed from the Customer First (CF) budget.

"Since then, officers have provided a fortnightly ‘surgery’ in Crediton and Cullompton on alternate Mondays. This was agreed as a transitionary arrangement, not least since the council was incurring fixed IT costs in Crediton until August 2017 i.e. it made sense operationally to utilise the facilities that existed while they were available.

NO LONGER PROVIDED

"The surgeries ceased entirely from August 2017 and are no longer provided. The budget has been cut, and the IT facilities no longer exist to access the council’s systems from these locations.

"Visitor numbers for last year were (this year’s figures (2017/18) are not directly comparable since we gave additional warning of surgeries closing and there are no numbers for Crediton/Cullompton since the surgeries were stopped in August)."

Ms Reeves said the visitor numbers were low at Crediton and Cullompton and telephone calls to customer services was down but on-line form submissions had increased.

She continued: "Increasingly, the council is asked to provide more online services and to accept documents and applications online.

"We need to be able to support customers as more government services (and other associated functions) go online. Increasingly, our customer service role at the front desk, or via the telephone, is about helping people conduct their business online, rather than finding an alternative approach for them."

She then cited where information is supplied on-line and spoke of future on-line access for things like Universal Credit.

She was against reducing available resources in Tiverton to provide surgeries and said that the decision to cut resources is felt through an increase in customer waiting times, assuming transactions across channels remain constant.

"In relation to any consideration of off-site provision, increased costs for mileage and travel time would be added to the cost of the service," she explained.

She added: "Overall demand for the surgeries has been low."

She said taking all customer service (first point of contact) to one location had been managed well, adding: "…it is important that customers have a consistent and easy-to-use means of contacting the council."

She concluded: "This will ensure that vulnerable customers can be responded to as quickly as possible as resource is allocated to the multi-channel contact centre, enabling more senior or specialist officers to respond to more complex enquiries."

NOT A BALANCED VIEW

In a letter submitted to MDDC prior to the meeting, Mrs Clare Dalley, Crediton Town Clerk, said she had read the report and said she found it "extremely biased".

She said: "It does not give a balanced view it is just an Officer’s partial view in order to retain the current service provided."

Mrs Dalley added: "There are huge omissions to the document including the following:

• People are using the Tiverton face-to-face Customer First service because it is there. You cannot compare the level of people being seen at Crediton and Cullompton to those at Tiverton as you are not comparing like for like.

• No work has been undertaken to encourage those living in Tiverton and the surrounding area to use other resources, as has been done in Crediton and Cullompton. If this had been done the level of people using the service would reduce.

• The question has to be asked what makes Tiverton so different to Crediton and Cullompton. If MDDC deems that surgeries are not needed for people in these Towns why are they needed in Tiverton?

• Over the last 18 months residents of Crediton and Cullompton have coped with four hours of MDDC Customer First services every other week. Because of this they have learnt to access services in a different way. If the same approach was taken at Tiverton, a large percentage of the residents accessing the face-to-face service would stop. Residents are using it because it’s there and it’s convenient, not because it’s necessary.

VULNERABLE

• We are asking for four hours a month in Crediton and Cullompton in order for the most vulnerable and needy to access the service. If the Tiverton front line face-to-face service was closed just one day-a-week it would free up more staff to answer the telephones, emails etc. and would allow one member of staff to run a surgery in Cullompton and Crediton. The only additional staff cost is travelling as the staff are employed to be doing the job anyway. For those running the Crediton surgery that would be travel expenses of approximately £14 per month! (Based on 28 mile round trip at 50p per mile) That’s £168 per year!

• MDDC do not need their internet cabling etc to provide a service. We have a guest VLAN at the Crediton Office building and staff can securely access MDDC systems via their Citrix connection."

Previously Mrs Clare Dalley, told the “Courier”: “I am disappointed that MDDC has decided to withdraw this well-used service without any consultation.

“We received details of the intention to close the surgery which is particularly useful to many people, especially those seeking advice about housing, Council Tax, refuse and other queries, benefits and the scanning in of documents required for housing benefit or reviews or to present identification.

IS MDDC SERVING PEOPLE?

“If the service is withdrawn I can see many people asking whether Mid Devon District Council is really serving the people of Mid Devon?

“The surgery service has run for just 15 months since Mid Devon District Council closed its Crediton office and on occasion we have people queuing out the door waiting to see the member of staff on duty.

“In addition, MDDC has recently cut its funding to the Citizens’ Advice service in Mid Devon, which means that the service run here at the Council Offices in Crediton operates now just one-day-a-week.

“We have also lost the Plough and Share service, which has gone into receivership, which is another service lost.

“I think it is disgusting and MDDC should re-consider and continue with this much-needed surgery service.”

• Do you think MDDC should re-open the surgery service offered at the Council Offices in Crediton?

Share your views with fellow "Courier" readers. Write a letter, suitable for publication, with your name, address and a daytime telephone number (not necessarily for publication), to: The Editorial Manager, "Crediton Courier", 102 High Street, Crediton EX17 3LF.

Alternatively, email your letter, with the required information, to: [email protected] .