Our Ducking and Diving Hastings Borough Council
Being unfortunate enough to be disabled I successfully applied for the disable assisted collection service provided on behalf of Hastings council by the Waste and Recycling Service. I had cause to complain about this service because of the amount of times that they failed to empty our bins and even more cause to complain after they made an unscheduled visit to my home and refused to show any identification and made allegations of fraud against.
Even though I gave ample evidence of the truth to Hastings Borough Council. Even though the waste and recycling service headed by Colin Mee admitted their dreadful behaviour towards any disabled person that they might take a dislike to Hastings Council allowed Colin Mee to remove us from the assisted collection service.
The following is a true and accurate account it may not effect you today but you could have an accident. You will get old. It will effect you then.
-----Original Message-----From: Graeme Morgan mailto:churchillunited@hotmail.co.ukSent: 19 February 2008 20:05To: TwinBinSubject: ComplaintDear sir/Madam,I am writing in regard to my complaints following the visit and telephone conversations that took place between myself and your employee Sandy the 19th February 2008.
QuestionI would appreciate it if you would supply me with the following informationHas this employee had any training at all in communicating or dealing with disabled people?
Answer
Yes, the employee in question has had training with dealing with disabled people as she previously worked with disadvantaged children
QuestionIs it normal practice for your employees to make unscheduled housecalls?
Answer
Yes, it is normal for our employees to make unscheduled home visits when investigating Assisted Collection applications or issues regarding refuse collection
QuestionDo your employees have authorisation to discuss applications with non applicants?
Answer
Our understanding of the situation is that the officer in question asked the occupant in the property at the time if he lived there permanently, he replied yes. She also informed him that as there was an able-bodied resident in the property the applicant no longer qualified for an Assisted Collection. At no time did the officer discuss specifics of your application
QuestionDo your employees have authorisation to discuss details of applicaions with any person other than the person making those applications?
Answer
Our understanding of the situation is that the officer in question asked the occupant in the property at the time if he lived there permanently, he replied yes. She also informed him that as there was an able-bodied resident in the property the applicant no longer qualified for an Assisted Collection. At no time did the officer discuss specifics of your application
QuestionIs it standard policy to refuse any applicant permission or access to speak with a manager or supervisor?
Answer
At the time of your calls (Tuesday 19th PM) the manager Mr Dunford was on annual leave, and is until Monday 25th February. Both the Admin Manager and Head of Waste Services, were in a meeting. Therefore there was no manager or supervisor available, at that time to take your call. Please accept my apologies as one of our managers could have called you back at a later time.
QuestionDo you have a formal complaints procedure?
Answer
We do have a formal complaints procedure. In order to begin this procedure you need to contact Wendy Beaden on 451479 or download the form via the internet
QuestionIs it policy for your employees to refuse to offer any kind of confirmation as to the validuty of their identity and/or employment position within your company?
Answer
It is Council policy for all employees to show identification when requested, in this case identification was not requested. However, the officer in question did leave a business card with the occupant at the time of their visit to identify who had called.
QuestionIs it correct that there is no one with the authority of even a manager or a supervisor in attendance anywhere within your company before the 25th of February 2008.
Answer
As previously mentioned, Mr Dunford is on annual leave until Monday 25th February
I would like to move this complaint forward and in order to try and resolve this issue efficiently, we suggest that both Mr Dunford and the officer in question make a second home visit to discuss and resolve this problem. In the meantime your Assisted Collection will continue, therefore, please ignore letter dated 19th February stating that Assisted Collection will cease.
In order to arrange a home visit please reply with the most convenient dates and times, for the week commencing 25th February we will endeavour to arrange another home visit as soon as possible to resolve the matter.
Yours Sincerely
Waste and Recycling
Colin Mee
Head of Waste Services

Yours FaithfullyGraeme Morgan

From:RefuseandRecycling (RefuseandRecycling@hastings.gov.uk)Sent:20 February 2008 10:04:55To: Graeme Morgan (churchillunited@hotmail.co.uk)
Dear Mr Morgan
Thank you for your email regarding the visit and telephone calls relating to your Assisted Collection. I will answer your points in the format you have presented them.
1. Yes, the employee in question has had training with dealing with disabled people as she previously worked with disadvantaged children.
2. Yes, it is normal for our employees to make unscheduled home visits when investigating Assisted Collection applications or issues regarding refuse collection.
3. Our understanding of the situation is that the officer in question asked the occupant in the property at the time if he lived there permanently, he replied yes. She also informed him that as there was an able-bodied resident in the property the applicant no longer qualified for an Assisted Collection. At no time did the officer discuss specifics of your application.
4. At the time of your calls (Tuesday 19th PM) the manager Mr Dunford was on annual leave, and is until Monday 25th February. Both the Admin Manager and Head of Waste Services, were in a meeting. Therefore there was no manager or supervisor available, at that time to take your call. Please accept my apologies as one of our managers could have called you back at a later time.
5. We do have a formal complaints procedure. In order to begin this procedure you need to contact Wendy Beaden on 451479 or download the form via the internet.
6. It is Council policy for all employees to show identification when requested, in this case identification was not requested. However, the officer in question did leave a business card with the occupant at the time of their visit to identify who had called.
7. As previously mentioned, Mr Dunford is on annual leave until Monday 25th February.
I would like to move this complaint forward and in order to try and resolve this issue efficiently, we suggest that both Mr Dunford and the officer in question make a second home visit to discuss and resolve this problem. In the meantime your Assisted Collection will continue, therefore, please ignore letter dated 19th February stating that Assisted Collection will cease.
In order to arrange a home visit please reply with the most convenient dates and times, for the week commencing 25th February we will endeavour to arrange another home visit as soon as possible to resolve the matter.
Yours Sincerely
Waste and Recycling
Colin Mee
Head of Waste Services
My reply is shown in bold print
Dear Mr Mee,below is a copy of the reply to my complaint from Mrs Beaden and my comments in reply to her findings.I would be very grateful if you would now let me know your decision in regard to my application for the assisted collection service. I have not mentioned to Mrs Beaden how upsetting it was to recieve such a very premature written notice of my removal from this much needed service in the first place because there is no indication of any council interest in it in her reply but I do hope that you will comment on this as it was clearly sent out immediately by your member of staff known as Sandy before any manager could make a sensible decision and as most of your correspondence seems to carry your signature I hope that you will find it as upsetting as I did.
Dear Mrs Beaden,
Thank you very much for your reply and also the time that you must have spent looking into these matters before you close this complaint I would be grateful if you would consider the following points in bold below.
Dear Mr Morgan
Complaint regarding Hastings Borough Council
I write following completion of my enquiries into your complaint about contact made by the Twin Bin team regarding Assisted Collection of your wheeled bins.
As I explained when we spoke, the matter of your inclusion, or otherwise, within the Assisted Collection scheme is a matter for the Waste and Recycling Manager, Colin Mee, to decide upon. However, with regard to the other aspects of your complaint, I shall respond to these in the order in which they were raised in your emailed letter of 19 February last; I think that this is wrong. The inclusion should be a decision governed by a fully qualified medical practitioner and Mr Mee should be compelled to follow any medical advice he is given in regard to his customers.
Identification
Although you feel ‘Sandy’ failed to identify herself properly when you called the Twin Bin team, she clearly provided you with her forename, which was sufficient information to allow us to establish who you had spoken with.
Whilst it is, thankfully, rare for a customer to have an ulterior motive when requesting that an officer also provides their surname, we have had instances where this has led to harassment, and so we do not insist that officers provide their surname. I can understand your concerns in regard to possible harrassment to your employees or the employees of the waste collection services but your reply I feel is over protective to the waste collection services and offers no protection for elderly or disabled residents. It would take me or anyone else a few minutes to create a postcard on my computer and call myself Sandy or Danny or any other name. It would cause no disruption to the council or to the collection services if they dispensed with names and gave their officers identity numbers or even false sirnames. Better still dispense with unscheduled visits for collection services altogether and a whole host of problems are immediately solved. I do not want a postcard at the end of a visit. I want acceptable I.d before anyone enters my home or starts any unnecessary interrogation. As I am certain Mr Mee would.
Unscheduled visit
The visit was prompted by an apparent inconsistency between your household status and your request for an additional wheeled bin, and whilst the majority of our visits will be made by appointment, the nature of this visit meant that it was, necessarily, ‘unannounced’. The unscheduled visit referred to took place many weeks after my request for an additional bin so there was no justifiable excuse for the collection services to call unannounced especially as I was speaking to them on a very regular basis over the telephone.
Having said which, we would expect officers to identify themselves at the earliest opportunity by showing their identification card, and although the officer apparently left a calling card with you son, I have raised this issue with the Twin Bin manager, who will ensure his team are reminded of their need to do so.
Continued/…2
2/…continued
Household Members
You have explained that you were very concerned when the Field Officer who had visited advised you that there were six people of voting age living at your address, especially as you understood this information had been obtained from Council Tax records.
In fact, the dedicated Twin Bin Enforcement Officer only has the facility to check the same electoral role data that is freely available to a member of the public, and doesn’t, quite correctly, have access to Council Tax records.This means that not only are they making unwelcome and unnecessary calls they are also lying to their customers in order to apply pressure on them. I find this completely abhorrent considering they deal mainly with the old or the disabled. The council should protect us from such practices if we behaved the same way to the council it would be fraud.
Unfortunately, as we do not currently have the facility to record telephone conversations, it is difficult to establish why the source of the information was incorrectly quoted to you, but I hope my confirmation of the correct facts has set your mind at rest. This highlights another untruth as they clearly state that calls are recorded. They should state from now on that calls are not recorded or set up a system that supplies the security they are claiming to provide.
False Information and Prosecution
You are concerned that you are apparently being accused of making false statements regarding your state of health, and that this may result in prosecution.
In fact, as explained earlier in this letter, the query regarding Assisted Collection of your wheeled bins does not relate to your state of health, but rather to inconsistencies regarding the number of household members. I completely disagree with this because it makes no difference how many people are in a household the assisted service should be focussed entirely on the state of health of the individual who they are holding responsible for moving these overweight bins.
Access to Senior Managers
You have explained that despite repeated requests to speak with a manager or supervisor of the Twin Bin team when you called on 19 February, your requests were refused.
I can confirm that because the Twin Bin Project Manager was absent from the office that week, and the Head of Waste & Recycling was, indeed, attending a meeting when you called, it was simply not possible for you to immediately speak with either of them, and there was not, in fact, any intention to refuse your requests. The reply in regard to this element of my complaint disagrees with you. The collection services stated that there were no managerial staff at those oiffices for at least one week. The collection services have already given a full apology for this stating that it was completely untrue and that they were very wrong to deny me access to a senior member of staff. They also stated that there were senior members of staff on duty at that time.
Uncollected Waste
I understand that all outstanding waste has now been cleared, and that an additional grey waste-bin has been delivered to you. This is correct but only thanks to you which is not really how it should have been.
Other Matters
When we spoke, you explained that there was, perhaps, an especial need for officers involved with the Assisted Collection scheme, to be aware of the wider-ranging difficulties that people on the scheme might experience when being contacted by them.
For instance, you explained that since you need to take a variety of drugs on a daily basis, you are sometimes unable to deal effectively with telephone or personal contact, and you felt that officers should make an early enquiry of the person they were contacting as to whether they felt able to speak at that time.
Continued/…3
3/…continued
Your example is a very valid one, and this is an area that can be discussed by our disability working group. Thank you for progressing ith this I think it is very important. Disabled people so often feel ill/lack confidence etc etc any improvements in this area will be good for everyone.
And so, I hope my letter has reassured you regarding the purpose of the visit made on 19 February last, and would offer my thanks for your time in making me aware of your concerns, which has enabled us to address a number of contact issues.
Thank you for your involvement in this. I will wait to here from Mr Mee for the assisted collection decision. There is one other thing that I would ask you to consider. I will take a photo and send to you today as much as I support the recycling scheme please look at the photo and consider how it is changing the look and feel of our homes, not just my home but all over this estate and probably on many other estates in hastings.Best Wishes
Graeme
Yours sincerely
Wendy Beaden
Customer Services and Complaints Manager
Graeme & Lisa Morgan
Last month I was treated to an unscheduled visit by a lady called Sandy from the Waste and Recycling Service. Unfortunately I was out and this lady decided that as she was at my home she would discuss my needs and my original application with whoever was there at the time.
When I returned home I telephoned the waste and collection services and asked why Sandy had behaved in such an indiscreet manner and I was then passed to Sandy who falsely accused me of fraud and a host of other crimes.
I asked Sandy why she had refused to show identification when she called at my house she replied that she left a postcard when she left.
I then asked her if she had any training in dealing with the disabled or with disabled people who might have to take strong prescripton drugs. She replied yes I am fully trained. I used to work with children.
I asked her if I could speak with a manager or a supervisor but she inormed me that the waste and collection services under the guidance of Mr Colin Mee had no managers or supervisors on duty for at least a week.
I informed her that I intended to lodge a complaint about her visit and her behaviour throughout that visit and my name was removed from the assisted collection service at that precise time.
I went ahead with my complaint via a Mrs Wendy Beaden at Hastings Town Hall.
My complaint and the replies are shown below. Today 17th March 2008 I was once again removed from the assisted collection service aganst medical advice simply because as with all complaints it is the policy of Hastings Borough Council to bury them rather than solve them.
Home
Amicus Horizon
1066
www.theavenue.us
www.churchillunited.co.uk
www.petal.me.uk
www.silentlaughter.co.uk
www.timdrake.co.uk

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in regard to a telephone conversation that took place between myself and a lady named Sandy from the Waste Environmental & Safety, Century House, 100 Menzies road St Leonards on Sea this afternoon at approx 3.p.m the 19th of February 2008.
I will refer to this lady as Sandy as she refused to identify herself properly on the telephone despite my request for her to do so.
Until today I was included in the assisted bin collection service and although this assistance was at best sporadic I was/am fully entitled to receive this assistance and still do need to receive it.
The lady referred to above made an unscheduled visit to my home today while I was out and she spoke to my son Charles. I cannot give a true account of the conversation that took place between them because both accounts vary drastically in regard to what was actually said but when I returned home my son informed me that she was removing my name from the assisted bin collection service. I was/am extremely concerned about this decision because it is not possible or medically wise for me or my wife to move these heavy bins on and off of our property.
When I telephoned ( 0845 274 1077) I was put through to the lady who had called at my house and she told me that I was under investigation for giving false information on the original form. She was extremely rude and the telephone conversation very quickly turned into a very stressful and insulting investigation. She told me that;
a.) There are six people of voting age living at my address and so I am not entitled to benefit from the assisted collection service.
The above accusation is false and I was so concerned by her accusation that I registered myself with the credit reference agency called Experian at a cost of £6.99 so that I could check the accuracy of her allegations. With their assistance I was able to ascertain that there are four people of voting age registered at my address; Myself and my wife and my two sons Charles and Daniel if the council records do not confirm this then the council records are faulty and need correcting.
b.) The lady then accused me of giving false information on the form requesting assisted collection for a variety of other reasons that she would not go into.
I cannot answer these false allegations in any acceptable way without knowing exactly what it is that I am accused of doing but I can confirm to you without this knowledge that any allegations regarding any information I have given are completely false because I do not make false declarations of any kind on any type of official form or application and I have never done so.
I was so concerned about these allegation that I took the trouble to enquire with my doctors surgery who confirmed and are willing to confirm again if necessary that I do need assisted collection.
I contacted the citizens advice bureau via my solicitors Holden and company and I also contacted the Disability discrimination department via the .gov website and later spoke to them on the telephone. They all confirmed to me that I was/am still entitled to the assisted collection and seemed equally concerned at the visit and the accusations against me.
The lady then changed the conversation and started to refer to council tax? employment? and made suggestions that my son is a liar. Even at the end of the telephone conversation she insisted that I had definitely made false declarations and that she intended to pursue the possibility of prosecution.
When I began to have justifiable doubts about the validity of her claims she refused to give me any kind of confirmation regarding her identity and her tone and the content of her accusations remained insulting and oppressive throughout the entire call. It is my understanding that these calls are recorded and I hope that you will request a copy of that recording?.
In order to get through an average day it is necessary for me to take 500 mg of Tramadol four times a day. Tramadol is a very powerful pain killer. 30mg of Lansaprazole to counter the effects of the other medicine I am taking and 60mg of Etoricoxib daily I also have to use a diethylamine salicylate cream on my arms four times a day.
I have no doubt at all and I am sure my doctor will confirm to you if you would like to make further enquiries that if I was to attempt to move one of these heavy bins up the steps from my house I would require an ambulance and hospital attention.
It is humiliating enough to require this assistance but it is beyond decent and acceptable behaviour to have anyone call at your home and make such information the subject of a public debate. The waste services division informed everyone needing their assistance that our bins would have pink stickers on them so that our needs would be kept confidential at no time did anyone suggest that they would stand on doorsteps making unfounded accusations against those who were less able than their neighbours.
Even with the assisted collection they have failed to empty our bins on at least six occasions (Their own telephone log should confirm this) and we are still awaiting delivery of our black bin and the pile of bin bags stored in my back garden will show that to be true (Their own telephone log should also confirm this).
My condition is also made considerably worse by stress and I remain extremely upset by this lady,s false accusations and the worry of her threats and I have no idea how I am supposed to dispose of my rubbish because I am physically unable to move these bins as is my wife and I have no one else available to give this assistance.
Without seeing it I am happy to confirm that I do not wish to make any changes or alterations to any of the information I have submitted to the council or any of its partners.
Please accept this letter as an official complaint and an official request to for you to investigate me in order to clear me of these false allegations. I would also be very grateful if you would assist in arranging a meeting between your investigators and myself with either my solicitor or a doctor present but I do want this matter cleared up properly because I do not commit fraud.
Finally I did request that I be allowed to talk with a manager or a supervisor and the lady informed me that here were no managers or supervisors available before the 25th of February 2008. I called back three times today in an effort to speak to someone in authority but on each occasion my request was refused.
I have to call the citizens advice bureau again tomorrow and the DDA but I would appreciate it if you could look into this matter in the meantime as I feel it is of the greatest importance to all disabled sufferers in this area.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Mr Graeme F Morgan
Graeme & Lisa Morgan
You will care if your grandmother gets burgled because refusing to show I.D becomes acceptable.