Mayor Rob Ford says city workers are going to start getting “pink slips” if customer service doesn’t improve at city hall.
Ford made the comment to reporters Wednesday afternoon, following the release of a new ombudsman report that suggested that complaints against public employees soared last year.
“I have been saying this for years. People have to be responsive to taxpayers and I believe that they don’t understand who the boss is. The boss is the taxpayer,” Ford said. “I have told them face to face, I have told the city manager but I feel it sometimes falls on deaf ears. I think people are going to start getting pink slips if they don’t respond to the taxpayer when they call.”
In her annual report, Fiona Crean said her office dealt with more than 1,800 complaints in 2013 and 70 per cent of them were about poor communication or inadequate information being given to residents.
Many complaints were about staff not returning phone calls, rudeness or slow response times, she said.
Calling it a “worrisome development,” Crean said last year’s customer service complaints are an increase from 55 per cent in 2012 and 40 per cent in 2011.
In response to her findings, Crean met with city manager Joe Pennachetti on Tuesday and they plan to meet again to discuss how staff can do a better job of delivering services to the public.
She said the city can address the trend by enforcing existing performance standards.
"(Pennachetti) and his managers are going to correct this worrisome trend and hold staff accountable," Crean told reporters at a news conference.
The findings will likely draw the attention of Mayor Rob Ford, who lists "customer service excellence" as one of his core priorities.
Complaints jump 28 per cent
Overall, complaints about city services jumped by 28 per cent compared with 2012. Crean attributes the increase to her office becoming better known, growing inequality in Toronto, and a stretched public workforce that is under "tremendous" stress.
"It’s a difficult time to be a public servant. The stress is tremendous, but there’s never an excuse for poor communication," she said.
Crean fielded more complaints last year from seniors, people living in poverty and people with disabilities.
People mostly complained about Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC), the TTC and the municipal licensing and standards division.
Crean said there was a “significant” increase in complaints in all parts of Toronto, but the most notable increases occurred in the former cities of Etobicoke, North York and York.
In one of the examples cited in the report, a mother ended her lease after Housing Connections, a TCHC subsidiary, told her she and her children could move into a TCHC property in two months.
A week before the move, the woman went to see the house and found that it was being repaired because it had failed a safety inspection, leaving the family homeless.
Housing Connections admitted “information was not communicated in detail,” the report says.
In an interview with CP24 commentator Stephen LeDrew, Crean said any complaints about Ford or councillors are passed on to the integrity commissioner.
“My job is to look at the administration of the public service,” Crean said.
