Issue - meetings

The Chairman thanked Councillor S. R. Colella, Chairman of the Task Group for attending the meeting and asked him to give a brief update on the progress of the Improving Residents’ Satisfaction Task Group.

Councillor Colella explained that since his last update to the Board on 26th January 2010 the Task Group had held 2 meetings.  These meetings had been very intense and the Task Group had been provided with detailed reports on the analysis of the Place Survey, a comparison of Communication Strategies and Marketing Communications.  They had also received presentations from two witnesses:

• Ms. Fiona Narburgh – Head of Strategy and Communications at Wychavon District Council (a council rated “excellent”).  This had been a question and answer session and Ms. Narburgh had discussed how Wychavon District Council (WDC) communicated with residents, the promotion of service delivery and the corporate “branding” of WDC.
• Mr. Peter John – Area Editor for Newsquest.  Mr. John had discussed with the Task Group the various forms of media used and how these could be targeted to specific groups of residents.  He had also discussed with Members the positive and negative impact the media could have on the Council.

Councillor Colella informed Members that from the information received so far, it was apparent that “branding” would played an important part in improving residents’ satisfaction.