Councillors tackle grime (From Streatham Guardian)

Lambeth leader takes on street filth

9:50am Saturday 6th October 2012 in News By Alice Foster, Reporter

The leader of Lambeth Council was out scrubbing the streets of Brixton on Thursday in a bid to boost customer service standards.

Councillor Steve Reed joined the specialist Grimebusters team and, armed with a high-pressured jet washer, set about blasting away dirt and grime from Windrush Square.

As part of the National Customer Services week, which ran from October 1 to 5, Lambeth politicians rolled up their sleeves to gain first-hand experience in customer interaction and see how customer services might be improved.

Coun Reed said: "Our challenge is to make sure that the excellent customer service that many of our staff routinely provide is the norm, and provided across all our services all of the time.

"It’s no good talking about customer services for just for one week, it’s something that we need to focus on 365 days a year and 24 hours a day."

Other leading councillors got stuck in, with deputy leader of the council Jackie Meldrum going out on calls with Lambeth's pest control team and working the phones at the council's customer call centre.