Long grass and a monthly invoice
The council contracts out grass cutting for the recreation ground, the churchyard, a few verges it looks after, the cemetery and the village green. The contract says how many cuts each site gets in the season and roughly when. The contractor invoices monthly, listing sites and cuts.
In June, residents email about the long grass on the green, which the invoice says was cut twice in May. The contractor says one cut was cancelled for rain and made up later. The clerk has no way to check. A councillor drives past a verge and thinks it was missed. The cemetery is cut, but the strimming round the headstones was not done, which the contract includes. The invoice is paid, because querying it without evidence feels unfair and nobody has time to drive round every site.
Why checking the contract is so hard
The contract describes what should happen. Nothing records what did happen. The clerk is not on site, councillors are volunteers, and the contractor's own records, if any, are not shared.
- The cutting schedule is a table in a contract document.
- Visits are not logged with dates or photos.
- Weather changes the schedule and make-up cuts are not recorded.
- Extras such as strimming, edging and litter picking are hard to verify.
- Complaints from residents arrive with no way to check them against visits.
What it costs the council
The council may be paying for cuts that did not happen, or disputing ones that did, both of which sour a relationship with a local contractor. Residents complain, and the clerk cannot give a straight answer about when a site was last cut. At retender time, the council has no record of how the contract performed. The clerk spends time on emails going back and forth about specific dates.
A visit log tied to the schedule
- Each site in the contract is set up with a map location and the tasks the contract includes, such as cut, strim, edge or collect arisings.
- The cutting schedule is loaded as expected visits per site through the season.
- The contractor's operatives open a simple phone form at each site, tick the tasks done and take a photo. Location and time are captured automatically. No app install is needed.
- Visits are compared with the schedule, and the clerk sees each site as on schedule, due, overdue or with tasks missing.
- Weather cancellations can be logged by the contractor with a reason, so make-up visits are clear.
- When the invoice arrives, it is checked against logged visits, and lines without a matching visit are listed.
- Residents' complaints can be logged against a site, which shows the last visit alongside.
| Question | Answer from the log |
|---|---|
| When was the green last cut? | Date, time and photo of the last visit |
| Was the cemetery strimmed? | Task ticked or not, with the photo |
| Is the invoice right? | Invoice lines matched to visits, exceptions listed |
| How did the contract perform this season? | Visits against schedule for every site |
A season with the log
The contractor's team takes a photo at each site, which takes seconds. The clerk glances at the schedule view weekly. When the resident emails about the green, the clerk can reply that it was cut on Tuesday and a photo shows it. When the monthly invoice arrives, it matches the log except for one verge, which the contractor explains was blocked by parked cars. The council pays with confidence, and at retender it has a season's record.
Setting it up takes a conversation with the contractor as much as any technology. We map the sites with the clerk, load the schedule from the contract, and print a small QR code for each site that the operatives can scan to open the right form. Nothing changes about how they cut. The only new habit is a photo and a couple of ticks before they drive off to the next site.
Could you check your contractor's invoice today?
- Grass cutting invoices are paid without checking visits.
- Residents complain and you cannot say when a site was last cut.
- Make-up cuts after rain are not recorded.
- Strimming and edging are hard to verify.
- You have no record of contract performance at retender.