York Council tackles issue reporting problems

My Council

The York Council has moved to address problems that residents were having reporting issues using the “My Council” mobile phone “app”.

The “app” allows users to report any issues that they find on the streets of the City. Copies of the report, a photo and locations map are then emailed to the complainant.

It has a longer list of issues that can be reported than the Council proprietary system (Love Clean Streets) The Council seems to have abandoned the “Love Where You Live York” web site although it is still advertised on their own site

It transpires that many of the “My Council” reports were going astray as a result of incompatible interface systems.

Easy to report footpath damage using "my Council"

Easy to report footpath damage using “my Council”

Now the Council says that the problem has been fixed.

We’d like to see systems like “My Council” fully integrated into the Councils working practices and for any responses to residents to include a confirmation that a problem has been addressed successfully.

Meanwhile Liberal Democrat Councillor Ian Cuthbertson has tabled a question on the issue for Thursdays Council meeting
“How many complaints, forwarded to the York Council Contact centre over the last 6 months via web based reporting tools (such as “My Council”, “report that hole”, “report that pothole” etc), have been successfully recorded and actioned and how many reports have been discarded because of data translation problems?”

York Council loses dozens of complaints

My Council

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.

Councils in other parts of the country may be affected by incompatibility issues