Tenants wanting repairs have been left hanging on the phone because of a shortage of staff to answer calls, councillors were told.
And many more tenants called Brighton and Hove City Council’s housing repairs line, causing call waiting times to “nose-dive” in October to December, according to a performance report.
In the previous three months most calls were picked up more promptly, the council’s Housing Committee was told.
Green councillor David Gibson asked what the problem was – and what could be done to deal with it.
Housing manager Ododo Dafe said that it had been hard to recruit staff with the council’s repairs contract with Mears coming to an end.
The council planned to bring the repairs and maintenance service “in house” next month.
Ms Dafe said: “Where we have been able to recruit temporary agency staff, some of the staff recruited were not suitable and training was required. The trial for agency staff was not successful.”
Three jobs were about to be filled, she said, which would help – and future recruitment would be to the council rather than the contractor which she hoped would make a difference.
She said there was a large increase in the number of calls in the past quarter, which she described as a “double whammy”.
From October to December, almost 15,500 calls out of just over 27,000 – or 57 per cent – were answered. The target was 90 per cent.
Just 27 per cent, or just over 4,200 calls, were picked up within 20 seconds. The target was 75 per cent. And the longest wait was almost 51 minutes.
