When should people with 9-5 jobs call the Council Tax phone line in Sheffield?

At last week’s full council meeting, Cllr Kurtis Crossland (Beighton, Liberal Democrats) asked about the average and longest waiting times on the Sheffield Council’s council tax helpline.

In his response, Cllr Tom Hunt, the leader of the council, told him that – analysing two random weeks – in weeks commencing November 13 and November 20, the waiting times were 21 minutes and 38 seconds and 23 minutes and 59 seconds, respectively.

He added the longest waiting times in both of those above weeks were one hour and 36 minutes.

Cllr Hunt added: “Over recent months the council tax line has been the least well-performing of all Contact Centre strands, primarily due to long-term staff sickness.

“It is clear that there is work to do to improve performance and actions are being taken to do this. New staff recently recruited have been allocated onto this line, have completed much of their training and are now starting to take calls.

“We therefore anticipate a marked improvement in performance over the coming weeks.”

Cllr Crossland told the Local Democracy Service that people with 9-5 jobs couldn’t wait almost half an hour – let alone more than one and a half hours to make a crucial call about their council tax dealings.

He said: “I saw a post online a few weeks ago about the waiting times and it’s something that kind of reminded me when I moved house you’ve got the fun of swapping over your council tax.

“I remember I received three letters in two days each of them saying different things and I was very confused so I tried to phone up the helpline and I was stuck in a queue.

“It’s a long time… As I said in the council meeting, if you’ve got a 9-5 job, when are you expected to phone?

“The phone lines are only open from 8.30am to 5.30pm during the week so it just doesn’t make sense for working people.”

At the meeting, a councillor, when asked when people should make these calls, sarcastically shouted: “During lunch break…”

Cllr Crossland said the council should accept that these waiting times are a problem.

He added times the lines are open should maybe change as well.

Cllr Crossland said: “It’s open for a good amount of time but that’s when everybody else is at work. Maybe shifting the time when it’s open might work better.”