Councils’ enquiry service slammed

by Press Association on March 1, 2010

Worcestershire councils’ enquiry service has been criticised for under performing, it has emerged.

Figures for the final quarter of last year show that 55% of customers of Worcester City Council, Malvern Hills District Council and Worcestershire County Council had their calls answered with 20 seconds.

Despite improvements in the region’s “Hub”, which was established as a first point of contact for calls and queries from local residents, a councillor said the percentage of calls answered within the target time was “still not good enough”.

City councillor Marc Bayliss described the overall performance as “unsatisfactory” at a performance management and budget scrutiny conference.

He added: “If we talked about this a year or 18 months ago and heard that just over 50% of the calls for customers in Worcester were being answered within 20 seconds, we would have thought it was pretty rubbish.

“I accept the direction of travel but it’s still not good enough.”

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