Residents left hanging on the telephone when calling council

RESIDENTS calling one Welsh council have been left hanging on the phone for up to 40 minutes, stats released under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed.

Between January and June Newport council received 126,833 calls, 38% of which were abandoned as 48,731 people hung up the phone before an officer answered.

In May 2022, the average wait to get through to the council tax line was 41 minutes – this did decrease to 32 minutes in June.

Michael Enea, a representative for the Conservatives in St Julians, said: “The stats are pretty shocking.”

He added: “They have a responsibility to offer a good service, some people are paying more than £1,000 a year in council tax, at the very least they should be taking on extra staff to take the calls.”

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by Mr Enea revealed that the council’s phone line had gone down 11 times between January and October of this year.

Mr Enea said: “Maybe the council should learn from other contact centres, upgrade their IT systems, hire more staff, and start answering the phone.

“The staff that do answer the phone are always helpful, professional and efficient. We just need more of them.”

A spokesperson for Newport City Council said: “The council tries to keep disruption on our phone lines to a minimum.

“Where an issue causes unscheduled down-time, we will work with our telephony suppliers to resolve it as quickly as possible.

“These are usually resolved within a couple of hours.

“During the three-month period from April to June this year, our council tax enquiry line was exceptionally busy.

“This was not only with council tax account queries, which we would expect to have in a new billing year, but also with queries regarding the Welsh Government’s cost-of-living support grant, which our council tax team were administering on the government’s behalf for Newport residents.

“Calls about the cost-of-living grant also meant our main contact centre enquiry line was extremely busy, resulting in longer waiting times.

“Many services that the council provide can be accessed online, and we would always encourage customers to use our online services if they can, to keep phone lines clearer for those who would prefer to speak to one of our officers.”

The council said it has recently launched a survey with the aim of improving its communication.