While cities, states and regions all over the world are being hit with budget cuts, increasingly, those cuts are being made at the expense of government call centers that provide municipal services and information.
In the UK, callers to the Cambridgeshire County Council might feel some of the brunt of those cuts. Callers can expect to wait longer and be more likely to have their calls abandoned as a result of fresh cutbacks, according to local news source Cambs Times 24. The council is making the cuts to cope with a budget reduction of £240,000 last year and £272,000 in 2012. This is the second consecutive year that cuts will be made to the contact service.
“The reduction in resource available will have a direct result in the service standards offered by the contact center,” said a government report on the reduced services. “Staffing stress levels will increase with an expected increase in absence.”
Weekend hours for the call center are being cut back to 6:00 pm, whereas the center was formerly opened until 8:00 pm. Call center administrators hope the cuts won't make a large difference, particularly since few calls came in after 6:00 on weekends.
The call center currently provides support for 34 separate regional service areas, including social services and questions about municipal “housekeeping” services such as road maintenance as well as taxes and billing.
As for the risk associated with shorter hours for urgent social services issues and questions, the report announcing the cutbacks says that “under extreme circumstances” contingencies will be made to ensure that the most vulnerable in the community still have a place to turn.
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Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
