RESIDENTS in Malvern will have their telephone calls to the council answered in Worcester.

The changeover aims to offer a better telephone and e-mail service to local residents but Wychavon District Council has not signed up to this particular scheme just yet because it is not convinced about the level of service the Worcestershire Hub currently provides.

The Worcestershire Hub is the first point of contact for enquiries and information about both county and district council services.

From April, Worcestershire County Council, Malvern Hills District Council and Worcester City Council will share a single telephone and e-mail contact centre for all county council enquiries and a range of district council enquiries.

Both Malvern and Worcester’s customer service centres, located in Malvern Library on Graham Road, Malvern, and Orchard House, Farrier Street, Worcester, respectively, will remain open to face-to-face visitors to offer continued local access to council services.

The recently opened customer service centres in Tenbury Wells and Upton-upon-Severn will also be maintained.

Jane Bowen, who is the county council’s acting head of customer services, said: “We would like to reassure local residents that there will be no changes to the way in which customer service is currently delivered through the Worcestershire Hub.

“All of our hub face-to-face centres across the county will remain open to visitors.

“The only difference is that from April 2009 customers contacting their local hub by telephone in Malvern and Worcester will have their call answered in a single contact centre located in Worcester rather than at their local customer service centre.

“The move to a single contact centre will ultimately improve the level of service the Worcestershire Hub offers to its customers, as well as delivering efficiencies to the partners involved.”

Meanwhile, Wychavon has decided to keep a watching brief on the developments of the scheme without making any committments.

Wychavon, which currently does not have its telephone enquiries handled as part of the Worcestershire Hub arrangements, answers about 95 per cent of its calls within 20 seconds.

The main county centre, which is based at Bridgewater House, Blackpole Road, Worcester, has a 73 per cent success rate.

In the report that went before Wychavon’s executive board in October, which was written by democratic services manager Amanda de Warr she said: “One of the issues for us will be that any changes to our current arrangements will need to be backed up with guarantees that our service level can be maintained.”

Worcestershire Hub deals with about 1.7 million enquiries every year of which about 22,000 are electronic, 791,000 are by telephone and 333,000 are face-to-face. It also takes 558,000 payments.