Gulled
A few evenings ago, someone called us by telephone and identified herself as working on behalf of our local council (city hall). At present this is Edinburgh in Scotland. Like everyone else I dislike cold calls - but this turned out to be, to some degree, genuine - she worked for a market research company contracted by the council to interview local residents about council services.
My husband duly answered the questions - and soon got frustrated. The answers had to be couched in Strongly approve/Approve/ Tend to disapprove/ Disapprove form. At the very end he was allowed a twitter length use of his own words -’please speak slowly’.
The problem with this kind of interview is that it only passes for consultation. It is more about PR than useful change. He suspected the Council were, in effect, rigging their own reflection in an opinion poll.
One of Edinburgh’s main problems has been the effects of a hideously expensive and mismanaged tram scheme. For a couple of years now our previously quite quiet road has become a main road - a rerouting of traffic while the building works have gone on and on. The original people responsible are out of office and Edinburgh now has a professional manager handling matters the democratically elected (and now unelected) councillors ‘did not have the skill-sets for’. I am not aware anyone has brought up how the capital costs of the system will actually be met. None of this was part of the telephone consultation.
Perhaps consultation is the wrong word. In a year’s time Scotland will get another consultation in the form of a referendum - or a Yes/No choice between independence or not. Again my husband is not convinced. Whatever the result, he says, Scotland will get something called Devo-max - more devolved powers - on which nobody is being consulted.
His answers for the local council have been recorded and will be collated. So many per cent say this, so many that. Councillors will have a document and a text to refer to.
That’s one of the reasons I read. A text without texture and detail is misleading. One of the subjects brought up was ‘refuse collection.’ Nearly three weeks ago we were issued with a huge ‘gull-proof’ bag. It is made out of sacking, painted black and comes with velcro and flaps. The idea is that we put bags of refuse into the big bag and put it out at 6.45 on Tuesday evenings. (We used to have collections of Tuesdays and Fridays). These bags are designed to stop wildlife (gulls and crows mostly) ripping up the previous bags and scattering rubbish over the busy road.
We have, of course obeyed. We did receive a note that said that ‘after consultation’ this system had been adjudged the best. We weren’t consulted. Obviously nor were the refuse collectors.
Last week they sent a man ahead. He took the vulnerable bags out of the gull-proof bags and piled them in the road to make it easy for the lorry or refuse truck and the other collectors to work quickly. We did notice the workers have been issued with new red sweat shirts. In other words, a sweat shirt is no compensation for a system that makes work more difficult.
Now my husband is worried that his ‘consultation’ will be used for a change to a service yet to be identified.
My husband duly answered the questions - and soon got frustrated. The answers had to be couched in Strongly approve/Approve/ Tend to disapprove/ Disapprove form. At the very end he was allowed a twitter length use of his own words -’please speak slowly’.
The problem with this kind of interview is that it only passes for consultation. It is more about PR than useful change. He suspected the Council were, in effect, rigging their own reflection in an opinion poll.
One of Edinburgh’s main problems has been the effects of a hideously expensive and mismanaged tram scheme. For a couple of years now our previously quite quiet road has become a main road - a rerouting of traffic while the building works have gone on and on. The original people responsible are out of office and Edinburgh now has a professional manager handling matters the democratically elected (and now unelected) councillors ‘did not have the skill-sets for’. I am not aware anyone has brought up how the capital costs of the system will actually be met. None of this was part of the telephone consultation.
Perhaps consultation is the wrong word. In a year’s time Scotland will get another consultation in the form of a referendum - or a Yes/No choice between independence or not. Again my husband is not convinced. Whatever the result, he says, Scotland will get something called Devo-max - more devolved powers - on which nobody is being consulted.
His answers for the local council have been recorded and will be collated. So many per cent say this, so many that. Councillors will have a document and a text to refer to.
That’s one of the reasons I read. A text without texture and detail is misleading. One of the subjects brought up was ‘refuse collection.’ Nearly three weeks ago we were issued with a huge ‘gull-proof’ bag. It is made out of sacking, painted black and comes with velcro and flaps. The idea is that we put bags of refuse into the big bag and put it out at 6.45 on Tuesday evenings. (We used to have collections of Tuesdays and Fridays). These bags are designed to stop wildlife (gulls and crows mostly) ripping up the previous bags and scattering rubbish over the busy road.
We have, of course obeyed. We did receive a note that said that ‘after consultation’ this system had been adjudged the best. We weren’t consulted. Obviously nor were the refuse collectors.
Last week they sent a man ahead. He took the vulnerable bags out of the gull-proof bags and piled them in the road to make it easy for the lorry or refuse truck and the other collectors to work quickly. We did notice the workers have been issued with new red sweat shirts. In other words, a sweat shirt is no compensation for a system that makes work more difficult.
Now my husband is worried that his ‘consultation’ will be used for a change to a service yet to be identified.
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