Friday brief: North unitary accused of giving residents a customer service ‘raw deal’
Plus a round up of news from around the county, including an arrest in connection with the death of a Northampton baby more than 40 years ago
Residents and councillors in North Northamptonshire are waiting far too long for responses from the authority, according to a councillor who is becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation.
New data has shown that the authority is failing to meet its targets on answering calls and dealing with complaints and Labour’s Anne Lee, who represents Kettering’s Windmill ward, says the current system is preventing councillors from making good relationships with the council’s officers.
She said:
“Residents in NNC are getting a raw deal from this council when it takes so long to get their queries answered, which is very frustrating. We as councillors want to support our residents, but having to use an impersonal system means we cannot build working relationships with the officers, and it frequently takes far too long to get our queries resolved.
“It would help if the council’s website contained more transparent, comprehensive information, but residents find it cumbersome to navigate.’
The issue of getting through on the tory-run council’s customer call lines has been voiced by councillors across different parties in the authority, since it was set up in 2021.
Latest data shows that only 41 per cent of the 705 complaints made to the authority in the last quarter of the 2023/24 financial year were answered within the statutory 20 day time frame. In the same quarter only 71 per cent of calls were answered and just 43 per cent of calls were answered within 60 seconds.
The authority’s 78 elected councillors have to submit any queries they may have on behalf of one of their residents to a dedicated email address and this should be dealt with in ten days. But Cllr Lee says this is not happening.
Cllr Lee voiced her frustrations at yesterday’s executive meeting and asked for the number of queries that were in the backlog. During the meeting she also pointed out that more than £400,000 was being saved on salary costs in customer service due to vacancies. Cllr Lloyd Bunday, who is portfolio member for finance said, he did not have the backlog figure but said the customer service team had handled 558,000 enquiries during the most recent financial year, calling it an ‘enormous achievement’.
Cabinet member Cllr Matt Binley, said he had experience in setting up customer service centres and that people needed to have ‘realistic expectations’. He said the authority could not throw money at the problem like private companies could. He said:
“I’m sure members of the public will appreciate that there might be some waits on the phone.”
A report about the performance of the council showed that complaints more than doubled in the last quarter of 2023/24 (to 751 complaints) driven by issues in planning and the garden waste service. The authority had failed to send out garden waste stickers in time. Only 50 percent of major planning applications were determined in the 13 week time limit and only half of minor applications were determined in eight weeks as they should be. The reason given for planning delays is because officers are dealing with a backlog.
Police have arrested a woman, 57, on suspicion of murdering a baby more than 40 years ago.
The newborn was left in a plastic bag at Northampton rail station in May 1982. Vicar George Burgon, who conducted the funeral and christian burial of the baby, and his wife have visited the baby’s grave ever since and as reported by the Northampton Chronicle, in 2019 a donated headstone was put in place at Towcester Road cemetery. Speaking to NN Journal yesterday George Burgon, who was vicar of St Mary’s church in Far Cotton from 1975 to 1998, said the girl ‘had not been forgotten’ and they had tended the grave because ‘we did not want to think of her just being neglected.’
Her headstone refers to her as a ‘fallen sparrow’, an expression from the gospel which the vicar had used in her funeral service, which was attended by police officers and the grave diggers.
There was a police investigation at the time of her death and police say new evidence came to light last year after a cold case review.
The woman was released on bail yesterday pending further enquiries.
Detective Chief Inspector Johnny Campbell, from the major crime team of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit (EMSOU), said:
“This has been an extremely complex investigation into events that happened more than four decades ago and a great deal of work has gone in to getting us to this point.
“Dozens of officers from both Northamptonshire Police and our colleagues in the region, have been involved in the operation over the past 48 hours or more and I would like to thank all of them for their work.
“This inquiry remains live and ongoing and, as such, Northamptonshire Police will be making no further comment at this time.”
News in brief
North Northamptonshire Council has appointed its third director of children’s services in three years. Charisse Monero has left her job as assistant director of transformation at Islington Council to take on the role at the authority.
She will have a number of issues to deal with, including the huge overspend at the children’s trust (which is run by an independent organisation), the issues within the Special Educational Needs provision (which was recently heaving criticised by the Ofsted) and the backlogs in providing educational health care plans for children who need additional support.
Plans to convert a former student accommodation block into social housing have been scrapped by West Northamptonshire Council, as the authority says the development is no longer viable.
The council has had an offer from an undisclosed buyer to purchase the Bassett Lowke building, which was bought from the University of Northampton back in 2021. The building was part of the old university campus, which became redundant when the Waterside venture was built.
The council has said that eliminating the old student accommodation unit from their plans is “essential” in ensuring the rest of the scheme is deliverable.
As reported by NN Journal in February 2021, the financials for the scheme were never made public. The authority refused to say how much it had bought the campus buildings for from the university, nor how much they thought it would cost to convert. The plan was to apply to Homes England for the funding, but it appears that bid was not successful.
The Bassett-Lowke building was originally flagged to be refurbished whilst the other two areas of the Northampton Campus on St George’s Avenue would be demolished to make way for 170 new houses. The intention was to maximise the council’s stock of affordable housing, however the scheme in its initial form was later deemed unviable by the council’s arms length housing company Northamptonshire Partnership Homes.
The council this week received approval from the cabinet to dispose of the 248-bed student building to help improve the financial viability of the rest of the scheme. It has already received an offer for the site and the adjacent Quinton Building.
Leader of WNC, Cllr Adam Brown said:
“At this stage, the assurance we can give is that we’re working to provide as much either social or affordable housing as possible but we do have to meet viability on any of these sites.
“We have to take a responsible approach to the public money we are handling.”
A further plan identifying the strategy for the rest of the site will be presented to Cabinet later in the year.
NN Journal will follow up on the financials of how much the scrapped project has cost the authority and can hopefully bring you a report in the coming weeks.
(Some details used in this report were from the local democracy reporting service).
Read our original report here
Northampton Borough Council’s last big deal
With just weeks to go before it is wound down, Conservative-led Northampton Borough Council has put in motion what is planned to be the town’s biggest affordable housing development in recent times.
Northamptonshire Police has launched a criminal investigation into historic allegations of sexual abuse at a rural public school.
Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, who owns the Althorp estate, detailed allegations of abuse he suffered at Maidwell School in the 1970s, in his book A very private school, which was published earlier this year.
Police said in a statement earlier this week that it had made preliminary enquiries into allegations of abuse before launching this new investigation.
A spokesperson said:
“We are in the early stages of investigating a number of non-recent allegations of sexual abuse at Maidwell Hall School.
“Northamptonshire Police takes all allegations of abuse very seriously and where reports are made to us, we will pursue all available lines of enquiry to help bring perpetrators to justice.
“We encourage anyone who has suffered abuse anywhere in our county, at any time, to contact us either online at northants.police.uk, by calling 101 or 03000 111 222 if you’re calling from outside of Northamptonshire.”
The inquest of Harry Dunn took place this week at Northampton coroners court. The death of the teenager, who died after he was involved in a crash on a country road close to RAF Croughton, made international news, after the American driver who caused the accident, flew back to the US. His family pursued Anne Sacoolas and ensured that she faced justice. She was sentenced, via video link to a suspended eight month sentence for death by careless driving.
Sacoolas did not attend the inquest, but statements were read out in which she admitted driving on the wrong side and said it was a tragic mistake that will live with her for life.
His family have been critical of her decision not to attend the inquest and face questions from them. They now would like a public enquiry.
North Northamptonshire Council has had to take £9.2m out of reserves to balance its books this financial year. The authority, which had an end budget of £339m for services, had an overspend of just under £15m for its children’s services. It had an underspend of £3.6m in its place and economy directorate.
The final out turn report for the 2023/24 financial year was discussed by the cabinet yesterday.
All throughout June we are raising funds that will pay for additional reporting at the general election counts in Northampton and Kettering on July 4. All donations will be match funded by the Public Interest News Foundation and you can donate below
The books haven’t balanced in this county for a decade now, we’ve suffered the reputational damage and worse the cost to front line services.
The commissioners came in and split the county and here we are in the same position.
Is it Cabinet? Chief execs? Directors? Who is accountable for our public services?
Read the confusing previous article on the University campussss.
Talks about Park Avenue, yet much appears to be about St Georges Avenue.
Any money still outstanding from the University ?
Also beware the hypocrisy of the term "affordable Housing" i.e.defined as up to 70% of market value - the politicians are bandying the same stuff out there.
Finally, another case of public money movement not being disclosed for "confidentiality reasons". You bet. (but not on when the election will be held).