THE Worcestershire Hub council telephone service has been branded ‘diabolical’ as staff fail to answer thousands more calls.

In total 14,013 calls from customers were abandoned between July and September. Over the three months 17,419 calls were answered – but just 2,961 of those (17 per cent ) were picked up within 20 seconds.

That compares with 6,029 abandoned calls between April and June, with 44 per cent of the 21,398 answered calls during that period being picked up in the target time.

Meanwhile, there were 22,342 visits in person to the Worcestershire Hub between July and September. On average, people waited about 16 minutes before they were served and each customer took up about 20 minutes of staff time.

The Hub, which is for people who want to get in touch with their local council, has struggled to cope with the increased demand during the recession and its performance has now been labelled “diabolical”.

Your Worcester News previously reported how the county’s overview and scrutiny committee will examine the Hub’s performance in the next six months.

At Worcester City Council’s performance management and budget scrutiny committee meeting, Labour councillor Marc Bayliss said: “Let’s be clear about this, the performance is dreadful. It’s not bad, it is diabolical.”

Conservative councillor Lucy Hodgson, cabinet member for customer care and citizen engagement, said: “We hit rock bottom.”

Coun Hodgson said now all staff were located in one place, training was well under way, an answerphone facility had been added to the linesand a larger number of people were being directed online, she expected the service to get better.

Coun Hodgson said those who did get through were more than happy with the standard of service.

But Coun Bayliss said: “As the cabinet member, all I really want to hear from you is how you have been kicking butt over this and demanding a better performance. If you’re not doing that you’re not doing your job.”

Grahame Lucas, head of financial services at the city council, said: “I agree with you that the performance was just totally unacceptable and for that reason, to use your phrase, a lot of kicking butt has taken place.”

Mr Lucas said the figures for October were more promising, with the number of calls being answered within 20 seconds now standing at just below 60 per cent.

But Labour councillor Joy Squires said she was concerned about the long-lasting impression the poor performance had given residents.

But Coun Hodgson said: “If we hadn’t had the shared service, we would have gone into meltdown.”

• Your Worcester News was the only member of the media to attend this meeting.