Guide for New Councillors in Aberdeenshire Council

Welcome to Aberdeenshire Council Congratulations on your election Updated Oct 2020

Essential dates for your diary (council business) Next Full Council meeting Insert date, time, and location reminder. First meetings of your area committee: Next Policy Committee meetings: Area Date Location Time Committee name Committee Date Time Note, all of the above are held in Committee Room 5, Woodhill House, Aberdeen.

How to deal with constituent enquiries and complaints Over your first weekend as a councillor, you may be contacted by constituents. You will receive training, as part of our seminar programme, into dealing with customer complaints, feedback and enquiries. However this reference guide might help in the short term. What to do if a constituent gets in touch with a council issue? 1. You can advise that they call the Contact Centre or go into the nearest Service Point if it is a query relating to any of the following (Blue Badges, Council Tax, Elections, Education general enquiries, Entitlement Cards, General Enquiries, Housing, Job Applications, Lair Ornamentation, Landscape Services, MyAberdeenshire enquiries, Planning general enquiries, Public Conveniences, Roads, School Meals, Social Care, TaxiCards, Waste or Zero Tolerance). 2. Alternatively they could contact the service directly for any others services not listed above. 3. Lastly, if the constituent is making a complaint, then they can again call the Contact Centre (for first point of contact resolution) or contact the Feedback Team directly - feedback.team@aberdeenshire.gov.uk or 0346 58 58 63. Key telephone numbers Benefits Council Tax, Business Rates & Payments Due 03456 08 12 01 Education & Leisure Facilities Housing, inc. emergency out of hours service Planning & Building Standards Roads, Parks & Open Spaces Social Care, inc emergency out of hours 03456 08 12 06 Waste & Environmental Health General Enquiries for all other services 03456 08 12 00 03456 08 12 02 03456 08 12 03 03456 08 12 04 03456 08 12 05 03456 08 12 07 03456 08 12 08

What to do if the media call One of the first calls you get as a new councillor may be from the media. They might want to speak to you about your election, or to seek your comment local issues. We hope these bullet points will help guide you: Don t feel the need to respond immediately. Take time to understand the topic in as much depth as possible before you do any interviews. Contact the relevant service for specific information about a project/issue. Be clear on the facts, a journalist may look to you for that information. Remember that you can only share information that is already in the public domain. You should not share details of exempt committee papers for example. Council properties cannot be used for political interviews. Please check you have the correct permissions to conduct an interview on council premises before agreeing to it. The council has a team of communications professionals. We speak with a strong corporate voice and act as a point of contact for corporate media queries. Our team provide the official line on corporate issues or policies. We cannot make political comment and we cannot speak on your behalf. We have an on-call communications officer, however that system is in place to support corporate messages in an emergency situation exclusively. The officers involved are not in a position to assist with local issues out-of-hours.

What are Ward Pages and what do they do? In your first few days you may be alerted to information on Ward Pages that requires attention. Councillor Ward Pages provides councillors with a single point where you will be able to find useful links, contacts, information and a tool to respond to consultations. The information this site contains is personalised to individual councillors which means that you will only see information that is relevant to you, the Committees on which you serve and your Area. The detailed functionality within Ward Pages will be demonstrated to you in your Area through induction training and you should contact your Area Committee Officer should you need any assistance with its use. At an early stage you could receive e-mails notifying you of planning consultations that require your attention. You should able to use the link provided in these e-mails to take you to the information and system for you to respond.As part of the councillor induction you will receive full planning training. Most requests can wait until you have received this. Alternatively, if dates do not permit, you can contact the relevant planning manager to your area for advice. Darren Ross Chris Ormiston Neil C Stewart Team Manager: Buchan & Formartine Tel no: 01358 726429 darren.ross@aberdeenshire.gov.uk Team Manager: Banff & Buchan & Garioch Tel no: 01261 813205 chris.ormiston@aberdeenshire.gov.uk Team Manager: Mearns & Marr Tel no: 01569 768276 neil.c.stewart@aberdeenshire.gov.uk

Contacting ICT if you need technical support The ICT service desk, called AskFred, is open Monday to Friday between 7:30am and 6pm (5pm on a Friday). Log on to www.askfred.it and raise a ticket. (Your username and password are the same as those used to log into your laptop) If the issue is preventing you from working you have two other options: Go into Skpe for Business and type in ICTServicedesk and press call or Call 01467 538000.

Information at your fingertips Councillor Induction Portal Induction.Aberdeenshire.gov.uk

If in doubt, just ask.. Your Area Manager or Heads of Service are happy to answer any questions you have.