An hour free car parking: before the council elections, Conservatives promised one-hour free parking, both on the street and at the council public car parks.
After acquiring the council administration, they informed an hour’s free parking is coming this summer across high streets but have deferred free parking at the car parks, subject to the outcome of a feasibility study.
Further to this, a One-Hour Free Parking reserve has been established to fund the 2022-23 implications of the free parking initiative, but not clear whether this is just for on street parking, or for the street and council car parking both.
Potholes: the council to consider creating an in-house pothole service to improve the management and repair of potholes across the borough.
The council officers have asked to delegate authority to the director of environment to commission the study from external consultants at a cost of approximately £50k. £50k of the ratepayer’s money!!
On average, the council receive 578 enquiries from highway inspections and 492 from customer enquiries, bringing the total potholes reported per annum on average to 1,070 – the average time taken to complete a pothole repair from inspection / notification is 4.5 days.
Improving the customer experience: the council admits many residents have felt that the council was unresponsive when trying to access services, offering little information and showing little empathy to their issues, often applying a ‘computer says no’ response. The council needs to strengthen residents’ trust by ensuring timely and effective responses, seamless customer journeys, a positive experience and ensuring a right balance between digital with more traditional channels.
Harder for residents to contact Harrow council, ongoing concern.
It is now proposed to produce a costed plan to lay out the council’s direction to improve the customer experience by putting residents first and treating both residents and businesses as valued customers
Odd that while planning improvement in accessing services, the cabinet agreed to close the telephone lines for Council Tax and Benefits to reduce the Access Harrow budget by £350k through staff reduction.
While nothing wrong in having a feasibility study about a council service to inform decision-making, the downside is that it’s outcome could be used not to deliver that service.
After acquiring the council administration, they informed an hour’s free parking is coming this summer across high streets but have deferred free parking at the car parks, subject to the outcome of a feasibility study.
Further to this, a One-Hour Free Parking reserve has been established to fund the 2022-23 implications of the free parking initiative, but not clear whether this is just for on street parking, or for the street and council car parking both.
Potholes: the council to consider creating an in-house pothole service to improve the management and repair of potholes across the borough.
The council officers have asked to delegate authority to the director of environment to commission the study from external consultants at a cost of approximately £50k. £50k of the ratepayer’s money!!
On average, the council receive 578 enquiries from highway inspections and 492 from customer enquiries, bringing the total potholes reported per annum on average to 1,070 – the average time taken to complete a pothole repair from inspection / notification is 4.5 days.
Improving the customer experience: the council admits many residents have felt that the council was unresponsive when trying to access services, offering little information and showing little empathy to their issues, often applying a ‘computer says no’ response. The council needs to strengthen residents’ trust by ensuring timely and effective responses, seamless customer journeys, a positive experience and ensuring a right balance between digital with more traditional channels.
Harder for residents to contact Harrow council, ongoing concern.
It is now proposed to produce a costed plan to lay out the council’s direction to improve the customer experience by putting residents first and treating both residents and businesses as valued customers
Odd that while planning improvement in accessing services, the cabinet agreed to close the telephone lines for Council Tax and Benefits to reduce the Access Harrow budget by £350k through staff reduction.
While nothing wrong in having a feasibility study about a council service to inform decision-making, the downside is that it’s outcome could be used not to deliver that service.
Harrow Monitoring Group 