York Council reduces opening hours

The Council is being asked to approve the next stage in it’s, ludicrously titled, “rewiring” project.

The project has nothing to do with moving electricity supply cables in the Councils West Offices!

It is just a euphemism for another reorganisation; but the non de plume will effectively raise a barrier to resident understanding.

A report to a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) proposes to reduce the hours of opening of the Councils contact centre. In future it will open between 9:00am and 5:00pm (Mon-Fri)

Although it is claimed that this is a response to resident contact patterns, the reality is that the centre is hopelessly overloaded with IT systems unable, after 6 months, to even provide complainants with an issue reference number.

The Council report also makes much of devolving management of public services to local communities.

Incredibly it talks of the need for “local buildings to be multi agency focal points”.

This is the same Council which has cut Community Centre support –all of which are located in the least well off communities – to the bone.

Two face closure.

It comes from a Council which has off loaded, to an independent trust, local libraries – one of the few successful public services provided in the City over the last few years.

The programme aims to facilitate cuts of £5.5 million in the Councils budget.

The largest part of these will come from Social Care. The Social Care budget overspent by more than £1.3 million last year.

While some change is inevitable, the Council would be wise to provide more details of the implications of its plans for residents and in plain English.

Dropping gimmicky titles would be a good start