At least 50 reports about failing public service standards in York have not been actioned by the Council over the last couple of months.
The Council has claimed that reports submitted via the popular “My Council” Mobile app were not processed because they were indecipherable when uploaded to the Council.
Rather than get to the bottom of the problem, the reports were ignored.
Now an administrator for the “My Council” web provider (abavus.co.uk) has stepped in and offered to sort out the difficulties.
More and more people are using web sites like “My Council”, Fix my Street , and Fill that hole” to report issues.
This is to the advantage of Councils because the costs of processing issues electronically are much less than hard copy mail, personal callers or telephone communications.
However this case is likely to damage the credibility of the system in some residents eyes.
The Councils own mobile app (Smarter York) allows only a very small number of issues to be reported and user numbers have been disappointing.
The “Report it” section of the Council web site is cumbersome and has similar limitations.
The Council has been asked to sort out its data interface problems, ensure that reports blocked over the last couple of months are now entered onto its systems and to make efforts to contact those residents who may be unaware that issues that they have reported have not been actioned.
The industry generally needs to do more work on interface issues.