FIFERS are still waiting too long for their calls to be answered by the council.

That's the view of Councillor Tim Brett who visited the contact centre at New City House in Dunfermline recently following concerns over its performance.

It emerged last year that just 73 per cent of calls were answered in 2018/19.

The results of the latest financial year (2019/20) have been more positive – increasing to 83 per cent – but Cllr Brett remains concerned.

The chair of the environment, finance and communities scrutiny committee said: "Whilst I am pleased that the performance has improved with the appointment of additional staff, I remain concerned that many people are having to wait too long for their calls to be answered.

"The latest figures for the end of 2019/20 show that only 55 per cent of calls were answered within the target of 20 seconds and the average length of time taken for calls to be answered was over two minutes.

"I suspect that many people give up waiting for their call to be answered and that this is something that the council needs to pay further attention to."

The crisis was caused by budget cuts in 2016 which led to a reduction in staff.

Before this, calls were answered 90 per cent of the time.

Council guidelines say that the contact centre should be aiming to answer 88 per cent of calls.

In 2018, one stressed-out council worker told the Press that colleagues were dealing with a “staffing crisis” which was affecting their mental health at the call centre.

Since then, additional staff have been recruited and this has improved performance, although this additional resource has contributed to an overspend in customer service delivery.

In a report to the community and housing services committee, Michael Enston, executive director of communities, said: "Resources in the centre have been decreasing since April 2015 and this decrease in resources has resulted in less calls answered and increased wait times for customers.

"Overall call volumes to the council continue to decrease as we make it easier for customers to contact us in other ways, such as increasing online provision and promoting this as a method of contact.

"Despite the reducing volumes, the contact centre (where volumes remain static) performance was impacted during 2018/19 with poorer comparative call-answering performance.

"To ensure support for more vulnerable customers, staff have been deployed where the need is greatest and the centre must ensure that there is weekend cover, all community alarms are answered, the social work group is resourced and the Scottish Welfare Fund team are adequately supported.

"The result of this ... has meant that the ‘general line’ which covers missed bins, pot holes etc has been impacted greatly. This line deals with over half the total amount of calls."