Special treatment

princeofpounds

I've used a couple of councils for a variety of things in the past. Abandoned vehicles, special rubbish pick-ups, street repairs. I've used official channels and fixmystreet.

Generally I found them pretty responsive. It varies a lot from department to department though, I think just depending on workload and how 'proactive' the culture and structure is in that department.

Mind you, I did live in an area full of "middle class, well educated people that know how to escalate things if you aren't satisfied" so I guess they were held to account quite a bit in general.

paulineb_2

My new kitchen has nothing to do with the repair not getting done. When the joiner refused to do the repair he didn't know I was getting a new kitchen. So I could have been stuck with the flooring for years the way it is and unable to put flooring down.

Btw I've been in my flat 18 years and the kitchen I have is falling to bits. Because its been in this flat twice that long. It's a modernisation programme. Everyone in the area is getting one.

The council are paying for it. But that has nothing to do with the fact that I've been left for months with rotten flooring. Which led to a downstairs neighbour coming to my door and threatening to assault me, because water came through his ceiling.

The kitchen and the failure of someone to do that repair aren't connected. Because I could have been waiting 10 years for a new kitchen, or never.

But the repair still needed done.

teawithmilk

I didnt work in housing so I can appreciate that where peoples homes are concerned it is more personal and contentious. But the sad fact is that where I worked (waste management/refuse collection and then highways) resources have been slashed.

No one mentions the hundreds/thousands of requests for service that get dealt with every day without any problems at all. Yes there will be the odd one that slips through and doesnt get dealt with. I was dealing with about 50-60 enquiries a day but I didnt get 50 thank yous in fact I think I only ever got one in ten years of working there.

Heres a story about my work friend:

she was struggling with family problems, never took a sick day off, two of her staff had left without being replaced and she was already doing the job of two FTEs herself...just scraping by each day...working long hours, not complaining because she loved her job and was also grateful to have a job.

One day she got asked to do something by a member of the public via a councillor. She organised for it to be done, but in her busy state forgot to send a follow up e-mail to the councillor saying that it was being done/programmed in (if that makes sense)

The councillor got uppity and without my friends knowledge put an official complaint in to the chief executive saying that my friend was inefficient, not good at her job and didnt communicate properly. My friend ended up distraught- it was the final straw- she felt she had been working so hard and had only made a minor slip up.....ironically the job in question got done on the day that the complaint hit the desk of her boss....this had been prgrammed in for a week and was done on time...however My friend ended up in tears in my office, couldnt stop crying, she was so stressed as she felt that all her professional integrity had just been hammered...this stupid complaint had gone right up the the CE for god sake. Personnel advised her, for gods sake dont go off sick, and to her credit she didnt and fortunately she had us all around her to reassure her that she was actually good at her job. But it took her days to calm down about it as it was "the straw that broke the camels back" on top of all her other work stress.

However many many hours were wasted on this...the complaint had to be "investigated" by her manager and a report had to be sent back to the Chief Exec (again a few hours wasted) and she was told she had to apologise to the councillor who didnt even have the decency to respond back to her apology.

And the irony is that the job had been done anyway!

paulineb_2

I'm unable to get a washing machine plumbed in due to the fact that the wood in my kitchen floor is rotting and needs replaced. So for 2 months now I've been washing my clothes at my mums or going to a laundrette. That's all I want. The bit of flooring in the corner of my kitchen that's rotting replaced so I can get new flooring down. Which ill pay for, not the council. And I can get a washing machine back in. Because there's no way a washing machine could go in the way it is at the moment.

It would have taken 20 minutes to do. And it's policy that if you live in a council flat or house and a simple or even an emergency repair gets done. By the time it does get done ill have been waiting 4 months. And I've made it quite clear to everyone I've spoken to, that ill wait. If it doesn't get done till November or December then fine. As long as the repair gets done, that's all I'm asking for.

SmallL

Treevo wrote: »

To make your life easier? To not depend entirely on the state for every little thing?

They don't depend on the state for most things. They don't get any benefits beside the lower rent due to living in a council house.

paulineb_2

teawithmilk wrote: »

I didnt work in housing so I can appreciate that where peoples homes are concerned it is more personal and contentious. But the sad fact is that where I worked (waste management/refuse collection and then highways) resources have been slashed.

No one mentions the hundreds/thousands of requests for service that get dealt with every day without any problems at all. Yes there will be the odd one that slips through and doesnt get dealt with. I was dealing with about 50-60 enquiries a day but I didnt get 50 thank yous in fact I think I only ever got one in ten years of working there.

Heres a story about my work friend:

she was struggling with family problems, never took a sick day off, two of her staff had left without being replaced and she was already doing the job of two FTEs herself...just scraping by each day...working long hours, not complaining because she loved her job and was also grateful to have a job.

One day she got asked to do something by a member of the public via a councillor. She organised for it to be done, but in her busy state forgot to send a follow up e-mail to the councillor saying that it was being done/programmed in (if that makes sense)

The councillor got uppity and without my friends knowledge put an official complaint in to the chief executive saying that my friend was inefficient, not good at her job and didnt communicate properly. My friend ended up distraught- it was the final straw- she felt she had been working so hard and had only made a minor slip up.....ironically the job in question got done on the day that the complaint hit the desk of her boss....this had been prgrammed in for a week and was done on time...however My friend ended up in tears in my office, couldnt stop crying, she was so stressed as she felt that all her professional integrity had just been hammered...this stupid complaint had gone right up the the CE for god sake. Personnel advised her, for gods sake dont go off sick, and to her credit she didnt and fortunately she had us all around her to reassure her that she was actually good at her job. But it took her days to calm down about it as it was "the straw that broke the camels back" on top of all her other work stress.

However many many hours were wasted on this...the complaint had to be "investigated" by her manager and a report had to be sent back to the Chief Exec (again a few hours wasted) and she was told she had to apologise to the councillor who didnt even have the decency to respond back to her apology.

And the irony is that the job had been done anyway!

Im sure resources have been slashed. My local council is I believe the biggest in Scotland and they have apparently huge surpluses, millions. And yes jobs have been cut across the board.

But its about priorities I think. The chief exec and the director of education get massive bonuses, year in and year out. In fact two years ago, the chief exec got a bonus of about £20 000 as a one off payment, even though he hadnt met targets he was supposed to meet.

I saw someone complaining on a local leisure centres page that a bus service to a local leisure centre, which cost millions to build had been scrapped. Its in the middle of nowhere and a housing estate was meant to be built around it but wasnt due to the recession, she posted and said how are non drivers meant to get here, you scrap a bus service but the head of leisure and learning is on £125 000 a year, what are your priorities.

Most of the contact Ive had over the years with my local council hasnt been positive. Its mostly been due to issues with neighbours who are very anti social. As I said before, theres very much a hands off, what do you expect us to do about it attitude.

Ive also dealt with different departments due to my work. Im a freelance fitness instructor and Ive been teaching on and off in council centres since 2010. I got permission to hang banners outside two centres so I hung them. A couple of months ago I was walking past putting some leaflets out and saw my banners were away. No one could tell me where they were. The caretaker told me later on that management had called one of them, ordered that they be cut down, but the message hadnt been passed on to the other caretaker so she didnt know where they were. The management at head office who were about ten miles away didnt phone me and say, look weve made a decision, no more banners, come and cut them down yourself, because I would have done it if they had phoned me, they had my mobile number, they had called me that weekend about another matter, they had my email address.

They told caretaking staff that phoning the customer wasnt priority. I paid almost 3 thousand pounds a year to hire the centres. I then asked the council, could I hang a banner somewhere in the town, as other businesses do. My email wasnt responded to. I also asked could I pay to hang a banner or board at certain designated sites. Also not responded to. I dont blame people for involving their MP or councillor because when you have council staff ignoring you, what else are you supposed to do?

Two of them then ended up in the bin, one was bright pink and had my phone number and email address on it, the other was bright yellow, you couldnt miss it.

I was told they would be put aside in a drawer for me to collect, I went to collect them, binned. I asked why they had been binned, I was told someone was doing a summer clearout and they had to go. I asked why I couldnt hang a banner anymore. I was told there wasnt room. There was room for 8 or 9 banners, the railings outside one centre are massive. I was then told if I hung a banner everyone would want a banner up, also not true, no one else had a banner up in the entire time I was teaching, there was ample space and neither the caretakers or other groups had an issue with my banners being there. I just felt like I was being fobbed off and I was fobbed off.

All I did, was cancel my venues and move elsewhere, but sometimes you do feel like you are hitting brick walls, when you ask for answers about something you dont get them.

Sometimes you dont want special treatment, you just want an answer to a simple question. Im sorry for what your friend went through. Im not the sort of person to make a formal complaint about anyone in the workplace, if I did, it would be absolute last resort, because I do know what its like to work in workplaces where you are stressed and not always supported.

Some people are jobsworths and some people arent no matter what type of job they do. As I said before, if the answer is shortages of staff, the councils should spend some of their surpluses on employing enough staff to meet demand for jobs that need done.
That would be an easy enough answer, but unlikely. In my case, the worker (who was also rude to me) just couldnt be bothered.

Id actually have loved to work in a job for 5 mins where I turned up one day and said, well nah, cant be bothered doing that job today so I think I'll just say no, Im not doing it.:)

paulineb_2

Treevo wrote: »

To make your life easier? To not depend entirely on the state for every little thing?

Im not sure how you are depending on the state for every little thing when you live in a council home and its the councils policy that your home has to be fit to live in.

Also, some people who rent their homes, put money back in. I paid full rent, council tax and taxes for 14 years until I was made redundant. I paid rent last year even when I was working part time, not full rent but I still had to pay some and even when you are on JSA you still pay part of your council tax (you do in scotland, the water charges are a bit different up here).

You certainly arent depending on the state for every little thing if you are working full time or even part time and putting a contribution back into the state.

And I appreciate some people live all their lives in council housing and never pay rent or taxes, but Im not one of them.

And if you have a repair that needs attention and its the councils policy to do that repair, why should people need to pay out of their own pocket to get a repair done when its your landlords responsibility to make sure your home is actually fit to live in. And some people might be on the phone every week reporting every single tiny thing that needs attention, but Im not one of them.
There are numerous things that need done to my flat, most of them minor and the council have actually sent surveyors round to assess the condition of the homes and do what needs to be done, because these flats have been up a long time and its over 25 years since there was any investment in them.

The refusal of that workman to do that repair led to a neighbour (male) threatening me. I wouldnt wish the stress Ive had over the last couple of months on anyone, all because someone couldnt be bothered to do a job they were employed to do.

My previous warm air heating that was replaced as was everyone elses in the area, was actually dangerous, it had to be shut off due to carbon monoxide and I was warned by the man who came out to shut it off that I was very lucky. I had no idea that it was faulty, I kept thinking that I could smell gas and then the smell would disappear, I just thought something didnt seem right, but my heating was working as normal. When someone did come out and look at it, they shut the heating off straight away because to leave it on would have been dangerous, it could have killed me and that was made very clear to me. The council didnt put in carbon monoxide alarms at that time but they do now.

Sometimes getting repairs done by your council isnt someone depending on the state for everything, getting a workman out to look at something that doesnt seem quite right could actually end up saving someones life.

teawithmilk

You must be frustrated with that pauline, thats horrible.

Everyone I worked with was totally demoralised.
At my old council they were not replacing staff who fixed potholes or did winter gritting. So the state of the roads was getting much worse and complaints were going up...But on the other hand they set up a "sustainability" team to manage the effect of climate change on the council! Our highways staff were paid an average of around 17k a year basic wage for working a 40+ week (often in the worst of winter conditions)...the starting salary for a "sustainability" officer (there were 3 of them) was £27k and the manager of the unit was £40k. Im not saying that sustainability and climate change isnt important but they were cutting front line staff!!

I worked at a small outlying office and non of the senior managers EVER came to visit us there or spoke to any of the manual staff. Many policies were brought in without even consulting the staff who were to implement them. We just used to groan whenever there was a new "initiative"..not because we were averse to change but just because we just didnt even have time to do "the day job" never mind take on new stuff.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

coolcait wrote: »

A propos of nothing very much. But keeping it moneysaving

Can you get special treatment for free, or on the cheap, or does it always have to cost an arm and a leg?

My mum thinks that it costs. I think that it can be much less straightforward than that.

For example, mum's next door neighbour always seem to get whatever she wants from the Council. Mum can follow all the guidelines about getting rubbish removed from the street, and it takes the Council ages to remove it. If they ever do

Next door neighbour seems be able to make them jump whenever she snaps her fingers. Half the time it's her rubbish that gets uplifted . But, there the Council workers are - within about 5 minutes of next door neighbour announcing that she's called them.

Mum's convinced that next door neighbour is paying them.

I think that next door neighbour probably knows the right trigger phrases - like in the Incredibles, when Bob tells the little old lady which form to ask for. Or when someone threatens legal action, or something like that.

Free, but effective. And incredibly frustrating to those who follow the published rules, and get nowhere.

Still, if you want to be philosophical about it, that kind of special treatment usually means that someone, somewhere is selling their soul.

Anyway. Special treatment. Can you get it for free? How?

It could be something as simple as the neighbour has put in their report on the day the team is already in the area. Where I used to live, they were about on Tuesday and Friday mornings, so any call made before 1pm appeared to be dealt with more efficiently than those made after the team had moved on to the next area.



It appears that, as far as your mum is concerned, everybody is corrupt. That's a sad place to be in.


A friend works for the local council and they say the angriest calls are usually about rubbish collection; often along the lines of 'I pay my council tax, I don't claim benefits, how dare you not collect my bins'. Their complaints are recorded and sent on to the correct department to be dealt with in the same order as everybody else.


To be brutally honest, the staff in these contact centres don't have the time to care enough to give anybody preferential or less preferential treatment; they've got maximum call durations to keep to, maximum waiting times, targets and performance levels that they have to match or exceed for computer generated reports that ignore any variation in quality of service; nobody is important enough to get extra special levels of service - you're all just voices in the headset that have to be got off the line within a target time, because they need to keep their jobs.


Oh, and councillors and MPs don't actually make any difference to how something is dealt with; they're just very good at taking the credit for stuff they haven't actually had the slightest impact upon.

j.e.j.

paulineb wrote: »

Im not sure how you are depending on the state for every little thing when you live in a council home and its the councils policy that your home has to be fit to live in.

unlike private rental.. but that's a whole nother thread!

OP I think yes it depends on who you ask and how you ask, plus a lot of luck! Dealing with the nhs is similar, in many ways.