THE services offered by One Stop Shops in Monmouthshire are set to be improved with the introduction of a central telephone system dealing with all enquires for the whole of the county.

A report written by a team of officers at Monmouthshire County Council found that people in rural communities find it difficult to access a One Stop Shop and recommended setting up a central customer contact centre to deal with all telephone enquires.

While it recommends retaining the One Stop Shops for personal callers it suggests moving to a "department store model" and piloting the use of mobile One Stop Shops in community buildings.

In the long term customers will be encouraged to use the central telephone system and Monmouthshire County Council's website as a means of contact.

Steve Greenslade, MCC's director of regeneration, environment and rescources said, "The telephone system we have at the moment is a problem, people do spend a lot of time in a circuit and often end up at County Hall. The phone keeps ringing and people think there is no one there to answer it.

"The CRM system will recognise customers who have phoned previously and tell operators who the caller is and what the their call is connected with. It gives a feeling that people are there to help."

The shake up of the service will see the three area manager posts axed and replaced with three county wide posts focusing on customer service and access, citizen and community involvement and business process re-engineering.

The three posts will be dependent on a senior management review but will be senior posts within MCC with two of them at head of service level.

It is also recommended that area committees are disbanded as they have had mixed success, with many councillors thinking that instead of going to their area meetings their time would be best served in their wards.

Communities will be able to maintain contact with councillors by other means of communication.

The report states, "Area committees, while valued by many for their contact with citizens, are not working effectively and have not established a clear relationship with cabinet which is necessary to deliver real outcomes."

At a meeting of the Strong Communities Select committee last week, area manager for Central Monmouthshire Jenny Lewis told councillors, that accessibility was a major issue and one stop shops were regarded as sacrosanct

"All of our evidence says one stop shops are very well regarded. The problem is with the rural areas that don't find one stop shops reliable.

"Yes, area working is working very well in some places but everyone needs it to be working very well."

The report states, "There is not a single comprehensive database of information about our services that can be used by front line staff. This means that citizens are not always getting consistent or up-to-date information and ultimately may end up with inappropriate services."

The meeting also heard that while citizen and community involvement, has improved measurably it is not consistent. "All our officers should be out there building relationships," said Ms Lewis.

"It is time to put the principle of community engagement across to the community."

The review is now set to be presented to Cabinet on May 6 with the new call centre system to be established as soon as possible.

Mr Greenslade adds, "Since they opened in 2002 the council's four One Stop Shops have become a valued element of access to public services and the 'walk in' part of the service has been especially well received. 

"We are looking at ways of extending at least some of these benefits to the more rural areas."