CONCERNS have been raised about a council's call-handling centre after it failed to hit its performance targets.

Figures published by Stoke-on-Trent City Council show its 80 contact centre staff are not answering phones quickly enough, while more than one in 10 callers are not getting through at all.

And calls that were dealt with took an average of over a minute to be answered.

The Fenton-based Stoke-on-Call service handles about 13,500 enquiries each week about all aspects of the council's services, including the 24-hour Lifeline service for vulnerable residents.

The annual performance report for 2009/10 shows the contact centre:

Failed to answer 77,435 of the 704,321 calls received;

Answered 65 per cent of calls within the recommended 30 seconds, against a target of 80 per cent;

Took an average of 78 seconds to answer calls which got through.

The contact centre is currently undergoing an intensive review by management consultants Vanguard as part of a £500,000 service improvement shake-up at the council and its housing maintenance partner, Kier Stoke.

The review has been blamed for a slip in call answering times since January, while staff have been getting to grips with new procedures.

The intervention comes after council chief executive John van de Laarschot, last month compared the Stoke-on-Call to TV sit-com The Office, saying: "If it wasn't so terrible it would be laughable."

The performance report has prompted calls from councillors for changes to be made.

Lib-Dem Councillor David Sutton said residents in his Northwood and Birches Head ward often complain about the call centre.

And he said the failings were so severe that the red indicators, signifying poor performance, didn't do them justice.

He said: "I had a complaint from a lady recently who called three times, and each time she was left waiting for over 15 minutes, and her calls never got answered.

"This is so bad that it should be marked as beyond red, but I don't know what colour that would be."

And Chell and Packmoor Labour Councillor Tony Fradley suggested a call-back service to stop callers running up large phone bills while on hold.

He said: "We could change the service to make it more pro-active, and staff could be ringing people back instead of rushing to get through the list of calls waiting."

Alan Turley, the council's head of sustainable community development, said he was aware of the problems but recent staff re-training and new procedures are starting to produce better results.

He said they had to cover a lot of staff sickness during the year and letters they sent out weren't clear and caused a lot of phone calls to answer questions.

Director of central services Paul Simpson said the council needs to focus on residents' queries, rather than trying to answer phones more quickly.