Your Ward

Councillor Surgeries

Councillors are expected to hold a surgery at least once a month to deal with Ward enquiries. Holiday periods of August & December and the period just before Council elections are excluded.

You may decide to rota surgeries with other ward members or carry them out on your own depending on the political make-up of the ward.

Together with ward colleagues, you are responsible for identifying the venue/s for your ward surgery. This should be at a location that is easily accessed by residents. Examples include a church hall, community center, library or Council building.

Councillors are responsible for contacting venue organisers to arrange bookings. Disabled access to the building, cost and consideration for the safety for yourself and others should be considered when booking a venue.

Once the surgery details have been arranged, posters advertising the venue can be printed using a corporate style, on request to member.support@lbbd.gov.uk

The cost of hire of surgery venues will be met by the Council. Kindly keep hire costs to a minimum. Please email invoices for payment to: member.support@lbbd.gov.uk

Please notify member.support@lbbd.gov.uk of any changes to surgery details so these can be updated on the Council's website.

Members Ward Surgery Booklet

We have designed a Members Ward Surgery Booklet to help assist members in holding their surgeries. The booklet contains Personal Safety Tips, information regarding Members Casework and an Surgery Premises Health and Safety Checklist. This booklet is available for all members via the link below:

Members Ward Surgery Booklet

Members’ Casework and Service Requests

The Do's and Don'ts of Members' Casework

Members’ Casework

Residents will raise issues that concern them at your Surgery, by phone or email, or even in the street. The Council has a dedicated team, the Feedback Team who will ensure you receive a reply from council officers within 10 working days. The Casework system also enables the Council to analyse the types of concerns raised by residents so we can improve our services.

Service Requests

If a resident reports an issue such as a fly tip, a broken streetlight or a missed bin, (to name but three examples), this would be a service request and would need to be reported by yourself, (using your council email address), or reported by the resident via My B&D.

How to raise Casework

Members’ Casework enquiries will be acknowledged within 24 hours and a full response provided within a maximum of 10 working days. To report your casework:

Email: members.feedback@lbbd.gov.uk

Call 0208 724 8989 (x 8989 internal)

If you see an issue yourself, such as a flytip or graffiti (for example), please report this as a service request via My B&D

What Information Do I Need to Provide?

The more detail you can give, the easier it will be to answer your enquiry. Please send your request to: members.feedback@lbbd.gov.uk

Confidentiality

At times, a family member or friend of the person whose case it is may contact you for an update. Their intention may be innocent but it is a breach of data protection to share the information with a third party. More importantly, sharing the information might cause difficulties for the resident whose case it is. Please remember to only give out information to the resident whose case you have taken up.

Please Note: if you have consent of the third party, written authorisation is still required before for LBBD can share information.

What Can and Can’t Be Dealt with by Members’ Casework?

As a councillor, you can best deal with casework concerning Council services and related local issues within your ward. The Council is very limited in its ability to resolve questions related to external bodies such as the Police or Registered Social Landlords.

The Casework system cannot be used for

School Admission Appeals,
PCN’s including Fixed Penalty notices for parking offences,
Homelessness Appeals,
Cases currently with the Ombudsman
Service requests ie: a missed bin, pot hole report etc.

All of the above cases have their own appeals process, which, in law, have to be followed.

How do I deal with complaints?

Sometimes you will receive an email from a resident, copied to you, that has been addressed to an MP, Corporate Complaints etc. In these circumstances please do not respond as the case will have been logged by the MP, Corporate Complaints etc.

In those cases where a resident has addressed their email both to you and to the MP and Corporate Complaints, the Feedback Team will log the case against the most appropriate category.

This means the Feedback Team will not process the same matter as casework and a complaint; it will be one or the other.

Crime Statistics

See and understand where crime is happening in your ward

A new web-based system of reporting key crimes and other issues is now available. This web-based format which reports local crime statistics in your ward, is available online. The latest figures relate to recorded crime.

The Borough Data Explorer allows you to compare the crime statistics within the 17 Barking and Dagenham wards. You can also compare the borough of Barking and Dagenham crime statistics to other London boroughs. Crime statistics can be viewed under the Safety heading

To get an even clearer picture of what is happening in your ward please report crime or suspected criminal activities using this website, even if you think the police must know what's going on.

For further support on using the website, please contact Penny Pyke on 020 8227 5292 or 07870 278 218 or email penny.pyke@lbbd.gov.uk.

Specific requests for data on your ward can be requested by contacting Inspector John Cooze on 020 8217 7964 or 07769 287 410 or email jon.p.crooze@met.pnn.police.uk The Safer Neighbourhood Team will endeavour depending on the nature of the request to respond within 24 hours.

Citizens’ Alliance Network

The interactive neighbourhood maps on the Citizens’ Alliance Network gives you an insight on what is going on in your ward areas. This includes up coming and past events as well as seeing where the Ward Budget have been spent.

The link below will lead you to the general My Neighbourhood hub:

My Neighbourhood

Alternately, The links below will lead you to the direct maps of the neighbourhood.

Barking Town

Dagenham East, the Village and Beyond

Becontree

Becontree Heath to Rush Green

Chadwell Heath and Marks Gate

Dagenham Dock and Beam Park

Thames and Riverside