Councils across the country - whats your story?

Widelats

Find your own Council here: http://www.lgo.org.uk/

Just a small rant, i believe there are some decent staff in council offices, however, the councils i have dealt with have told whopping lies, broke the law and had maladministration all over the place.

What is it, with some staff of management, that they put the name of the company before any human being? Is it because they are after a promotion? They have become corrupt and uncaring in management that to lie is just second nature to them?

I would like to know some council stories from MSE people!

Thanks.

cyberbob

Our council is just deciding what cuts in services to do. So what they have done is hired a reporter on a year contract to tell us what the cuts are going to be. So in reality they are going to make some people redundant but have hired a new member of staff to tell everyone. Where's the logic in that.

moonrakerz

Here's my local bunch of useless cretins - anybody want to swap ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7934848/Pensioners-hanging-baskets-branded-a-safety-hazard.html

hollydays

!!!!!!!s-the depts that deal with parking tickets,liars!.

Becles

The education transport department at my local council/LEA.

My son is attending a Catholic secondary school in September. He is not entitled to free transport on the school bus as we are not Catholic, but he can apply for a concessionary pass for any seats left over after the Catholic children have been allocated.

I rang up and asked if I could have a concessionary bus pass form because we are not Catholic. They said they couldn't send that form out, and had to apply for a normal bus pass. I said I wouldn't be entitled as we're not Catholic so it was the concessionary form I needed. Was told they don't work like that. So:

They posted out the normal form and I had to fill it in and say I couldn't supply evidence of being Catholic and post it back.

They sent me a letter with a form to confirm that we are not Catholic that I had to post back.

In response to that, I got a letter saying we are not entitled to free school transport, so could I fill in the enclosed concessionary pass form and send that back.

What a faff on!

Widelats

Heres a sample of my local council housing

South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council failed to respond to serious complaints made by two elderly residents of a sheltered housing scheme about the behaviour of the Warden. The Ombudsman says the Council’s failures meant that the complainants suffered “harassment and fear whilst living in what should have been a supportive environment” and were forced to move away from their home town.

She says: “Far more significant than its failure to follow its own procedures is the Council’s grave substantive failure to undertake any proper investigation of serious allegations about the behaviour of an employee in a position of responsibility for vulnerable people and its inaction in the face of very persuasive evidence of serious problems at the sheltered scheme. This was maladministration with potentially very serious consequences.”

Two residents in their sixties (called Mr P and Mrs S in the report) were neighbours in a sheltered housing scheme owned by the Council and managed by South Tyneside Homes, an Arms Length Management Organisation. Mr P is also disabled. They complained that the Council had failed to protect them from being bullied, harassed, intimidated, publicly humiliated and abused by the Warden, and had failed to protect them from her or deal with their complaints about her.

The Council did not respond properly to complaints about these issues. Some months later, Council officers dealing with Mr P on indirectly-related issues were so concerned about how distressed and anxious he was that a Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) alert was raised. Although the Council’s policy says that a POVA investigation should be completed in 15 days, meetings meandered on for over six months. During that time the Council failed to get to grips with the allegations about the Warden’s behaviour.

These allegations included that the Warden was restricting resident’s use of the communal laundry to one ‘slot’ per week and using it for her own purposes the rest of the time. Mr P and Mrs S presented compelling evidence to the meetings of the threats and abuse that they were experiencing. This evidence includes a tape-recording of threats made to Mr P by the Warden’s daughter. The Ombudsman’s investigator describes this as ‘harrowing’ and deeply distressing, even when heard long after the event and in a safe setting.

Bizarrely, whilst failing to deal with the very serious allegations made by Mr P and Mrs S, the Council responded by:
changing the locks on their flats;
deploying an additional employee to ensure that they could use the communal laundry one afternoon a week;
agreeing to pay to plumb in washing machines that Mr P and Mrs S bought for their own flats;
giving Mr P and Mrs S a senior manager’s personal mobile telephone number so they could make contact in an emergency;
temporarily moving Mr P and Mrs S into a hotel; and
rehousing Mr P and Mrs S.
Almost a year after he had first complained to the Chief Executive, Mr P contacted her again pointing out that the Council’s failure to take action about the Warden was forcing him and Mrs S to move from their homes.

The Ombudsman’s investigation was into the way that the Council dealt with Mr P and Mrs S’s complaints and not into the original allegations about the Warden (who could not be interviewed as she was absent from work due to illness throughout the investigation). The Ombudsman found that the Council failed to:
act in accordance with its policy on the Protection of Vulnerable Adults;
operate its Corporate Complaints Procedure effectively;
undertake any proper investigation of serious allegations about the behaviour of an employee; and
act in the face of very persuasive evidence of serious problems at the sheltered scheme.
Since receiving a draft of the Ombudsman’s report the Council has expressed regret about these events and instituted further internal enquiries into aspects of the case and into further complaints made by Mr P and Mrs S. It has also readily accepted the Ombudsman’s recommendations for remedying the injustice caused by its maladministration, including paying £2,500 each to Mr P and Mrs S, paying their moving costs, and giving them priority for rehousing.
Date Updated: 21/10/08

shammyjack

Have a look through this lot . It should keep you occupied for hours . They are the most inept council in the UK IMHO !

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/googlesearch.aspx?q=Calderdale%20Council&cof=FORID:11&cx=partner-pub-3983566827577797:lvsmusvi7zf&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_sitesearch=www.halifaxcourier.co.uk


shammy

Mupette

Widlats that's awful

Widelats

shammyjack wrote: »

Have a look through this lot . It should keep you occupied for hours . They are the most inept council in the UK IMHO !

http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/googlesearch.aspx?q=Calderdale%20Council&cof=FORID:11&cx=partner-pub-3983566827577797:lvsmusvi7zf&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_sitesearch=www.halifaxcourier.co.uk


shammy

I used to live in Halifax, for 18 years, i see nothing has changed then! Shame, its a beautiful town with natural surroundings, filled with the most inept people i have ever met, i really did not like the council housing or their policies either, they had no idea what average people had to do to follow their rules and the management could not be bothered to lift a finger to do very important things, they were more concerned with expenses for themselves.

Widelats

Mupette wrote: »

Widlats that's awful

I know, the failings of a management system that are too scared to bring their own staff to rights and investigate them, another "Don't mess with our own staff" thing going on, at the expense of human beings and elderly ones at that.

A shame.

fluffnutter

My council just ignores anything I might ask them (not that I ask them much tbh). I assume that they don't see themselves as providing for customers (it's hardly as if you can take your custom elsewhere) so they don't bother responding. A commercial organisation would generally be more geared up to providing customer service as their profits will ultimately be affected if they don't (some are bad at this obviously, but that's another discussion).

Local government also attracts jobsworths. Not sure why although innovation and freshness is not really encouraged in this type of role. So you get the same old rulebook, the same old way of doing things, with the same old hierarchy year in, year out. They also tend to be large organisations, and large organisations are slow to change as cultures become entrenched.

I also believe that local government is probably bloated, inefficient and beset by poor processes. As a result it haemorrhages money, provides a poor service and frustrates those that rely on it. There's nothing like shareholder wrath to encourage you to tighten your processes! That's not to say I think local government should be outsourced to private industry - I'm not a Tory *shudders*.