Reading council grilled over long call centre wait times

Reading Borough Council runs a 'customer fulfilment centre' to give advice to residents who need help to resolve the issues they face.

But neighbours have reported having to allegedly wait more than 40 minutes to seek repairs to their council home, and wait times of around half an hour for other important queries such as figuring out council tax and reporting street issues.

The council has been confronted with these long wait times at a recent meeting.

Raising the issue, councillor Rob White, the leader of the opposition on the council said: "Earlier in the year a number of residents contacted me about very long council call centre wait times.

"The council informed me that the average wait for the year so far was 42
minutes for residents phoning about council house repairs, 36 minutes for council house allocations, 27 minutes for Council Tax enquiries and 26 minutes for waste and street care calls.

"These wait times were all approximately double the year before. "

Information on the wait times was provided at the end of July.

Cllr White (Green, Park) added that the wait times were "totally unacceptable" and asked what actions are being taken to bring those times down.

Rob White, the leader of the Green group with councillors Josh Williams and Sarah Magon. Credit: Reading Green Party

Ellie Emberson, the lead councillor for corporate services and resources replied: "I agree these wait times are unacceptable which is why Council officers from the Customer Fulfilment Centre and relevant front-line services took immediate action to remedy the situation.

"We constantly strive to improve response times within a very difficult budget situation.

"Improvements are ongoing but wait times have improved and in September they averaged 12 minutes for Council Tax and less than 10 minutes for housing repairs."

Ellie Emberson (Labour, Coley) the lead councillor for corporate services and resources. Credit: Reading Labour

Cllr Emberson (Labour, Coley) added that a series of circumstances over the summer put 'major pressure' on the customer fulfilment centre.

These included teething problems with the new Housing Services’ IT System, a shortage of traders able to do housing repairs, waste vehicle breakdowns causing street care issues and staff sickness.

She added that the council has 'taken great strides' to fix these issues, with the housing services system eventually allowing tenants to directly book most repairs, therefore streamlining that process.

As well as exploring the use of ChatBots and AI, the council also engages in staff training and recruitment, efforts that are limited due to the resources available.

Cllr Emberson explained: "The challenging finances over the last few years has made it extremely difficult to provide the excellent service for which we would wish.

"I am proud of our dedicated and hard-working staff and their achievements under these difficult circumstances."

The council maintains its telephone and face-to-face services, but encourages people to use the website as often as possible and avoid busy call times.

Cllr Emberson added: "Our call centre is extremely busy first thing Monday morning, so encouraging residents to call at other times would be helpful."

The exchanges took place at a full council meeting on October 15.

A neighbour also mentioned the long waiting times prior to the beginning of an older people's working group meeting on October 18.