Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Tax
My wife and I recently left Haringey so I may soon be saying goodbye to these boards. In the mean time I need partly to vent and partly to seek suggestions. We tried to tell Haringey. We discovered that right in the middle of Covid19 Haringey had tinkered with its website, and I can no longer get it to function for me.
No matter I thought. I can ring. But the phone menus are circular- there is no point that I can see where you can ask for a live person. We were just redirected back to the malfunctioning website.
Then there is email. Two emails marked urgent were sent. Automated replies were received but nothing more.
No matter I thought once more. But then I received a demand at my new address (so they had partly read my emails) demanding payment for October- we left on 22nd October. The thing was apart fromthe sheer rudeness of these computerised missives (I've been a ratepayer to these wretches for some twentyyears) I had actually paid that on 1st October leaving them by my calculations considerably in debt to me.
This time I wrote an angry snailmail and asked someone to ring me on receipt of it. Did they? Of course not. I don't trust them to resolve it in the course of time. These Haringey clerks just rely on mendacious IT so I could see them issuing proceedings as threatened in the standard letter followed by some nasty privatised sector bailiff turning up at our new address followed by lies about our credit worhtiness submitted to Experian.
The whole thing is a shambles and an absolute disgrace. Haringey Council housing department is just not fit for purpose and I've a good mind to take them to the Local Government Ombudsman.
Parts of Haringey are excellent- the refuse collectors and the street sweepers for example- but these suits (or whatever they wear) just tinker with byzantine computer systems and consider that job done. Why bother to have any personal contact with the public. That's not part of of the modern job description. Lockdown? Just close the libraries.
Oh I'd love to send the bailiffs in to them to reclaim our due as long as it wasn't taken from precious public services. But the housing managers wouldn't dream of it being taken from their own avaricious pockets. I thought this new lot were Corbynistas. No they're just Computeristas like the last lot.
Anybody here (councillors, senior Haringey employees) got the ear of the Housing Director or somewhere close to help get this sorted.
Thanks in advance.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Pat Devereaux on
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Hello Ian I tweeted the HOL post and Cllr Seema Chandwani got back to me she says to contact her on email: Seema.Chandwani@haringey.gov.UK and she will ask @ContactHaringey to get in touch.
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Permalink Reply by Ian Craine on
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Many many thanks, Pat, that's really good of you.
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Thanks Neil- another really helpful reply. At the moment Councillor Seema has the ball and says she's prepared to stick with it to the end. And well done Harringay Online generally. Well done Hugh and Liz for such an excellent site.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Ian Craine - Full credit to Cllr Seema Chandwani for taking this up and sorting out.
And a thank-you to all local ward councillors who respond helpfully to the failings and glitches brought to their attention; trying to solve problems.Many decades ago I researched with public service teams which were experimenting with different approaches to their clients/customers / users. It was before computers so user requests were via phones, letters and visits to offices. Some teams ran systems which were difficult to access. For example lots of bureaucratic form filling discouraged people. As did semi-public queues, shabby offices and off-hand or even obstructive reception staff. I loosely grouped these as "Hard Doors".
Others set out to be more open and approachable. These "soft-door" access services worked to some extent though they might find more and more users switching to them and - overwhelmed - having to operate hard doors again.
Later, ICT began to replace people with press-one-press-two-your-call-is-important-don't-you-hate-Vivaldi-triage. Hard doors might be all there was.
Councillors tend to try to operate soft - or at least softer - doors. But actually this is no solution to the systemic problems you seem to be describing, Ian. The organisation needs to learn and modify. Especially if - as appears in your description -there may be non-functioning loops. With people under stress and facing deadlines and penalties for not being able to use the Council systems to complete hardly unusual tasks.
If going to Seema's 'soft door' solves your problem - Great!! But can I please add a further suggestion to anyone finding themselves lost in this sort of bureaucratic maze? As well as a helpful councillor - if you find one - you might also think about copying emails to the senior staff. The Directors and/or Chief Executive have emails. They need to know if and when there are existing or emerging patterns of system failure which need fixing.
Doing this becomes more urgent as huge cuts are likely in the coming year. Worse because Covid-19 almost guarantees that income targets to "backfill" budgets are likely to be fictional. There may also be an increasing reliance on ICT. Plus false savings through sackings. Plus reliance on magical unrealism of consultants.
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An excellently measured and practical contribution, thanks for that, Alan.
And once again thanks to everybody else here who helped, particularly you, Pat. Without whom... Because this morning Haringey rang me to apologise- midway on the grovel meter I'd say. Councillor Seema really got things moving, and now the correct amount owing has been established. From Haringey to us of course. It's being transferred to our account. A most felicitous outcome and all thanks to Harringay Online.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I think people will gravitate towards those 'doors' where they get a constructive response, Alan. Do you know what type of response letters about everyday issues get when addressed to the Exec/Chief Exec?
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Permalink Reply by Bob Ruggles on
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Just out of interest has anyone herd or seen any of the other 38 Elected Ward Councilors. during this Virus problem ?
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Hugh, You said:
"I think people will gravitate towards those 'doors' where they get a constructive response, Alan"
Of course they do. But it's hopeless if an organisation providing a large number of important services to over 200,000 people, runs on personal knowledge of who knows someone who can make things happen.
Will a Director or the Chief Executive want at least to know about and then ensure a response to everyday issues? This is a very interesting issue.
My very short answer: If they don't understand why this is valuable and indeed essential to know what's going on 'on the ground', 'on the phones', by email, or 'at the desk', they are almost certainly in the wrong job.
To be fair to Haringey, years ago (and maybe more recently?), senior staff would make a point of sitting at public desks from time to time. Or doing ward walks with councillors. Some senior staff would come to residents' meetings and Neighbourhood assemblies (now abolished).
My long answer? For many years I've been posting stuff in HoL on this or related topics. Some ideas of my own but mostly links to work I've read about or come across.
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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I've spent the last month trying to get my old car permit changed over to the new car and the difference in price (over £100) refunded to me - it's been agreed but I am still waiting for the money. I'm pretty sure if I owed them £100 the bailiffs would be in by now!
I actually found Harringeys phone-answering team to be really helpfulful, and it hasn't taken long to get answered, though I appreciate that finding the way hrough the maze to the correct person can be tricky.Contacting their Twitter account has just yielded form replies rather than constructive help.
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