Callers to Hertfordshire County Council are being kept hanging on the telephone for too long, according to the latest data.

Bosses at the county council say that, on average, calls to their 'custoner service centre' should be answered within 20 seconds.

But data presented to a meeting of the resources and performance cabinet panel this week shows that between July and September the average wait was 29 seconds.

That's in contrast to the previous year (2019-20), when the data shows the target was comfortably met.

And the report to the panel puts the delays down to telephony delays for remote workers, working from home as a result of Covid restrictions – as well as 'erratic and unpredictable' call patterns.

The issue was highlighted at the panel by Labour councillor Sharon Taylor, who asked for assurance that management were looking at how to deal with this.

And she highlighted the importance of people getting a speedy response when needing assistance from council services.

"I would be reassured to know the management in this area are doing a deep dive into this and how we deal with it," she said.

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"Because it can be incredibly frustrating – particularly some of the calls we get around safeguarding around young people's mental health and so on – if people don't get a fairly speedy response when they phone the county council."

Executive member for resources and performance councillor Ralph Sangster said the delays had been monitored – and highlighted the challenges posed by the current need for remote working, technology and changing demand.

"We are very cognisant of the fact that our communications need to be pertinent to people's enquiries," he said.

"And we have been having fortnightly – or monthly – reports coming through to us on the delay time."

Acknowledging that current working practices could 'be with us for some time longer', he said the council had been looking at how to better align telephony technical systems and service technical support and to adapt to changing call patterns.

"When you are working remotely the slowness in the response times is clearly a problem," he said.

"Not everybody has got the best wifi or broadband and we are seeking to try and flex the number of people on-call at any one time to adjust our position on the call density coming through – which is something significantly different to the way it was prior to the Covid situation.

"They are dealing with this and most weeks they are meeting close to the KPIs. There are occasions when certain things technically happen that give them a problem."

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Head of corporate policy Alex James – who presented the data as part of the county council 'performance monitor' for Q2 of 2020/21 – said: "These are very closely monitored and when they are above the average call time that triggers a whole range of processes to look at how they can be managed and improved."