Directorate for Adults, Health and Wellbeing Customer Engagement Strategy

Customer Engagement Strategy - Social Care for Adults 2010 - 2013

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Big changes are taking place in social care, nationally and in Manchester, to give people more choice and control.

Manchester is working very hard to make the right changes. We need to know what customers - experts by experience - think about what we plan to do and use your ideas to make things better.

We know we don't always get this right. To help us work out how to improve, we held an event in July, 2009 and asked over 70 customers what they thought. 

They said we should talk to people: 

• earlier rather than later 
• for the right reason - so they can really make a difference to what happens next 
• about things they care about
• using lots of different ways of listening, such as by telephone, using e-mail or meetings that people can get to easily.

They also thought we should: 

• give people enough time to think things through 
• let people know what difference it had made 

Since then we have asked many more people and groups for their ideas. There is a list on the last page of this paper which tells you who we talked to.

This paper takes all these views into account and explains how we plan to do things in future.

It also takes into account new government rules about how we should treat customers and how we should involve local people in making decisions about the future of the City.

What is a Customer Engagement Strategy?

A strategy is a set of changes we agree to make or new things we decide to do to get to where we want to be in the long term. Strategies are usually written down, like this one.

This strategy is about customer engagement. This means it is full of ideas and plans to make sure we get better at finding out what customers think and use their ideas to make social care better for everyone in Manchester.

The Manchester Community Engagement Strategy (a plan for the whole Council and other organisations in the City) explains different ways to do this. 

Informing:  We tell customers about things all the time. We try to make sure that information is clear, easy to find and tells people what they want to know. When we inform, our main aim is to tell people about what is available and about changes to services.

Researching: Research means asking questions, through things like surveys. This helps us find out more about what people think about particular issues.

Involving: Encouraging customers to take part in discussions about planning or changing services

Consulting:  Consulting means that we use what people tell us to help us make particular decisions and that we also let people know the outcome.

Devolving Decisions: Customers can also take a more active part in making a decision, such as helping to interview people or agree long-term plans for the future. It can also mean working in partnership to design services. This is sometimes called co-production.

Supporting Communities: This means helping communities to take the lead on actions and decisions that are important to them.

Our Promises to You

In the future, these are the rules we will follow when we ask you what you think about our plans for adult social care or for your ideas to make things better.

1. We will use plain English and explain unusual words. 
2. We will always try to be clear about what we mean and what difference people's views can make to what happens. 
3. We will try to make sure that people can easily find out about opportunities they may be interested in. 
4. We will use lots of different ways of listening, such as by telephone, using e-mail or meetings that people can get to easily. 
5. We will try to make sure that people have the facts they need to decide what they think. 
6. People will be given 12 weeks to get back to us when we ask for views in writing on very complicated or important things. When we can't give this amount of time, we will explain why. 
7. We will make sure that we feedback customer views to the people who make the final decisions. 
8. We will be honest. This means we will feedback what people say, even when that is not what we would like to hear. 
9. People we consult will be able to find out what happened next. In most cases this means we will publish this information on our web site. 
10. We will make sure customers know how much we value their views and the time they give to working with us.

What We Plan To Do Next

Here are some of the changes we plan to make over the next three years (2010-2013) so that we get better at finding out what customers think and use their ideas to make things better. It includes things we will do to make sure we follow the rules we have set for ourselves.

(A detailed plan, with dates and the names of people, who will take charge of making sure things happen, will be written for use inside the Council.)

Work, Plan and Learn Together

• We will work with other parts of the Council and with the Manchester Partnership as a whole, so we can make the best use of staff, money and time and stop over-consulting. 
• Customer engagement plans will be built into annual service plans,  project plans and plans for designing or buying new services. 
• All customer engagement plans for adult social care will be brought together as an annual plan and diary. 
• We will try to listen to customer views through regular groups or meetings already set up, including those for wards and local areas, when these are suitable. 
• We will set up ways for people working in the Council or wider Manchester Partnership to learn from each other about what works best. 
• Guidance, training and information will be given to managers and project teams so that they can put into practice the 10 basic rules we have agreed. 
• We will make sure that customers know about the 10 basic rules we have agreed, so they can let us know when we get it wrong. 
• When we hold events we will ask you to fill in a feedback form to tell us what you liked and what you think we could improve. 
• Central records will be kept of which group has been consulted on what issue and on the outcomes, so we can learn from previous findings. 

Make sure that everyone has an opportunity to get involved

• We will build up a network of communication channels to make sure that people know about consultation opportunities they may be interested in.
• The annual plan and diary of consultation opportunities and events will be published on the internet.
• We will use lots of different ways of listening, such as telephone, using email, or meetings that people can get to easily. This means we will take advice from people and be prepared to be imaginative.
• People will be given 12 weeks to get back to us when we ask for views in writing on very complicated or important things. When we can't give this amount of time, we will explain why.
• New customer-led user groups wil be encouraged and supported.
• Customer reading groups will be set up to check our communications are in the right tone and can be understood before they go out.
• Customer volunteer panels will be set up and trained to take part in recruiting staff and helping to agree who we buy services from.
• When we hold meetings with groups of customers, we will try to hold them in places they can get to and get into easily.
• We will provide transport or pay travel expenses if we invite customers to meetings.
• We will develop ideas for how we can reward and recognise the work and knowledge of customers who take part in customer engagement.

Use what people tell us to improve services and let them know what we have done.

• Engagement plans will always include the name of the person in the Council who will be responsible for considering feedback from customers.
• A summary of what you told us will be published on the internet, with details of what happened next.
• We will publish an annual update to this plan on the internet, so you can see what progress we are making.  

Further Information

What we did:

July 2009

We held an event asking customers to tell us the best ways to find out and use their ideas to make things better.

September 2009

We got in touch with everyone who came to the event to let them know the main ideas that had come forward and what we planned to do next.

November 2009 to January 2010

We drafted the strategy and asked people for their views. This was:

• Published on the internet
• emailed to customer groups and voluntary organisations involved in social care
• sent to all City Council departments and the Manchester Partnership

Meetings were held with the Learning Disability and Physical Disability Partnership Boards.

February 12th 2010 Deadline for Feedback

February 2010

The redrafted Strategy was agreed by Manchester City Council's Directorate for Adults Management Team on 26th February 2010.

People or organisations who told us what they thought:

• Social care customers, carers and staff, Directorate for Adults, Manchester City Council
• Chief Executive's Department, Manchester City Council:
• Manchester Learning Disability Partnership Board
• Manchester Physical Disability Partnership Board
• Manchester Partnership: Community Engagement Task group
• Manchester Local Involvement Network (LINk)
• Beacon Counselling

Other documents we looked at:

• Community Engagement Strategy. (2005) Manchester Partnership.
• Customer Service Excellence - The Government Standard. (2008) Cabinet Office
• Duty to Involve (The Duty to Involve came into force on 1st April 2009 and was introduced in part 7, section 138 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007.)
• Service User Involvement Strategy. (Draft 6. February 2010) Manchester Mental Health & Social Care Trust.