Ealing Council is keeping residents hanging on the telephone and failing to meet statutory targets in responding to provide freedom of information (FOI) requests, its own internal report has found.
Labour-run Ealing Council has revealed that it is still failing to meet its commitment of answering 80% of phone calls within five minutes. In a recently released Ealing Council Plan Performance Report Q3 22/23, the council said that only 69% of all incoming calls are answered within five minutes.
When it came to responding to freedom of information requests, the council’s target is a statutory 100% within 20 days but it only achieved 79.4%.
In providing a reason for its failure to hit its own telephone answering target, the council said in a note: “69% of all telephone calls were answered within 5 minutes as at the end of the third quarter. The target of 80% remains a challenge due to continuing high volumes of calls regarding the recent energy rebate scheme, cost of living and housing repairs. Additional staff have been recruited to assist in managing demand, with a view to improving the time to answer.”
The council said of it not meeting FOI requests on time: “79.4% of FOI requests were responded to within 20 days in Q3, against the statutory target of 100%. Although the target has not been met, there has been a consistent improvement throughout the year, with December 2022 rate reaching 85.4%, indicating a commitment to prioritise FOI responses across the organisation.”
Speaking to EALING.NEWS, an Ealing Council spokesperson said: “The council has seen a significant increase in calls, more than 15,000, in relation to financial support during the current cost of living crisis. These calls are very often complex and lengthy to ensure the relevant support is made available to the household.”
Speaking to EALING.NEWS, leader of the opposition, Ealing Liberal Democrat Councillor Gary Malcolm said: “Liberal Democrats for many years have said that Ealing Council is seen as an organisation that treats residents as a nuisance. These latest figures show that Ealing Council needs to listen to residents and be open when residents request data. Anything else and people are rightfully concerned.”
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