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SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, September 26, 2016

QUESTION NO.25

QUESTION: Councillor D. O'Donovan

To ask the Chief Executive how many complaints about grass cutting were received over the past four months.  What plans are to be put in place to ensure an adequate service is delivered next Summer?

REPLY:

The Council's customer contact system has been examined for the period May 1st to August 31st with regard to recorded complaints relating to the Council's grass cutting operation.  The table below summarises these by month and by category.

Month	Elected members (Membersreps all services)	Elected members (grass only)	Elected members and public (grass only)
May	510	18	134
June	692	64	280
July	607	30	108
August	709	13	75
Totals	2,518	125	597

A total of 597 grass cutting complaints across the entire county are logged on the system for the 4 month period in question.  The vast majority of complaints related to one of two main issues, either the spread of grass cuttings onto adjoining roads and footpaths or the omission of specific areas of open space from the fortnightly grass cutting schedule.  The number of complaints received in May was 134, it reached a peak of 280 in June and then reduced to 108 in July and 75 in August.  It is currently at 26 in the month to September 15th.  The reducing number of complaints indicates that the standard of grass cutting improved as the summer progressed.  It should be noted that complaints from elected members relating to grass also peaked in June and then reduced substantially, while the total number of complaints from elected members about all issues did not reduce in the same manner.  

The recent recruitment of new staff and filling of existing vacancies has led to an improved adherence to the grass cutting schedule and an improvement in the standard achieved. As the Gateway job activation scheme winds down some staff will also be reassigned from this to grass cutting. It is proposed that these additional staff resources will continue to be assigned to grass cutting for the remainder of 2016 and will again be assigned to this work in 2017. 

With regard to the spread of grass cuttings onto adjoining footpaths and roads, an instruction was issued to staff in early July regarding the need to keep paths and roads free from grass cuttings and in the event that such spread does happen then action is required to be taken to remedy the situation. This matter is being monitored by the public realm supervisors and it is felt that there has been a general improvement in this regard following the instruction having been issued.

It is clear that adherence to the fortnightly cutting frequency is key to achieving a good standard of grass cutting. It is also clear that the majority of problems and complaints tend to arise in the early part of the cutting season and in general tend to be resolved within a period of weeks, as indicated by the reducing number of complaints.  It is proposed that a detailed analysis of complaints received in 2016 will be carried out and this should assist in identifying any recurring problems that there are.  It should be noted that when analysing the number of complaints it was found that a number of complaints were at times received about the same issue and these have all been counted as individual complaints.  It is also worth pointing out that the Council received repeat contacts about certain issues over a period of time and these have also been counted individually.  It is proposed that those recurring problems will be more closely monitored by supervisory staff in the coming year and that additional resources will be assigned to address them as early in the year as possible.