Local Liberal Democrats have discovered that Haringey Council has a financial incentive to keep local residents waiting on the phone. The revelation came in a written answer to a Liberal Democrat question at last week’s Full Council, where it was revealed that Haringey receives a ‘per minute’ income from most of their customer service telephone lines.

Ten out of eleven of the telephone lines in question are 0845 numbers and Haringey Council receives an income of 0.05p per minute when residents call these numbers. Local Lib Dems started to look into this issue following complaints from residents that they could not get through to customer services operators without the irritation of being kept waiting in a telephone queue.

While the unit charges may be relatively small, Lib Dems say that the council should not receive any money for every minute that Haringey fails to deal with a call – a bizarre reward for bad service. While 0845 numbers are charged at the local rate, this can still mean an expensive telephone call when residents are kept waiting for a long period.

Lib Dem leader, Cllr Neil Williams (Highgate), comments:

“This has highlighted the often unacceptable waiting times residents have to endure to get important problems concerning issues such as housing dealt with.

“For Haringey Council to be profiting at all from its own poor service seems bizarre. It is like an incentive in reverse. What Haringey residents want is not to have to wait in telephone queues and for their problems to be dealt with quickly.”