Customer services volumetric and organisational data
Case reference FOI2022/00425
Published 25 May 2022
Request
In relation to your customer services, contact centres and digital services please answer the following questions:
The full list of Council services advertised have been recreated here:
- Blue badge
- Business rates
- Council tax
- Housing and HomePoint
- Housing benefit and council tax
- Licensing
- Local welfare provision
- Planning
- Transportation
- Waste
Questions 1-5 therefore relate to the services listed above.
Q1. Is your customer service contact centre provided in-house or is it outsourced?
Q2. What services are managed through the customer service contact centre (i.e. blue badge applications, school admissions, registration services, highways enquiries etc.)?
Q3. Call volumetric data
Q3A. How many calls were offered over a single year?
Q3B. How many calls were answered over a single year?
Q3C. How many calls were abandoned in a single year?
Q3D. Average handling time?
Q3E. Average wait time?
Please provide each by type of call/ service related to if possible (e.g. applying for benefits/ benefits service).
Q4. Non-call data
Q4A. How many face-to-face interactions per annum?
Q4B. How many library visits per annum?
Q4C. How many webchats per annum?
Q4D. How many digital/ eForm submissions per annum?
Q5. Organisational and financial management
Q5A. What is the total budget for customer services?
Q5B. How many FTE do you have with in the contact centre to manage calls, chat and mail?
Please provide breakdowns by grade, salaries + oncost if available
Q5C. What is your staff turnover per year
Q5D. What is your staff sickness/ absence per year
Q6. Digital teams
Q6A. Does your digital team use GDS principles to design services
Q6B. How many FTE in your digital team
Please provide breakdowns by grade, salaries + oncost if available
Response
Please note that in regards to Transportation services, this information is not recorded by Herefordshire Council, and therefore the data is not held.
Q1. Is your customer service contact centre provided in-house or is it outsourced?
For the following services, the customer services contact centre is in house: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point.
Licensing and Revenues and Benefits (council tax, business rates and housing benefit) is also in-house, however, enquiries do not come through to the main customer contact centre, and the data for this has been reported separately for each of the questions below.
Q2. What services are managed through the customer service contact centre (i.e. blue badge applications, school admissions, registration services, highways enquiries etc.)?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point:
Waste, planning, switchboard, talk community, blue badge, local welfare provision, outbreak control, appointments line, community kitchen, family information service, general information line, ringback.
The Licensing Team have advised the following:
From the list "licensing" (taxi and general licensing) but the EHTS (Environmental health and trading standards) call centre also deals with enquiries for Animal health and welfare, community protection team, children's licensing*, trading standards *, environmental health commercial, environmental health housing *, environmental protection team, air, land and water teams, pest control, gypsy and travellers service.
*these teams also issue licenses.
Environmental Health Housing (HMO licences), Trading Standards (Petroleum and Explosive Licences) and Children's Licensing (Chaperone, Performance Licenses). Childrens Licensing calls are directed to the Officer and do not come via the call centre, therefore we are unable to provide specific information on the split of these calls, they are included in the General EHTS calls queue and are not reported separately.
Taxi and general licensing calls come through on a separate call queue number.
Q3. Call volumetric data
Q3A. How many calls were offered over a single year?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point
Please see below for 2021/2022:
Waste - 23,662
Planning - 4,956
Switchboard - 34,726
Talk Community - 5,308
Blue badge - 2,614
Local welfare provision - 440
Outbreak control - 1,315
Appointments line - 35
Community Kitchen - 47
Family Information Service - 25
General information line - 734
Ringback - 931
The licensing Team have advised the following:
Calls presented: 1232 plus a proportion of the 6932 EHTS general calls plus a proportion of the 992 payment calls. The team split and nature of the call are not recorded so we are unable to accurately report on the number of payment calls for licensing and the number of enquiries about HMO, petroleum and explosive licences.
The Revenues and Benefits department have advised the following: for the 2021-22 financial year - 51,339
Q3B. How many calls were answered over a single year?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point
2021/2022: 67,763 calls answered
The Licensing Team have advised the following:
Calls handled: 1151 plus a proportion of the 6301 EHTS general calls plus a proportion of the 888 payment calls. The team split and nature of call are not recorded so we are unable to accurately report on the number of payment calls for licensing and the number of enquiries about HMO, petroleum and explosive licences.
The Revenues and Benefits department have advised the following: for the 2021-22 financial year - 44,646
Q3C. How many calls were abandoned in a single year?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point
2021/2022: 6,990 calls abandoned
The Licensing Team have advised the following:
Licensing queue - 19
EHTS General Queue - 136
Payment queue - 17
The Revenues and Benefits department have advised the following: for the 2021-22 financial year - 6,636
Q3D. Average handling time?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point
Please see the below times, please note that the times are all recorded in seconds.
Waste - 296
Planning - 256
Switchboard - 113
Talk Community - 191
Blue badge - 259
Local welfare provision - 255
Outbreak control - 202
Appointments line - 184
Community Kitchen - 262
Family Information Service - 74
General information line - 219
Ringback - 128
The Licensing team have advised the following:
Licensing queue - 6:30 minutes
EHTS General queue - 5:56 minutes
Payment queue - 5:54 minutes
The Revenues and Benefits department have advised the following: for the 2021-22 financial year - 6:42 minutes.
Q3E. Average wait time?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point
Please see the below times, please note that the times are all recorded in seconds.
Waste - 56
Planning - 111
Switchboard - 44
Talk Community - 63
Blue badge - 52
Local welfare provision - 78
Outbreak control - 48
Appointments line - 65
Community Kitchen - 70
Family Information Service - 50
General information line - 71
Ringback - 36
The Licensing team have advised the following:
Licensing queue - 12 seconds. These will be regarding all licences issues by the service, for example animal boarding, personal licences and pet shop licences.
EHTS General queue - 13 seconds. These will be all other service areas but will include enquiries about petroleum, explosive and HMO licences.
Payment queue - 14 seconds. These will be payments for all of the above and for all the licences issued.
The Revenues and Benefits department have advised the following: for the 2021-22 financial year - 2 minutes 10 seconds
Please provide each by type of call/ service related to if possible (e.g. applying for benefits/ benefits service).
Q4. Non-call data
Q4A. How many face-to-face interactions per annum?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point:
10,244 face to face interactions.
Regarding the Licensing team, this information is not held.
Regarding Revenues and Benefits department, face to face meetings are not normally carried out and any figures would be included in the services listed above, i.e as part of the 10,244.
Q4B. How many library visits per annum?
There were 169,047 visits to Herefordshire libraries in financial year 2021-22.
Q4C. How many webchats per annum?
Please see below the data for the following services: Blue Badge, Local Welfare Provision, Planning and Waste, Housing and Home Point:
0 webchats.
Regarding the Licensing team, this information is not held.
The Revenues and Benefits department have advised the following: for the 2021-22 financial year - 0 webchats
Q4D. How many digital/ eForm submissions per annum?
In the financial year 2021-22, 53,885 digital submissions were received.
Q5. Organisational and financial management
Q5A. What is the total budget for customer services?
For Question 5A - 5D, please note that the data is for our main customer service contact centre and does not include customer services for Revenues and Benefits department (council tax, business rates and housing benefit), licensing and transportation.
2022/23 budget = £505,000
The budget for Licensing will be included in their staff costs.
Q5B. How many FTE do you have with in the contact centre to manage calls, chat and mail?
Please provide breakdowns by grade, salaries + oncost if available
Please note that the data is correct as of 16 May 2022.
There are 32.38 FTE (Full time equivalent) Customer Service roles.
Grade 04HC - 1.76 FTE
Grade 05HC - 28.62 FTE
Grade 07HC - 2 FTE
Q5C. What is your staff turnover per year
For the financial year 2021/22, the turnover rate for customer services roles was:
Based on FTE: 11.77%
Based on Headcount: 10.00%
Q5D. What is your staff sickness/ absence per year
For the financial year 2021/22, the sickness rate for customer services roles was:
% FTE Sick Days Lost - 5.90%
Sick Days Lost Per FTE - 15.35
Q6. Digital teams
This is undertaken by Hoople Ltd on behalf of the council and to obtain this information you would need to contact them direct. Their contact details are as follows:
Telephone number: 01432 383678
Email address: enquiries@hoopleltd.co.uk
Q6A. Does your digital team use GDS principles to design services
As per Question 6.
Q6B. How many FTE in your digital team
As per Question 6.
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Documents
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