South Holland residents who don’t pay council tax through direct debit say they’ve been left in the dark over the £150 government payments they’re owed.
The residents affected that The Voice has spoken to say they’ve been frustrated at not being able to speak to South Holland District Council on the phone about the issue with the authority having previously admitted it failed to answer calls.
The majority of people who pay council tax through direct debit received the government payments via that, but those that didn’t (around 29 per cent of the district) had to apply.
The payments were meant to be delivered by the council by the end of September.
Residents such as Richard Loveday, of Honeysuckle Way, applied in April but have spoken of their struggles to get through to the call centre.
Sheila Jackson (85), of Holbeach Road, told The Voice she’d got through one time to be told the £150 had been paid, but when she checked her account it hadn’t.
Councillors have had concerns over the service for some time and have asked for regular checks over it.
From April to June the number of calls answered by the authority went down from 83 per cent to 81.49 per cent.
The percentages of revenues and benefits calls answered (83 per cent), corporate complaints responded to within a set timescale (84.5 per cent) and information requests responded to in time (86 per cent) had all improved, but remain below set targets.
The issue was brought up at the most recent Full Council meeting of SHDC.
“All of the customer services are below target,” Coun Jim Astill said. “But it’s in a significantly better place than it was one or two months ago.”
The report to the cabinet also states: “We are seeing a significant reduction in average speed of answer, with both May and June below the 120 second target.”
It also stated there had been 1,609 “additional calls relating to energy rebate”,
Coun Bryan Alcock said: “I understand there have been times when you’ve literally not been able to get through to the council and members of the public have been waiting for what they described as hours. I suspect it’s not that but it’s a hell of a long time.
“Is there some fundamental flaw that we’ve failed to react to? A great number of people were calling to ask ‘where is my £150?’, which is quite understandable.”
Coun Astill answered that there was a new phone system being brought in for the end of October.
Coun Nick Worth added: “It’s been an issue for quite a long time but it’s good to see it’s improving.”
South Holland District Council was asked for a comment but had not provided one at the time of going to press.
