King's Lynn and West Norfolk

• Supporting frontline staff
• Description of the activity
• Achievements
• Impacts
• Role of support
• Lessons learned
• Contact

Supporting frontline staff

For many new migrants, their first point of contact with public services will be staff in receptions, call centres and information/enquiry points.

Such staff need to understand what rights new migrants have to services, as well as being able to handle their enquiries and requests fairly, sympathetically and effectively. This can be difficult if they are not adequately prepared, trained and supported. Such staff are also the eyes and ears of public services and they can assist their organisations to develop the service modifications needed to meet new migrants’ needs.

The council and its partners on the West Norfolk Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) recognised that, for these reasons, frontline staff need to be supported with specific training and guidance.

They were also aware that many new migrants are not clear about where to go for services and generally have less command of English to understand forms and guidance. Many new migrants need help with understanding what their rights are and what they need to do to obtain a service, which can require assistance with interpretation to ensure understanding. Most migrants will have the same rights to services as other residents, such as for health and educational services – and the same requirement to pay for services and council tax – but there are a few services and benefit rights they will not have.

Description of the activity 

As part of the Migration Excellence Programme, the council used:

• IDeA consultant support to develop and lead two workshops with frontline staff from the council, the county council and other service providers in the local strategic partnership. These focused on understanding the difficulties faced in responding to new migrants, the solutions that some had which could be shared with others, and their training and support needs.
• Officer peer support to advise on current training programmes which might be relevant for frontline staff and to facilitate a discussion with senior training managers of the public service providers in the area. The discussion reviewed the training in place and considered a training module which all could benefit from. This drew on the findings of the workshops.
• Consultant support to develop a short interactive learning resource for customer service staff on migration and social cohesion.

Achievements 

• So far two two-hour workshops with frontline staff have taken place, attended by around 20 staff from all partners. They raised many issues about training needs. These included awareness and understanding about migrant needs and their background, entitlements to housing and council tax benefits, dealing with difficult situations and customers whose English is not good, and protocols for using translators. It also allowed staff to share good practice with other services and to enable some staff to review what they were doing. Some staff would like to set up more formal arrangements for sharing experience and practice.
• The consultant’s report of the workshops has informed a discussion about training by the relevant managers in the council, the county council and the PCT, to see what training should be re-focused and what gaps should be filled.
• An online training module for frontline customer service staff has been developed. It covers promoting social cohesion, cultural awareness, managing language barriers, and understanding rights and responsibilities.

Impacts

The LSP is likely to allocate funding from the area-based cohesion money to develop and deliver a wider range of training and support for frontline staff.

In the draft of the West Norfolk Cohesion strategy, the provision of an opportunity to explore diversity for key staff in the partner organisations has been proposed. From a personal development perspective, this would include training to identify and respond to discrimination issues, racist and homophobic incidents, disability access and other service issues.

The advantage of developing a single initial training scheme for all agencies is to ensure that each member of staff receives the same building blocks, to help create an equitable and inclusive level of service. From there, the intention is to inspire frontline staff champions of diversity and cohesion.

Role of support 

The support provided the independence that was needed to bring staff from different service providers together, as well as facilitating the workshops and discussions, and providing experience from other councils.

Lessons learned

Bringing staff from different organisations together allowed them to share problems with support and training as well solutions. They were all able to benefit from the same training.

Obtaining the consent of managers in a range of organisations to release frontline staff to participate in a workshop can be difficult. Time is needed to market and sell the idea. Even so, the council managed to obtain a cross-section of staff from all the key service providers.

Contact

Martin Slater
Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk
Email: martin.slater@west-norfolk.gov.uk
Telephone: 01553 616279