Why do people feel so comfortable lying to councils?

estebanrey said:
I can only guess it's down the the mentality that because council tax is a legal requirement and that we're called "public servants" we should do whatever they want, including clearing up after their mistakes.
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I do it if I forget to put the bin out (no CCTV here), I work on the basis that as I am already doing most of the councils/refuse collectors job by separating crap into different bins they effectively owe me one.
 
LordSplodge said:
How much does it cost to equip a fleet of garbage trucks with CCTV? Councils say they're strapped for cash. What does CCTV achieve other than to show a bin wasn't put out? Seems to RTO of such a system might be oversold.
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Its for insurance claims and to show anti-social driving, you can imagine how many people make a claim that the bin lorry did the damage, or cant wait 30 seconds for the vehicle to move and will mount the path or hit the guy.

estebanrey you are on a losing battle posting on here, people will have had a minor issue with the council 10 years ago and still hold a grudge and believe every service they offer is a complete waste of money, i've not read anything apart from my "email wasn't answered" or "the good old days" Councils offer such a wide range of services people cannot honestly believe they are all terrible, my kids school is brilliant, so is the lollipop person, my rubbish collections are always carried out, my streets clean, the toilets are open when I need to use them, the grass is cut in parks, the seafront is nice to walk along, the roads are not full of holes, the street lights work, you could go on and on.....
 
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estebanrey said:
Sadly people only tend to think in isolation, they thing an extra two steps is nothing. What they forget is that the guys are servicing around 1,500 households a day and those extra few seconds per household turn into a few extra hours when you multiply it across the whole round.

As I stated above that extra 'foot' has a huge multiplcation cost when you consider all the houses being serviced.
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Haha, seriously you didn't just try to justify the bin men not walking an extra foot or so!

If every house left their bin 2ft away from where it should be, it would add on less than an hour per day. I would say less than 2% would leave their bin like that. Your argument is precisely why people dislike local councils!!
 
ubersonic said:
I do it if I forget to put the bin out (no CCTV here), I work on the basis that as I am already doing most of the councils/refuse collectors job by separating crap into different bins they effectively owe me one.
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Jesus, how entitled are you? Maybe you should just chuck YOUR rubbish on the floor in your house and expect the council to come round and pick it up whilst empting the bins in your living room and kitchen. :rolleyes:

MarkeR said:
Haha, seriously you didn't just try to justify the bin men not walking an extra foot or so!

If every house left their bin 2ft away from where it should be, it would add on less than an hour per day. I would say less than 2% would leave their bin like that. Your argument is precisely why people dislike local councils!!
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Even if I accept your low estimate, would you be happy to work an extra hour everyday, an extra 5 hours a week or the equivalent of 6 extra weeks a year?

Not to mention the financial cost to the taxpayer for all those extra hours.

Your only 2% would do it argument is just silly. Firstly there's the domino effect (Mrs Hoggins sees her next door neighbour leaving her bin 2 feet into her garden so thinks, why should I put mine out properly when she doesn't have to and so on). Before long everyone in the street is leaving it two feet away. Mrs Hoggins then starts leaving her 4 feet away arguing "it's only an extra two feet from where I normally leave it" and after enough time the bins are left up the door.

Secondly, would say an airport ever think "seeing as only 2% of people forget their passports we must as well just let them on". You can't have a rule then forget it exists because only a small number break it.
 
aaron said:
Cobalt by any chance? god I dont miss the days of working there. It was horrendous getting out there and the two hours really is not an exaggeration.

Pathetic council as well! I moved into a property in September last year and it took until December till I could actually pay council tax due to them having my name down as Alan instead of Aaron. After months of repeated phone calls and emails they finally changed my name after I had to go to the office in wallsend to "prove who I said I was" and then they went and messed up my single resident discount which took another 2 months to resolve. Shambles!!!
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Yup. People were just staying in our office there until half six or half seven every night as it was utterly pointless trying to leave.
I still can't get to grips with how the council planning department ever even considered those roadworks as being an acceptable idea in the three locations at the same time. Either incredibly poor foresight or just utterly incompetent planning. Either way it must have cost businesses millions. Individuals hundreds in wasted fuel. More importantly though so many people lost so much time sitting in traffic for nothing. Three or four hours a day for six months for tens of thousands of people.
 
Please lie when they think they can get away with it.

I sure didn't know bin lorries had CCTV on them and it's obvious the people that complained didn't know either.

Contributing to making the decision to lie people factor in the consequences of getting caught. Thinking that there is absolutely no retribution that can happen will convince people that are on the fence about whether to complain if there is a benefit to be had - i.e. they know they'll be more than filling the bin again that week.

Essentially you're confirming the assumption that nothing will happen if they get "caught" lying and knowing this it's likely they might even try again; hoping that the CCTV might be out that day.
 
Goberpiles316 said:
Its for insurance claims and to show anti-social driving, you can imagine how many people make a claim that the bin lorry did the damage, or cant wait 30 seconds for the vehicle to move and will mount the path or hit the guy.

estebanrey you are on a losing battle posting on here, people will have had a minor issue with the council 10 years ago and still hold a grudge and believe every service they offer is a complete waste of money, i've not read anything apart from my "email wasn't answered" or "the good old days" Councils offer such a wide range of services people cannot honestly believe they are all terrible, my kids school is brilliant, so is the lollipop person, my rubbish collections are always carried out, my streets clean, the toilets are open when I need to use them, the grass is cut in parks, the seafront is nice to walk along, the roads are not full of holes, the street lights work, you could go on and on.....
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Ahh, litigation culture.

You're spot on about peoples attitudes towards councils and public sector workers though.
 
tribz said:
I called my local council a few months ago but no-one answered and there was no answering machine. About 15 minutes later, they must have used called ID and called me back! I was quite impressed.
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They were able to call you back because (like all councils) they are spying on you.

I agree with those saying it was better in the old days. Proper metal bins that they would lift with a smile and doff their cap accompanied by a cheery "Morning guv'nor". Tip them with a piece of coal at Christmas and they would clean your windows all year too. Not like today where you can't even put out a few body parts without some jobsworth saying they "Can't take medical waste" and "Need to inform the police". :mad:
 
ubersonic said:
As entitled as any other paying customer, I have seen the quality of service drop and the price not, I have also been required to do some of the work I pay for, and so as would be normal I am bitter about getting ripped off.
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But you don't even know the "price" of bin collections. How much you pay in council tax and how much of that is allocated to bin collections aren't directly linked like you think you are.

The extra you are paying is probably going to cover the government cuts to things like social care.

This is what irks me, people think because their council tax has gone then, then the money spent on the things they personally use has gone up as well.

If we got even 5% of the entire CT income we'd be able to employ twice the number of guys and we'd get your rubbish from your back garden for you.
 
I guess people don't realise about the cameras and try it on not knowing they could get caught out. I think if it was obvious this was in place your workload would drop by 50% - because people are still dumb.

We would then have to let you go and save the tax payer some more money ;-)
 
Goberpiles316 said:
Its for insurance claims and to show anti-social driving, you can imagine how many people make a claim that the bin lorry did the damage, or cant wait 30 seconds for the vehicle to move and will mount the path or hit the guy.

estebanrey you are on a losing battle posting on here, people will have had a minor issue with the council 10 years ago and still hold a grudge and believe every service they offer is a complete waste of money, i've not read anything apart from my "email wasn't answered" or "the good old days" Councils offer such a wide range of services people cannot honestly believe they are all terrible, my kids school is brilliant, so is the lollipop person, my rubbish collections are always carried out, my streets clean, the toilets are open when I need to use them, the grass is cut in parks, the seafront is nice to walk along, the roads are not full of holes, the street lights work, you could go on and on.....
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You still have Public Toilets ? :shock:

The Binsters are good where we are. The grass gets cut regularly but I've noticed this latest cut that the grass has a "blunt blade" slashed effect on it !

We have 3 bins as well but our council decided to start charging £40 to empty the garden (brown) one so all that stuff now goes in the general (black) bin.

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/...council-sorry-over-brown-bins-error-1-6073422
 
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Dont exactly have a high opinion of the council... each year they reduce services (e.g. decreasing bin collection frequency) and increase cost to the taxpayer. That for me straight off the bat is mismanagement and an inability to manage their budget properly through probably incompetence...so they pass off their incompetencies to the taxpayer.

Then you hear of things like these happening all over the country..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...candal-The-catalogue-of-council-failings.html

http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/feb/27/council-gatekeeping-scandal-homeless-exposed

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...uit-grooming-scandal-gets-600-000-payoff.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20467926

http://wingsoverscotland.com/probably-a-robbery/
petition-for-a-public-inquiry-into-the-running-of-city-of-edinburgh-council

You dont need to even look for this...pages and pages of this...

Really its ridiculous the amount of times councils have failed their local residents through one means or another... Or more accurately they are rarely properly held accountable... So no i dont have a lot of trust or confidence in them at all.
 
The flipside to the OP's question... our councillors have absolutely no qualms about lying to us, and do so with predictable regularity.
 
Our bin men are excellent, always have been no matter where I've lived.
The fact that I show my appreciation for their efforts every Christmas with a big box of Quality Street or Celebrations doesn't hurt...
 
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