Cambuslang House Office could face changes

Sep 9 2009 by Kenny Smith, Rutherglen Reformer

CAMBUSLANG housing office is set for a shake-up under new proposals being considered by South Lanarkshire Council.

The Reformer understands the local authority are planning to merge the back office staff at Cambuslang, with their counterparts from the area offices in in Blantyre, Larkhall, Carluke and Hamilton.

But South Lanarkshire propose that they will not fully withdraw their service from all the towns, by keeping a front counter presence in each of the areas.

It is understood that under the revised structure, there will be four housing managers instead of the current six, and the council aim to reduce the housing service posts from seven to six.

The council’s anti-social behaviour unit is also in line for changes, with the reduction of one of the management team, a supervisor and another post.

A spokesman for South Lanarkshire Council said: “In the interests of continuous improvement, we constantly assess the way we operate with the aim of offering the public a more effective and efficient service.

“With this in mind, there will be a transfer of some employees from our area offices in Blantyre, Larkhall and Carluke to existing area offices in Cambuslang, Hamilton and Lanark respectively.

“This reorganised service will see no dilution of the public service, with the existing Q&A provision being maintained in all current locations to ensure a continued availability of frontline service-delivery in all of the main towns across the council area.

“As a result of the transfer of employees, the number of managers’ and supervisors’ posts that are needed will reduce. Under this new structure, there will be four area managers and a reduction in the antisocial behaviour team of one team leader.

“However, I can assure South Lanarkshire residents that the service to them will not be adversely affected and, indeed, there will be a duty housing officer on hand in all offices to ensure that the service to the public is maintained.

“It will still be possible to make appointments and, for those who are unable to travel to the housing office, a home visit will be able to be arranged.

“We have an existing call centre based in our offices at Cambuslang Gate, which allows the public to contact a centralised and integrated service regarding repairs, and this has been in place very successfully for several years now.

“We will always consider better ways of offering the public a quality service, but at present this does not involve adopting a call-centre approach for any of our other services.”