Council fails to answer 10pc of calls

Almost 10 per cent of phone calls to Oldham Council weren’t answered in the three months to December, 2008.

That’s a six-fold increase, from 1.55 per cent to 9.49 per cent, out of almost 60,000 calls and has been condemned as unacceptable by Labour Cabinet member, Councillor Dave Hibbert.

He said: “This means almost 6,000 people experienced an unacceptable delay in response to their calls, or 100 per working day.”

He said residents’ main dealings with the council are when they receive their council tax demand, and also when they try to discuss issues by telephone.

A report on the situation is due to be considered by members on the Scrutiny committee, before it is discussed at Cabinet.

A new target has been set to achieve a 98 per cent answer rate by the end of March, but Councillor Hibbert said: “That is still worse than when the new administration took power last spring. I made enquiries about it and was told that even this is now two months behind schedule.”

John Howard, managing director for the Unity Partnership, the council’s back office service provider, said: “There has been a temporary decline in performance for our switchboard service.

“While we investigate, we have increased the number of switchboard operators which is expected to have an immediate effect, pushing our percentage of calls answered closer to their historic average.

“For all other services, Unity has met all of the agreed performance targets and continues to pursue a long-term commitment to provide exceptional customer service.”