COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, February 13, 2023

QUESTION NO.

QUESTION: Councillor Eoin Ó Broin

That the Chief Executive provides a report on what led to the 'Fix your Street' service being withdrawn.

REPLY:

Initially established by South Dublin County Council in 2011, the Fix Your Street service was rolled out to all local authorities in 2012 and this national service was moderated by SDCC throughout its operation.

When the service was terminated in July, the technical infrastructure on which the service was built was past its end of life. Technological developments over the past 11 years have meant that most local authorities now have customer relationship management systems in place that provide the public with similar mapping functionality directly through and integrated with their customer service portals on their websites.

While some individuals may like the concept of a national service, many others prefer to connect directly with their local authority, and this reflects the ethos of local government. An example of this is the recently developed website for all local government services LocalGov, which creates a national catalogue of all local government services. However, in all cases the user will be asked to name their local authority to access that service.

In summary what was once an innovative service developed for national use by SDCC is now catered for by most local authorities through their own online customer services that replicate the fault reporting mapping facility. This means the FYS service had become largely redundant, and the decision taken to terminate the FYS service was in recognition of that progress made while also closing an unacceptable level of risk posed to SDCC by the continued use of the platform on which the FYS service was built.

All SDCC customers are now using the Customer Care online form, which includes a similar mapping facility, for reporting faults.