Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has target times by which members of the public can reasonably expect to get through on the telephone and speak to an official; by what percentage extent there has been a change over the past three years in the number of telephone calls from the public seeking information or assistance from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; and what training in communication skills is provided for the officials in that Department.

The Department’s target is for 93% of telephone enquiries to be answered within 45 seconds.

Call volumes to the general enquiries telephone line for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills were as follows:

April 2012-March 2013: 41,562 calls

April 2013-March 2014: 31,426 calls (a 24% decrease from 2012-2013)

April 2014-March 2015: 30,533 calls (a 3% decrease from 2013-2014)

Training provision on communication skills is dependent on the needs of officials and teams. An advanced level course on the professional handling of telephone calls was most recently delivered to frontline call handlers on Thursday 20 August.