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Workplan

The Contact Council, chaired by the Cabinet Office since its creation in February 2007, has responsibility for customer contact across HM Government.  In the mid- to long-term, the Council will focus on setting and implementing the strategy for delivering modern customer contact for public services.  The Council aims to enact a change whereby public services become increasingly customer insight-driven and their delivery is based on effective channel optimisation.  Members will be expected to seek a collective view on key topics and recommendations.

The Council’s current priorities are:

• Running a Performance Management Framework (PMF) for publicly-funded contact centres;
• Developing proposals for the application of the PMF to web and face-to-face channels;
•  Issuing guidance to and encouraging contact centres to undergo formal accreditation.
• Reducing the levels of avoidable contact in central government departments by 50 per cent (in accord with the first progress measure of the Service Transformation Agreement);
• Coordinating the implementation of a national public sector numbering strategy.
• Developing, as specified by the Public Accounts Committee, a set of channels strategy guidance;
• Overseeing the allocation, in conjunction with Ofcom, of the new ‘116’ numbers for services of social value;
• Organising a review of public sector helplines (led by the Ministry of Justice);
• Developing a digital switchover programme in the context of the June 2009 ‘Digital Britain’ report.

Resources for all of the Contact Council’s work