Our customers report summary
This section of the report covers how we are meeting our obligations from the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty as a county council for our customers through our support services and front line delivery.
The following objectives were set in 2023 for delivery within three years.
- we will continue to broaden the detailed analysis of each directorate’s service provisions from an equality perspective
- we will identify areas of good practice from within the council and using the ‘one council’ principles, share the learning to enable continuous improvement
- we will review current community engagement initiatives and evaluate their effectiveness in eliminating poor access to services
Customer strategy
Our customer strategy has enhanced the way we deliver services. It sets out how we will ensure our services are delivered to meet the diverse range of customer needs, from simple transactional requirements through to more complex, emotive interactions.
We know that many of our customers now expect to be able to access services digitally. To support this we have improved the range of information and number of services available online enabling more customers to self-serve. We still ensure that those who require extra assistance, support over the phone or face to face is still available. We will continue to improve the accessibility rating of our website through implementing new technologies, including the launch of a digital assistant on our website and on our main phone lines, which will remove barriers to access and enable services to be delivered at a time and place that suits individuals.
Our engagement with customer advocates, representative groups and service users enables us to gain a better understanding of customer needs and expectations, and through our human centred design methodology this ensures EDI is at the forefront when developing and designing new solutions that meet our customers’ current and future needs and expectations.
Engagement
We are committed to engaging with and listening to our communities, ensuring that all voices are heard and valued. Our engagement team is dedicated to keeping communities and stakeholders across Lincolnshire well-informed and involved in decision-making processes.
In 2023 to 2024, we conducted 46 engagement activities including 40 public and wider stakeholder engagements and six internal engagements, receiving over 16,000 responses.
Key initiatives:
- ensuring that leaders and staff are committed to the values and principles of engagement, as outlined in our engagement policy, allocating the necessary time, effort, and resources to support effective engagement
- engaging communities and stakeholders early in the decision-making process and at relevant stages to allow meaningful input, providing sufficient time to respond
- performing equality impact assessments before implementing new policies or changes to identify and mitigate any potential impacts on individuals with protected characteristics and to ensure engagement is representative of the community it affects
- publishing relevant information and data to demonstrate compliance
- conducting regular engagement and consultation activities across a wide range of subject areas
- ensuring engagement and communication methods are accessible and inclusive by offering multiple ways to participate and utilising diverse communication channels to reach all community members
- facilitating workshops, face-to-face and online engagement events
- hosting engagement activities on the Let’s talk Lincolnshire online platform, which uses a variety of interactive tools, including:
- surveys
- polls
- stories
- ideas
- questions and answers
- forums
- guestbook
- maps
- offering information in alternative formats, such as braille, easy read, large print, audio and video, to ensure accessibility for individuals with disabilities or sensory loss
- providing verbal and written translation for individuals whose first language is not English
- providing paper copies and making documents available in public venues such as:
- libraries
- community hubs
- children and family centres
- Citizens Advice centres
- ensuring that digital and print mediums meet accessibility requirements
- promoting engagement and consultation activities to various communities, hosting them at accessible venues and offering events on a mix of days and times
- working with voluntary and community organisations, community representative groups, protected characteristics groups, partner organisations, to reach a wide range of demographics
Accessibility
View our accessibility statement.
Our website is audited and monitored to meet accessibility standards. We have made text as simple as possible to understand. It can be read with a screen reader and pages can be adjusted. We have identified cases where information is not fully accessible such as PDF documents and customers can ask for information in a different format if needed. We are working towards replacing as many PDFs as possible with HTML web pages.
Customer data
We are committed to promoting an environment in which people feel safe in being open about their background, beliefs and identity. As part of this commitment, we encourage the freedom of individuals to self-identify and to express their preferences in a safe environment. Following requests from customers to make changes to the information we hold on our records about their name, gender or title, we produced guidance and top tips. This provides everyone in the council with a 'one council' approach that is clear, consistent and straightforward. The guidance supports our colleagues working directly with customers or customer data. It enables them to respond to a request for a change in customer details in a way that:
- is sensitive to the customer
- meets underpinning legislation
- ensures the dignity and privacy of the customer is maintained, whilst minimising any risk to the customer, the council and our partners
Customer complaints
We put our customers first and the views of our customers are important to us. When customers need to raise concerns, we encourage them to first raise them with the individual concerned or their line manager so that the problems can be addressed. Alternatively, customers can also speak to one of our customer relations advisers. Our first step is to always attempt to provide early resolution of the issue before progressing to the next formal stage. Our complaints policy and the corporate and statutory complaints annual reports are published on our website.
The complaints process does not record the protected characteristics of complainants. Therefore, it is not possible to identify from the data whether people experience our services differently depending on their personal characteristics.
Interpretation and translation service
We have a contract in place to provide our employees with communication support when providing services to service users who speak or read languages other than English, or who need to communicate in English in non-spoken ways. This includes transcription, face-to-face and video translation. It is available from locations around the county.
In 2023 to 2024 there were 1,654 bookings for the interpretation and translation service for 51 different languages.
82.6% (1120) of bookings were from children’s services to support their interactions with the community. The most required languages were:
- Polish (13.7% or 227)
- Russian (8.5% or 140)
- Lithuanian (6.8% or 113)
- Arabic (6.3% or 105)
- British sign language (5.7% or 94)
Equality impact analysis
We have integrated the equality duty into the decisions we make about the services we provide to the people of Lincolnshire. We consider how any policy, project or proposed change to services may affect people with protected characteristics in different ways. Our process for equality impact analysis (EIAs) helps us to ensure better informed decision-making and policy development for the customer. We conducted an analysis on the impacts of our corporate plan on people with protected characteristics so that we can make sure everyone benefits from living, working and visiting Lincolnshire.
Our approach gives responsibility to service managers for conducting EIAs. They understand the strategic needs for their proposals and the customer base so can identify potential impacts on customers and other services. Our online learning is available for any employee involved in EIAs.
Equality impact analysis documents are available on request from each service.