Council says call centre cuts will mean more outbound contacts to check on vulnerable residents

Plans to cut Shropshire Council’s call centre hours by almost half will free up staff time to make contact with vulnerable residents, the authority has said.

The council has revealed plans to reduce the number of hours its phone lines are open, from 50 hours per week to 30, in an attempt to push more customers towards using digital services.

At a meeting of the performance management scrutiny committee on Wednesday, members voiced concerns that those without internet access could find themselves unable to contact the authority.

The centre currently operates from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday, and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays.

The consultation includes four options for the reduced service, which all involve shortening the week day times and closing on a Saturday altogether.

Setting out the proposals, Councillor Rob Gittins, portfolio holder for culture and digital, said it was important to stress that phone lines for “specialist services” such as adults and children’s social care, homelessness and
Local Welfare fund enquiries would remain unaffected.

Councillor Gittins said: “It is many years since the opening hours were last looked at and in that time the online offer for those service requests has expanded and improved considerable, while customer habits have also changed.”

He said the downward trend in the number of incoming calls – which has reduced from 220,000 in 2018 to 180,000 in 2022, is “something we need to encourage”.

Each call costs the council around £3, compared to 15p for an online query, he added.

Councillor Gittins said it was now more important to direct staff resources towards making outbound calls, to check in on potentially vulnerable residents.

He said the importance of this had been evidenced during the Covid pandemic and more recently the cost of living crisis, about which the council has made 40,000 calls so far, to catch people before they fall into “crisis situations”, which ultimately end up costing the council and other public services more money.

“We think what’s being proposed through this review is the best compromise, though encouraging people to do business with the council online, remaining open during the most popular times of the day, and also free up enough hours for our staff to divert to making much more proactive contact with those who may need some extra help and support.”

Councillor Chris Schofield said he was happy with the proposals as long as the option to phone the council was not removed completely for people who have no other choice.

He said: “Not all elderly people want to go digital. As long as there is a system in place for them to contact the council I don’t think I would have a problem with it.

Councillor Gittins responded: “We are not switching off the phone lines. We are still open, we are just altering the hours which we are open.”

He added that many people would be willing to learn to do things online but sometimes need “a slight nudge in the right direction”.

However Labour group leader Councillor Julia Buckley said it was not that simple for people who could not afford the technology, or to have WiFi installed.

She also queried whether the saving of £93,000 highlighted in the report would mean redundancies, but Councillor Gittins assured her this was not the case.