Saturday, November 14th, 2026, 4:23 am
Manchester City Council Report Card – Part 14 – Irritated “Customers”, Not Only Yours Truly (They Cannot Handle Citizens)
Filed under: Empty rooms and offices; large buildings that seem like they exist for historical purposes (like some museum)
bout a week ago (8 days to be precise) we began this series that documents issues at Manchester City Council and its ‘service’, especially to people who want in-person services.
I was given options that didn’t exist or did not work; my wife too was given the same options 2 weeks later. It was consistently bad. It wasn’t me, it was them.
The same issues that I had experienced last month still prevailed this month.
At one point they told me to ring some number, wait for 10 minutes, then request a callback. So it would cost over 3 pounds only to request a callback. I was already there in person, why ask me to go elsewhere? (And not in person)
There were two or three people there behind the desk. A couple of workers doing nothing except gossip. At one point they were interrupted by an elderly man, who was visibly irritated but could not communicate well.
“I want to know…” he said…he mumbled about his landlord or something. I observed how they handled him. He had a walking stick and was struggling to speak.
They need to hire people who know how to deal with a plethora of “customers”. They must hire more and check the hires are actually good at the task/s assigned to them. I got the impression they were failing at it. On the phone, they were severely understaffed. In person, they were overstaffed, and mostly staffed by confrontational people who intimidate and stonewall.
In the next part, which will likely be the last in the series, we’ll talk about the waste of money – not just under-occupied staff but also buildings that exist for vanity, not for function.
