Shropshire Star comment: Reasoning falls in line with banks
Faced, like most councils, with the need to save money, it is understandable perhaps that Shropshire Council is reviewing its customer service points.
It's a tough call, and the council says the changes reflect different customer habits, and points out that it is still open.
But there is no getting away from the fact that it is a move which makes Shropshire Council more distant from at least some of those it serves.
It is a step in the direction of centralisation and consolidation in a large county with a vast geographical swathe.
Instead of aspiring to serve the customers at their – the customers' – convenience, it is now the customers who will be having to fit in with what operationally and financially better suits the council, a body which of course the customers are themselves funding.
The move is not just about saving money, contends the council, but reflects changes in the way people choose to contact the authority, with most phoning up to deal with this or that rather than visiting offices in person.
Indeed, some of the smaller offices are said not to see anyone go in for months at a time – and why bother to travel miles to a distant council office if you can simply ring up?
Degraded
This line of argument sounds rather like what the banks say when they close their branches in small towns. Everybody banks online now, they say, in effect.
But some don't, perhaps being of the generation for whom popping into the bank is a habit, a face-to-face method with which they are most comfortable. For these people, closing the branches gives them a like it or lump it choice.
Cutting the opening hours of six main face-to-face council offices – the move is a recommendation going before Cabinet members next week – will retain the choice to some extent, but it will be a degraded and more restricted choice.
And a contract which sees customer support at smaller offices in smaller Shropshire towns looks like it is not going to be renewed.
Council figures show that there has been a very significant drop in the number of people visiting the offices, so there is a dilemma revolving around how great a store should be placed on retaining a form of service delivery which continues to have value for some customers, even while others are finding different ways of doing things.
Some will call it progress. Some will call it increased efficiency. Yet for some it will cause inconvenience, and these people should not be treated as if they don't matter.
