A damning report today shows that thousands of Council tax-payers are slamming their phones down because they can't get through to complain.

In one week alone last Easter, more than half of the 3,000 people calling Bradford Council to complain about wheelie bins and broken streetlights gave up because no one was answering an automated phone system.

The survey on Bradford's Council's Contact service shows during that week 1,529 calls were abandoned because there was only the equivalent of 3.5 telephone operators.

The Council's corporate scrutiny committee today heard that residents were angry at the length of time it takes operators to answer. Officers said an action plan should be implemented.

The report said: "Council contact is a high-profile and front-line service that is not delivering to an adequate standard."

Officers believe monthly reports should be prepared by director of customer services Wallace Sampson.

They should go to the assistant chief executive for regeneration and environment David Kennedy and his board.

Members will be told rota systems need to be changed urgently to ensure there are enough staff at peak times.

During the financial year ending last March, the service received 136,129 calls - 92 per cent of them about cleansing.

Officers recommend that cleansing, highways maintenance, streetlighting and landscape maintenance should immediately be transferred and dealt with by their own departments.

It would be leave the contact point with refuse collection, bulky refuse collection, trade waste, recycling, fly tipping and gully emptying.

Councillors will be told the contact point is fully staffed and the number of abandoned calls has dropped from 27 per cent last May to five per cent.

From April the contact point wall centre is expected to receive an extra 2,000 calls a week as it takes calls for the Council's Hear to Help service.

The committee will be told 20 per cent of the work in the last year was repeat calls about problems which had not been rectified.

Other recommendations to give the public better service include a website which people can use for complaints.

Leader of the Council's Liberal Democrat group, Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, who called for the review, said: "I am not surprised by the contents of the report. It shows we have a history of under-investment in a very important customer service.

"These are people who are actually helping the Council, telling them where things are going wrong."