BANES should be customer/resident focussed in the way it operates but too often it is not.
The frontline staff often lack authority to act and there are often too many layers of management between them and decision makers.
Resident impact ought to be an early consideration for any project plan or policy creation discussion but to often impact on residents and residential amenity is only addressed when complaints and criticisms arise. By this stage electors are unhappy and the cost of resolving any issues will be high.
Some parts of BANES and some officers are much better at customer service than others but there appears to be no effective process for spreading or rewarding best practice consistently.
This has allowed a culture to develop in to many areas where instead of looking for ways in which to address residents’ issue officers fall back on using regulations and custom and practice to find reasons for not confronting problems or being creative,