COUNCILLORS in Wrexham have called on the environment team to improve their system of handling complaints about missed bin collections.

The subject of bins not always being collected at the scheduled time came up during a meeting of Wrexham Council's Customers, Performance, Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee.

This scrutiny committee was hearing an update on the level of complaints and compliments received by the council over the past year.

Missed bin collections proved to be the source of the majority of the 477 formal and informal complaints made last year.

A number of councillors raised concerns during the meeting and called on the council to look at ways to improve the service and communication with any residents who did get in touch to flag up a missed collection.

It was agreed that this should be looked into to see if any appropriate improvement plans were already in place or needed to be put in place.

The committee, chaired by Cllr Carrie Harper, also agreed that any future reports about complaints brought before them should focus on early action to prevent any recurring issues being raised with the council.

They feel that the departments concerned should then be monitored, with action plans created to address any issues identified.

Councillors also requested that a workshop be held in 2022 once the elections had taken place, so all members, including those newly-elected, could be brought up to speed with the appropriate council processes for responding to complaints.

Cllr Sonia Benbow-Jones raised the issue of missed green bin collections, suggesting that when people contacted the council about this they would perceive that they were making a complaint.

She added: "People think that when registering their dissatisfaction that they are making a complaint that bins aren't being emptied - especially green bins, when people are paying £25 for this service.

"We just leave it in the void and people get very frustrated and angry.

"It should be a two-way dialogue. We seem to have a one-way dialogue.

"People perceive us as a black hole where nothing comes out."

She added: "When I tell people to contact us they get a standard answer and it's left in mid air. They never get a follow up that they have registered something, it's been dealt with and they get an explanation.

"We have got the tech. Why aren't we using it?"

Addressing the council's complaints team leader, Gareth Jones, Cllr Rob Walsh said: "It's quite a big area and I imagine it takes up a lot of your team's time.

"We have a statutory duty to investigate all complaints but would it be better to try to separate bin collections from all other complaints.

"When people go to the trouble of putting in a real complaint they want someone to be held accountable for what they perceive to be a very poor service.

"I get a lot of bin complaints. With bin collections, residents want their issues resolved.

"All they want to know is when will their bin be emptied if it hasn't been emptied at the scheduled time."

He added that he encouraged residents to get in touch with the contact centre themselves, stressing that staff were normally very good and worked hard to try to resolve any issues.

Committee chair, Cllr Carrie Harper said that councillors did need to ensure that any approaches regarding missed bin collections were correctly logged with the contact centre if they were trying to resolve the issue themselves.

Cllr Michael Dixon said that some people who had contacted the council about a missed collection were still waiting for a reply several weeks later.

He added: "If an email says that bins have not been collected due to unforeseen circumstances then what can be unforeseen?

"I don't want to be facetious but treat people as adults and just say that one of our vehicles has broken down or whatever the problem is, because people will be happy that we have told them.

"Otherwise, we will continue to drown in complaints."

Cllr Dana Davies suggested that the council should explore using text messaging to communicate with residents on the issue of mixed bin collections.

Gareth Jones said he agreed that there may be issues with the terminology used by the council in its complaints process.

He said that someone raising an issue with the council may consider this to be a complaint and it wasn't for the council to say otherwise.

He added that the council worked to national standards and guidelines which required them to follow the national policy set out by the Ombudsman.

He said that the majority of issues raised about missed bin collections were addressed, with every missed bin collection recorded.

Gareth Jones also advised residents to get in touch with the council's contact centre or their local councillor as their first point of contact, although the former option would ensure a clear audit trail.

He said: "We are looking at what's happened and how that service has dealt with that issue."

His team would step in if a complaint was escalated due to repeated collections having been missed.

He also said that the council should be more proactive in communicating the reason for a collection being delayed, adding that every complaint received a response, whether at the initial stage or by way of a formal complaint procedure.