I have been a councillor for Lewisham since 1998, and represented Forest Hill until the local election on 4 May 2006. Since the election, I am now one of three Labour Councillors for Perry Vale Ward with my colleagues John Paschoud and Alan Till, and we work closely as a team representing our local community. As nearly all of our casework comes via telephone, or email, at the moment we are trying out just one surgery per month.

My portfolio is Customer Services, and at the moment, the Customer Services Directorate encompasses the two main areas of housing and public services. In Lewisham, public services describes our front line, or customer facing services, and their delivery is a priority for us. Both areas require a consistent approach in order to provide, and deliver, the high quality services that we believe our residents deserve.

The areas covered in our public services are:

• Revenues and benefits, which include council tax, housing benefit and rent rebates.
• AccessPoint, where officers deal face to face with our residents queries and provide a seamless service in doing so.
• CallPoint, which deals with queries over the telephone, with 1.5 million calls dealt with per year.
• Registration service, which deals with births, marriages, deaths and citizenship and partnership ceremonies.

In October 2006, some services currently in the Regeneration Directorate will be transferred to Customer Services, and I shall provide an update of them on this site.

I believe that our Customer Services directorate will carry out its vision, which is about 'delivering high quality, user focused services and driving improved service across the council'. This will be achieved by improving performance across the council, working together across service boundaries and refocusing customer services around the needs of all sections of the community.

Committees

Cabinet Member for Customer Services

Adult Strategic Partnership Board
Constitution Working Party
Groundwork SE London
Housing Joint Partnership Board
Lewisham Environment Trust
London Councils - Housing Panel
Works Council