Stephanie Dearden
Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson for Tooting
Tel: 020-7771-2551 or 07985649807
PRESS RELEASES
09th December 2005
119 Million Calls to Government Go Unanswered
New figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that since the beginning of
2003, over 119 million calls to Government helplines and call centres - or 36.6%
of all calls - have been abandoned, were met with an engaged tone or went
unrecorded by the system. This is an average of 126,270 calls missed a day - or
88 calls a minute. The worst departmental offenders are the Department for Work
and Pensions who have missed the most calls at 62 million, and HM Revenue and
Customs whose tax credits helpline missed more calls than it answered - 52.7
million missed calls.
Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Tooting, Stephanie
Dearden said:-
The chaos at the call centres reflects the chaos in
Government welfare policy - the reliance on a means-tested muddle of a system
for pensions and tax credits. The Government's direct line to the public is
failing. These calls are overloading the system, which is quite simply breaking
down. The Government not only needs to get its helplines working, but it needs
to radically simplify the whole welfare system to rely less on the means-testing
and complexity which is generating these huge call volumes.
ENDS
Stephanie Dearden
Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson for Tooting
Notes to editors