More support to help people access the council’s online services has become available at a couple of key sites 10 months after the government ended most coronavirus restrictions.
Rather than receiving a traditional face-to-face service, the public are being encouraged to use Brighton and Hove City Council’s revamped website to access services and contact staff.
The council said that support was available for those who had trouble using the internet, with free internet access, computers, scanners and telephones all available.
And support staff were on hand, the council said, to help people with online applications for things like resident and visitor parking permits using the “MyAccount” system.
The digital MyAccount system is also used for managing council tax accounts, rubbish and recycling and applications for school places as well as parking permits although permits are still posted out.
Customer service centres at Hove Town Hall and at Bartholomew House, opposite Brighton Town Hall, are open from Monday to Friday from 9am to 4.30pm for support
Services are understood to have resumed recently at Hove Town Hall but the council said that its Brighton customer service centre reopened last September to offer face-to-face support.
Even so, anyone renewing a parking permit or ordering visitors permits will still have to fill in the forms online and wait for the items to be delivered.
The council closed its face-to-face customer service centres at the start of the first national covid lockdown in March 2020.
It said though that telephone lines for all services had been open from 9.30am to 1.30pm as a minimum.
The Green deputy leader of the council, Hannah Clare, who is responsible for digital and customer experience, said that more people had used online services for the past five years, including before the pandemic.
She said that staff would help people to access the right services when they came to the town halls.
Councillor Clare said: “The council’s digital systems are now working much better overall and we are confident that these systems going forward will make things much easier for our customers.
“Our call waiting times are also down from their peak during the pandemic and we continue to deliver quicker responses to digital queries.
“There are improvements over the coming years that will make accessing our services even easier.
“More and more services will be available on MyAccount – and I hope the council can introduce things like direct debit payments for parking permits.
“We should also see an eventual end to residents having to give proof of residency from one council service to another.
“We continue to review how this is working and to monitor and measure customer service in all areas and work to make improvements based on customer needs.
“We are seeing clear signs of recovery following a challenging two-year period.
“My personal thanks go to staff across all council teams who’ve been working tirelessly to help residents access council services and continue to do so.”
The council’s website has been redesigned, with the new look going live this month. A key aim was to improve navigation around the MyAccount section.
A customer service telephone is also available outside Hove Town Hall.
So, cllr Clare gives a ringing endorsement to Council IT systems. Most people would describe the services as a complete mess, but with Green tinted spectacles, all is tickety boo! You couldn’t make it up
The doors maybe open but essentially this is a very maybe 5% of service re-added. Propaganda when people actually in need, will be taken to a computer or a phone (still no calls are recorded) and no face to face contact.
The surveys my clients are filling out confirm that they are all giving Brighton and Hove City Council 1 star for communication.
Where are all the old staff? We knows loads are applying for jobs elsewhere…
And what will happen to the staff who used to work in the face-to-face situations? Have they been made redundant, redeployed on other services, orr are they being paid by the taxpayers to stay at home?