restraints. The levels of service that are currently used have, therefore, been derived through consultation with the customer base to best reflect the realities of the situation. The levels of service are published for public consultation in the Long Term Plan Public Consultation document before the LTP is finalised. The LTP is reviewed at three yearly intervals and in the intermediate years the levels of service and performance indicators are published in the Annual Reports. Interim changes are published and discussed in the Annual Plan. Submissions from the public either in support or challenging the proposals are formally received and carefully considered by the Council. The Council also collaborate with a number of national and international organisations to help to determine the appropriate levels of service and performance indicators. The National Asset Management Support Group (NAMS Ltd) publishes guidance and run training courses on good practice in the development of levels of service. The New Zealand Water and Wastewater Association, the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, Ingenium (and the Water Information Management Steering Group [WIMS]) all assist in the promotion and encouragement of best practice through research, working groups and discussion papers. Each year an independent consultant is employed by Council to undertake a customer satisfaction survey. The telephone poll of 600 residents is selected from a statistically representative sample of the population across the region. The survey asks respondents to score each of the council’s activities and the results are analysed and compared with responses from previous years. This provides a subjective assessment of Council performance relative to recent history. Verbatim comments are also recorded and these provide a good source of information on the appropriateness of the levels of service and individual concerns. The outcome of the customer satisfaction survey can be heavily influenced by recent events or media coverage of a particular topic. In September 2014 a Levels of Service Workshop was held to present to councillors information of the current levels of service, to discuss the options and seek their feedback. No major amendments were identified as a result of the workshop. Community involvement and acceptance is sought at the early stages of planning major water upgrade projects through the formation of Consultative Working Groups. The most significant recent example has been the Awatere Water Users Group. The Group has been set up with a formal constitution and election of members from the Awatere community. The group has been heavily engaged in finding a financially acceptable solution to the water quality issues on that system. This is particularly valuable approach where there is not a single pre-eminent solution and the cost to the community is high. Similar community involvement will be required to resolve the water capacity issues facing Renwick and Picton. Marlborough District Council has recently started to review its business processes from a ‘systems’ perspective. The foundation of the ‘systems thinking’ approach is to consider the performance of the business from the point of view of the customers. Once the customers experiences are thoroughly understood the business ‘systems’ can be analysed to ensure they are aligned to delivering the best outcome. It has been frequently demonstrated that many business processes are adept at delivering internal objectives that are not necessarily aligned with providing the best outcome to the customer. The Water Repairs Database was developed from a ‘systems thinking’ approach. Analysis at the time showed there were at least 15 separate ‘points of entry’ into the Council for water related complaints. It was therefore difficult to gain a clear overview of the customers experience and to subsequently track the Councils response. One of the first objectives of the project, therefore, was to consolidate customer calls into a limited number of entry points and ensure there was more accurate recording. Since February 2010 all customer calls regarding water supply have been logged into the database. This is proving to be an important source of data to analyse customer complaints and expectations. Page 18