In an effort to make “Learning” more focused on the specific needs of our membership, we have reviewed our course offerings and launched a completely new programme for the next 12 months. The new programme offers a wider range of course, at more locations, and with more detail provided on each, to help you judge better who to nominate for the course, and the likely benefits to be achieved from it.

Finding out what the needs of your customers are, and determining their degree of satisfaction wiith the services you provide, are both difficult, and many councils fail to do it effectively. They make assumptions about what their customers want without checking, and sometimes are not even sure about who their customers are.

Self Service is one of the most effective ways to achieve year on year budget savings and improved customer satisfaction. Doing it badly, however – offering inappropriate self-service options, for example, or failing to understand how customers will use the website – represents a major waste of resources and turns customers away.

"Knowing who the Council’s customers are, and what their needs are, using well-thought-out customer surveys; listening to what customers have to say"