Department for Education: Telephone Services

(asked on 10th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 5 January 2022 to Question 92912 on Department for Education: Telephone Services, for what reason there was a more than sevenfold increase in waiting time before calls were answered between (a) October 2021 and (b) November 2021.


Answered by
Michelle Donelan Portrait
Michelle Donelan
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This question was answered on 18th January 2022

There was a sevenfold increase in the waiting time, and more than a 20-fold increase in the abandonment rate to the COVID-19 helpline from October 2021 to November 2021 due to the emergence of the Omicron variant and my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister’s announcement on 28 November 2021 of new restrictions due to the variant’s transmissibility and prevalence.

Call levels during October were low, and for the majority of November a similar level of low call volumes was recorded, meaning that waiting time and abandonment rates were very low and sufficient resource was available to ensure this continued. However, once restrictions were introduced at the end of November, call levels significantly increased.

The previous data shared in relation to Question 92912 on 5 January 2022 gave a monthly average of call volumes, rather than a breakdown by date. The monthly average for November 2021 was impacted by a significant increase in calls at the end of the month over a short period of time, rather than a general increase in demand spread throughout the month. The attached table shows the daily call volumes during October, November and the first few days in December 2021 as context for this response.

The COVID-19 helpline is part of a wider outsourced customer engagement contract which provides other helplines for the department. Given that lower call volumes were maintained through the autumn, some of the COVID-19 helpline resource was released to support another of the department’s helplines during October and November which was experiencing high demand, as part of a flexible resourcing model. Following my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister’s announcement on 28 November and the increase in call volumes to the COVID-19 helpline, we recalled the agents to ensure that there was sufficient capacity on the COVID-19 helpline to minimise call wait times for our customers.

The data shows that the average call duration (call handling time) during this period also increased, which impacts the number of calls each agent can handle per hour. We assume that the higher abandonment rate was a result of the increases in the call wait time, as callers are informed of the likely call wait time when they join the queue. Callers may also have found the information they require on the department’s website or blog whilst waiting for their call to be answered.

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