Complaints in Falkirk over bins double during lockdown

Complaints to Falkirk Council about its bin collections more than doubled during the lockdown period.
Falkirk Council wheelie binFalkirk Council wheelie bin
Falkirk Council wheelie bin

A report to Falkirk Council's scrutiny committee revealed complaints about household waste collection shot up to 984 in 2019/20 compared to

456 in 2018/19.

At the start of lockdown, recycling collections were suspended and the recycling centres in Denny and Bo'ness were both closed, both of which led to a surge in complaints.

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The service also reported a rise when the burgundy bin for paper and card was introduced over a few months in late 2019.

Complaints about housing repairs also increased to 980, although housing manager Kenny Gillespie pointed out that this was out of 50,000 repairs that are carried out by the council every year.

The number of complaints the council received per 1,000 population also rose, from 30.9 compared to 22.9 the previous year.

In total 4979 complaints were received, compared to 3670 in 2018/19.

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Most of these were resolved at the first stage and 43 per cent of them were upheld or partially upheld.

The annual report says that complaints will be learned from and they have led to changes, such as setting up a new customer services team for the housing department and using more online forms.

Councillor Jim Blackwood said he was surprised that the council's call centre had not attracted more complaints.

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"You can sit there for ages with no background noise and no indication of how long you're going to sit there.

"I'm surprised that we don't have more complaints - maybe they can't get through to make a complaint?" he suggested.

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