Southside Community Council
Appendix to the minutes of the meeting of 11th February 2009
Correspondence over the FOI question.
Email from HM to foi@edinburgh.gov.uk, 30/12/08
On 21st August 2008 I reported two dark lamps opposite the former Odeon cinema on Clerk St. In September I received an email from the lighting manager's secretary telling me that they had been fixed on 28/8/08. In fact, they had not. I reported these dark lamps several more times, eventually speaking to the lighting manager himself in late November, who said that he had no idea about the problem. The lamps were eventually fixed on or just prior to 15th December 2008. See email correspondence below. Other reports were made by phone.
The Council's policy is apparently that lamps should be fixed within, I believe, seven days. Over many years, and many reports I have never known a single lamp to be fixed in this timescale.
I would like answers to the following questions:
1. When did the lighting department receive my first report of the lamps at 14 and 34 Clerk Street being dark?
2. Who went to investigate, and when?
3. What did they do?
4. Why did I receive an email to say they had been fixed?
5. Did anyone check that work had been done?
6. What happened to all my subsequent reports? Were the lamps inspected again? When?
7. What was done to fix these lamps eventually around 15/12/08?
8. How should this have been managed? What is standard procedure?
9. Since I have been advised that the Clarence system is no longer operating properly, how should I ensure that the lamps I know are dark at present will be fixed in a timely fashion?
10. How do you justify the claim that 90% of faulty lights are fixed within 7 days? It is not true in my experience.
Yours
Hilary McDowell
on behalf of the Southside Community Council.
Background emails:
From HM to Clarence, 21/8/08
Subject: Lighting and roadway faults
Date: 21/08/2008
To: clarence@edinburgh.gov.uk
Lights out:
55 South Clerk St reported before on 16/7/08, ref no. 1-114224729
10 Salisbury Road originally reported 1/8/08, ref no.1-114939288
14 Clerk St (Opposite former Odeon)
34 Clerk St
There is a lamp post out side the former Odeon, 7 Clerk St, (just to the south) which is dark, possibly redundant. Should be made to work or removed.
Yours
Hilary McDowell
Southside Community Council
From Lighting Department to HM, 17/9/08
Subject: FW: Lighting and roadway faults
Date: 17/09/2008 15:40:25 GMT Standard Time
From: Beth.McKie@edinburgh.gov.uk
To: Hilary McDowell
Dear Mrs. McDowell,
Thank you for your email below which was forwarded to me by John Gill. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.
I can advise that the four street lights reported were all repaired on 28th August. The street lighting column that you refer to outside 7 Clerk Street should have been removed when new wall mounted lights were installed. The excavation around this column will commence tomorrow and Scottish Power will attend on Friday to disconnect the power supply to the column. The column will then be removed and the pavement will be reinstated early next week. Thank you for bringing these matters to our attention.
I trust the above information is to your satisfaction. However, should you have any further queries regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail or on the number below.
Yours sincerely,
Beth McKie
Customer Services Officer | Street Lighting | Services for Communities | City of Edinburgh Council | 14 Bankhead Avenue | Edinburgh | EH11 4HD | Tel: (0131) 458 8040 | Fax: (0131) 453 5188 | E-mail: beth.mckie@edinburgh.gov.uk
From HM to Lighting Department, 1/10/08
Subject: Re: FW: Lighting and roadway faults
Date: 01/10/2008
To: Beth.McKie@edinburgh.gov.uk
Thank you for your email. Three of the five lighting faults have been fixed - thank you. However, the lamps opposite the former Odeon, at 14 and 34 Clerk St, are still dark, and have been so for several months now, despite what you may have been told by your engineer.
Yours
Hilary McDowell
Reply from FOI
In a message dated 31/12/2008 11:02:04 GMT Standard Time, foi@edinburgh.gov.uk writes:
Dear Hilary McDowell,
Thank you for contacting the City of Edinburgh Council on 31/12/2008. I am sorry you have had to complain.
We endeavour to resolve all complaints made to the City of Edinburgh Council at the first point of contact. Following our initial investigation, I am afraid that we have been unable to satisfactorily resolve your complaint at this time. In accordance with the Customer Care Charter, we will investigate the complaint further and reply to you no later than 16/1/2009.
The City of Edinburgh Council always appreciates receiving feedback on its services, and I would like to take this opportunity to once again apologise that you have had to complain.
Should you require any further assistance, please contact us using any of the details below quoting the reference number.
Yours sincerely,
Michael O'Rourke
Customer Care Team
0131 200 2300
customer.care@edinburgh.gov.uk
From HM to foi@edinburgh.gov.uk, 31/12/08:
This is not a complaint. I would like answers to my questions. That is what I understood "Freedom of Information" to mean!
Yours
Hilary McDowell
From HM to foi@edinburgh.gov.uk, 1/2/09
Dear Sir
I have as yet received no reply to my request of 30/12/08 other than an acknowledgement telling me to expect a reply by 16th January. If you have sent a reply, please could you send it again. If you have not replied, please do so in a timely fashion. If I receive nothing by 5pm Tuesday, 3/2/09, I shall have to contact the ombudsman who might be able to find out for me why I have not been answered.
Yours
H A McDowell (Mrs)
Environmental spokesperson
Southside Community Council
The final reply
To HM from beth.mckie@edinburgh.gov.uk, 2/2/09
Dear Mrs. McDowell,
Thank you for your complaint which was forwarded to me by the Customer Care Team. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying. Please also accept our apologies for the length of time taken to repair the lights in Clerk Street (CJU02 and 04) and for any inconvenience caused.
To answer your questions in your complaint I can advise the following:
1. Your report that these two lights were dark was received on 21st August 2008.
2. These faults were investigated by Street Lighting Operatives on 28th August.
3. On 28th August fuses were replaced in both lights.
4. I e-mailed you on 17th September to inform you that the lights had been repaired. When Street Lighting Operatives complete a repair on a street light, they submit paperwork advising the work they have completed and this is then input into our database. The information sent to you is based on information extracted from our database.
5. Checks are not carried out on every repair completed by Street Lighting Operatives. Inspecting Supervisors check random jobs but it is not practical to check every job completed as during 2007/08 we attended over 18,000 faults.
6. I received all your subsequent reports and apologise for the fact that I did not reply to them, however, all your reports were actioned. Both lights were attended again on 3rd October, 4th November, 16th November, 10th December and 15th December. At most of these visits, a fuse was replaced which resulted in a repair of the fault while our Operatives were in attendance. Unfortunately, these repairs subsequently failed.
7. Although repairs were carried out at each visit to try and effect a permanent repair to the lights, on 15th December a new overhead cable was installed after it had been established that a cable fault was causing these lights to fail.
8. Our standard procedure is to attend a light within 7 days of the report to effect a repair. We currently carry out night inspections on a nine weekly basis in order to find dark lights ourselves and to verify repairs completed. We have recently been involved in a project to try and improve our Street Lighting service and as part of this we will be trialling a "Night Time Find and Fix" regime which will allow us to discover and repair dark lights during the hours of darkness and also to verify repairs carried out during the daytime. It is anticipated that this will be done to cover the whole city on a fortnightly basis and we would hope that this will be in place by the winter months of 2009*. This will enable us to verify repairs timeously and take prompt action should the previous repair not have been successful.
* Subsequent telephone conversations revealed that this means October / November 2009
9. The Clarence database that used to be in place is no longer in use, however, a new database has been created. During the time that the database was not in use, Operatives from the Clarence Call Centre continued to e-mail all public reports to the Street Lighting Team. Any change in Clarence's databases has no bearing on the standards or targets of the Street Lighting Team.
10. The system that we currently use to measure our repairs of faults has given us these statistics. We aim to attend all faults within seven days of the report to effect a repair. The statistics that we do not currently have are those which tell us how many of these repairs have been successful. Street Lighting Operatives check that their repairs have been successful before they leave to the best of their ability. However, there are occasions (as with the street lights in Clerk Street) where the repairs do not last due to an underlying problem that is more difficult to diagnose on the first visit.
I trust the above information answers your query. However, should you have any further queries regarding this matter please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail or on the number below.
Yours sincerely,
Beth McKie
Beth McKie | Customer Services Officer | Street Lighting | Services for Communities | City of Edinburgh Council | 14 Bankhead Avenue | Edinburgh | EH11 4HD | Tel: (0131) 458 8040 | Fax: (0131) 453 5188 | E-mail: beth.mckie@edinburgh.gov.uk
Further Information
Subsequent to this email exchange, Bill O'Fie, Head of Customer Contact Centre, has spoken to the Community Council. He explained that the FOI request was treated as a complaint because it was possible that way to give fuller answers. FOI requests can gain information such as minutes, but not provide explanations as to why something has been handled in a particular way. He apologised that this had not been made clear at the time, and that the reply had taken so long. This was a useful clarification, but the Community Council will still pursue its enquiry into the efficiency of the Lighting Department in dealing with repairs.