TRAFFORD Council’s £1.9m “customer-first” website has been criticised by fed-up residents – as penalties for slips in One Trafford standards are revealed.

Trafford’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system - software designed to help organisations manage customer relationships – has come under fire.

Problems have predominantly arisen from the new way of reporting maintenance issues to the council, such as street lights not working, overflowing bins or flytipping.

The old system, which allowed residents to input specific locations and details, has been replaced by a mapping system, which forces users to select specific points – such as a specific lamp-post.

But residents said this is causing headaches as some locations can’t be selected or highlighted, so the issue can’t be reported.

Some have “given up” on the new system and resorted to sending emails with details of the issues direct to the council.

Others who did successfully submit an issue were confused to find the job marked as completed when it was yet to be resolved.

Trafford forked out £1,846,713.60 for the four-year fixed CRM contract.

“A sceptical approach could be to make the reporting process so problematic and confusing, residents give up trying to report issues,” said Altrincham resident Kevin Parker.

“This would result in only a small number of issues and complaints being reported, which is great for positive press coverage for Amey and Trafford Council on how efficient they are performing.”

And a Freedom of Information request from Kevin revealed what performance deductions have been imposed on maintenance provider Amey, which partnered with Trafford Council under the One Trafford umbrella in 2015.

In the period 2015/16, a £51,294 penalty was issued for waste management failures. This payment figure has not been agreed by both parties.

For May and June 2016, £4,469 was deducted from Amey for street cleaning and in July 2016, £2,503 was deducted in relation to grounds maintenance, penalties of which have been paid.

Trafford Council said it is committed to continually improving and expanding the facilities available for residents to report faults within its CRM system.

It said that it was aware problems have arisen resulting in logged reports being shown inaccurately as completed but that steps have been taken to rectify this.

“In relation to problems logging faults with street lighting, at the time the CRM system went live, all known street lights, apart from those in subways, were included into the mapping system,” said a council spokesperson.

“Currently the majority of forms used with the new CRM system do allow residents to add any further details, including new locations, if they so wish and over the next three months, this option will be incorporated into all other CRM forms.”

It also said that there is stringent monitoring of the contracted work undertaken by Amey under the One Trafford Partnership to ensure that it meets the service level agreement standards.

Where these standards are not met, the council said it will impose requirements on Amey to take steps to ensure improvements are achieved.

It asked that any members of the public experiencing issues selecting locations to report faults, report this by ringing 03330 035865.