Not ours, but still our problem
On Monday morning the clerk has four new emails. A pothole on the High Street by the pharmacy. A street light out on Church Close. Fly-tipping in the lay-by on the bypass. A blocked drain flooding the footpath near the school. The resident who sent the pothole report attached a photo; the one about the drain did not say where exactly.
None of these are the parish council's responsibility in most areas. The highway authority deals with potholes and drains, the district or unitary council with fly-tipping, and street lights depend on who owns the column. But the resident wrote to the parish council, and if nothing happens they will blame the parish council. So the clerk logs into the county's reporting page, retypes the details, guesses the location on a map, and makes a note to check back. The note gets buried.
Why reports stall at the parish
Residents do not know, and should not need to know, which body is responsible for which thing. The parish council becomes a front desk for everyone else's services, without any tools for the job. The clerk's inbox is not a case system.
| Report type | Usually responsible | What the clerk needs |
|---|---|---|
| Pothole or road defect | Highway authority | Exact location, size, photo |
| Street light out | Highway authority or the parish, depending on ownership | Column number, street |
| Fly-tipping | District or unitary council | Location, what was dumped, photo |
| Blocked drain or gully | Highway authority | Location, whether flooding the road or footway |
| Overgrown footpath | Highway authority or landowner | Path reference or location |
| Parish-owned asset | Your council | Which bench, shelter or noticeboard |
Responsibilities vary between areas, so the routing rules are set from what your clerk knows about your county, district and utility companies.
What the current way costs
The clerk rekeys every report into someone else's system, which takes longer than it should because details are missing and the resident has to be asked again. Reports that are passed on are rarely followed up, so the same pothole gets reported several times. Residents never hear back, and conclude that the council does nothing. And the council has no record of recurring problems it could raise with the county, such as the same stretch of road flooding every winter.
The reporting form and routing we build
- A 'report a problem' form on your council website, with a map pin for the location and space for photos, that asks different questions depending on the type of problem.
- Each report gets a reference and the resident gets an acknowledgement that explains who is responsible and what happens next.
- Routing rules send each type of report to the right place: an email to the responsible team with the details laid out, or a prepared submission for the clerk to paste into the other body's reporting page. Where a service such as FixMyStreet covers your area, the form can point residents there directly.
- Reports about council-owned assets go into your own maintenance list instead.
- The external body's reference number is recorded against the report when it comes back.
- Open reports older than the period you choose appear on a chase list for the clerk.
- A monthly summary by type and street is produced for councillors, showing recurring problems.
A Monday morning with the form in place
The four reports arrived through the form with locations pinned and photos attached. The pothole and the drain went to the highway authority's inbox with everything laid out, the fly-tipping went to the district, and the street light turned out to be on a parish-owned column, so it went to your own maintenance list. The residents were told who is dealing with each. The clerk's job is to glance at the chase list once a week.
When a councillor wants to raise the flooding with the county, the summary shows every report on that stretch of road in the last year.
Signs you are a front desk for the county
- Residents email the parish about potholes, lights and fly-tipping every week.
- The clerk retypes reports into other councils' websites.
- Nobody checks whether passed-on reports were fixed.
- Residents complain that they reported something and nothing happened.
- You cannot say how many times the same problem has been reported.