MORE than 23,000 people hung up before speaking to anyone while calling Newport City Council in the first six months of 2018.

Figures published on the council’s website reveal that 23,669 callers out of a total of 120,769 recorded between January and July ended the call before it was answered.

In that time, 22,900 calls were made to the council tax line, while 6,234 of these were abandoned before a member of staff could answer.

The council tax line had an average waiting time of 11 minutes, while the overall wait time was around three minutes.

Last year, a freedom of information request by the Newport conservative group revealed 39,254 out of 170,371 had abandoned their calls between January to July.

But while Newport’s conservative group have said this year’s figures show the service “hasn’t improved that much” and were “are not good enough”, the council pointed out that less than a quarter of calls were dropped, and a spokesman added there is no way of knowing whether the dropped calls were due to extended waiting times.

Newport Conservative Group Leader Matthew Evans said “I’m continually receiving complaints from the public regarding the Council’s telephone line. I sympathise with the advisors employed in the Contact Centre as they work very hard and do a good job. However, when you consider one in five callers are still hanging up the phone, you have to question the Council’s strategy and management.”

But Labour councillor David Mayer, cabinet member for community and resources, said contact centre performance is continuously reviewed.

“Feedback from residents is very important in shaping services and residents can share their preferences on contacting the council in the current consultation which is open until 12 November,” he added.

“Frontline customer services staff dealt with more than 172,000 calls over the phone from residents between October 2017 and June 2018,” explained a council spokesman.

“The average wait overall was about three minutes while most calls to social services were answered in less than a minute. The longest waiting times were on the high demand council tax line where the highest average wait was around 11 minutes.

“Less than a quarter of calls were dropped and there is no way of knowing whether this was due to extended waiting times. Some may have taken note of the recorded information about services being available online, for example.”