Council Plan Action Plan 2025 to 2027

24. Certainty on future locations for key operational services.

Decision on the future of the waste depot arrangements currently at Pembroke Road North by Summer 2025.

• Finalise a decision on future of other operational services such as location of salt store and street cleaners, without interruption to services.
• Deliver a remediated depot site by early 2027.
• Finalise a recommendation on the acquisition of an alternative depot site.

25. Strengthen our workforce management approach.

• Following the implementation of Oracle, introduce mechanisms to strengthen our workforce data that will better inform RBKC decisions and action (July 2025).
• Ensure that robust controls and policies are established to maintain appropriate recruitment decisions and staffing levels (July 2025).
• Enhance our line management learning offer to develop the skills and capability of those with line management responsibilities (March 2026).

• Improve the outputs and standards expected of our employees as part of our mission to be the best council for our residents.
• Accurately report and control on our headcount position for the borough to maintain our financial position.

26. CRM implementation through ResidentConnect.

• Phase 1 (Core, Parking Permits and Payments) expected to go live 27 May 2025 (with possible reset of timeline if agreed at sponsor level).
• Phase 2 (Accessible Transport and MyRBKC) to commence 06/25, testing through to September 2025, which is when Phase 2 is expected to go live.

This will increase the opportunities for residents to transact with the Council online 24/7.

• For Phase 1 residents will now be able to apply, amend and pay for permits without contacting the Council and we will be able to resolve more requests at first point of contact.
• These benefits to residents will extend to other services through subsequent phases of the programme.

• Develop work streams under oversight of the Customer Access Board to build on existing work to embed service standards for staff into everyday practice across the council; for example, recognizing and sharing good practice, oversight and accountability where expectations are not met and learning from this.
• Secure adoption of service standards in all teams and services by ensuring service standards speak to all services and is relevant to individual service needs, demands and practice.
• Work streams to be in place by September ‘25.
• Work with Human Resources to ensure service standards are recognised as fundamental throughout employee lifecycle. Building expectations into all stages of recruitment, induction and performance appraisals. Early scoping work to begin May 2025.
• Clear messaging embedded across RBKC to ensure all staff profoundly understand what good looks like and be motivated to achieve this.

• The majority of interactions with residents will meet service standards expectations. Residents will clearly be able to hold the council and its officers to account when service standards are not met.
• Residents will see a better framework for engagement with the council and its officers and develop a more trusting relationship.
• Residents will experience a higher level of quality interaction at the start of the process and a higher number of complaints resolved at an earlier stage.
• Residents will be able to see and feel that their feedback is clearly informing learning and improving interactions and services.
• Residents will feel and receive a high level of customer service applied consistently across the council.

• Advance AI and Data Modelling Capabilities:
  • Pilot twelve AI use cases (e.g. predictive maintenance, citizen service chatbots and resource optimization) by December 2025.
  • Train 50% of the digital and data workforce in AI and advanced analytics competences by December 2025.
• Facilitate the Onboarding of Third-Party Applications:
  • Establish an integration framework by September 2025 to support seamless onboarding of third-party applications that enable residents to report issues to the council (reporting app).
  • Identify and implement at least three resident-facing third-party applications by January 2026.
• Streamline AI Procurement Processes by designing and launching an AI-specific procurement framework by April 2025.
• Enhance Data Maturity
  • Deliver a comprehensive data audit by July 2025
  • Implement a centralised data platform by January 2026.

Residents will see the following benefits:

• Advance AI and Data Modelling Capabilities
  • Residents will benefit through operational efficiency: with the potential to see a reduction in maintenance costs across council assets through AI-driven predictive maintenance by Q1 2026.
  • Residents will experience service Improvement: 30% decrease in first-response times to resident inquiries through AI chatbots, with 85% successful first- interaction resolution rate.
  • Resource Optimisation: 12% reduction in operational costs across targeted departments through AI-powered resource allocation.
• Facilitate the Onboarding of Third-Party Applications:
  • Residents will benefit from a range of pre-approved third-party applications that meet council integration standards.
  • Resident Engagement: 40% increase in digital reporting of council issues by residents by Q2 2026.
  • Response Efficiency: 25% reduction in time-to-resolution for resident-reported issues.
  • Cost Effectiveness: 20% reduction in custom development costs through standardised integration approaches.

• Development and delivery of a savings and transformation programme to ensure a balanced budget is deliverable in the medium term.
• Proposals developed to balance the budget by October 2025.
• Equalities implications considered for any savings proposal to ensure that we are treating all residents fairly or putting them at risk.

Residents will see, and benefit from a council that is:

• sensible and prudent with taxpayers’ money,
• advocating for a low-tax economy which is supportive of business, start-ups, and entrepreneurial spirit, and which
• continues to support people where needed by providing the best possible services and value for money within the council’s overall financial envelope.

• Work with residents to conduct a full review of the Charter for Public Participation and the Citizens’ Panel, reflecting on sharing power in decision making, seeking to move towards more participatory approaches and considering mechanisms for ongoing monitoring and oversight.
• Experiment with more codesign and other participatory approaches to engagement.
• Deliver a refreshed Charter for Public Participation in Autumn 2025.

• Residents participate in and feel listened to, resulting in an updated Council constitution (completes Autumn 2025).
• Greater accountability with clear and measurable ways for residents to challenge and test whether we are living up to those commitments (extending into 2026 and beyond).

• New digital customer journeys for parking permits, accessible transport and Report It on website (in conjunction with ResidentConnect project).
• Audit and improve website content (removing out of date and unnecessary).
• Improve all existing online forms for consistency of user experience.
• Improve accessibility and compliance with Government Digital Service Standards.
• Recruit new skills to the team to improve management of site and delivery of improvements/new content.
• Introduce a process to receive, prioritise and take forward new content/improvement requests from service.
• Develop guidance and training for content owners to introduce a more sustainable way of ensuring content is up to date and accurate.