Performance monitoring
A chart detailing our performance from July 2006 to December 2007 can be downloaded below.
Dips below our target are red and emboldened on the chart. Analysis and details of any remedial action are given below:

 Performance against targets - July 2006 to December 2007 (17 kb)

Answering telephone (Helpline only) 2007

Dips below our target of 60%

Jan  - 58%
Feb - 58%
Apr - 54%
May - 54%
Jun - 56%
Jul - 55%
Aug - 54%
Sep - 45%

We aim to answer 60% of telephone calls to the Helpline within 1 minute. The figures above indicate the months during 2007 when this target was not achieved.

Since the introduction of the parking correspondence telephone messaging system in January 2007, Helpline operators have had to deal with a higher volume of calls. Between April and December 2006 an average of 6,296 calls were received via the helpline every month. This number rose to an average 7,375 per month during January to March 2007. Although the messaging system appears to have been successful in answering a lot of peoples' queries, a number of calls have been re-directed to other teams within the parking service, including to the Helpline. Management responsible for the Helpline are aware of the extra pressure placed on it since January and have reviewed staffing rotas accordingly which is believed to have been responsible for achieving the improvement during October 2007 (60%), November (71%) and December (70%).

Answering telephone (All teams except helpline) 2006

Dips below our target of 70%

July - 64%
Nov - 56%
Dec - 56%

The following analysis relates to calls answered by the parking enforcement, policy, fraud and correspondence teams. The parking enforcement, policy and fraud teams aim to answer 80% of telephone calls within 15 seconds and rarely achieve less than 90% against this target.

However, the parking correspondence team regularly receives a high volume of calls (in excess of 4,000 a month during 2006) and due to the constraints such a high volume of calls can place on staffing levels, a target of answering 50% of calls within 15 seconds was set. The correspondence team achieved in excess of 50% during July to October 2006 but narrowly fell below this target during November 2006 (46%) and December 2006 (48%). As a result, the aggregate performance figures for all teams fell below our group target of answering 70% of calls within 15 seconds during July, November and December 2006 but there was a marked improvement during 2007 when our target of answering 70% of calls was achieved every month. Action considered to have contributed to this improvement is detailed below.

A telephone messaging system was introduced in January 2007 as a means of easing the pressure on staff dealing with queries relating to penalty charge notices and providing customers with the information they need in a concise form.

Figures relating to the parking correspondence team's performance were not available for January and February 2007 due to a system error, however results for March to Dec 2007 showed a marked improvement.

Mar - 84%
Apr - 78%
May - 94%
Jun - 60%
Jul - 80%
Aug - 81%
Sep - 86%
Oct - 94%
Nov - 81%
Dec - 79%

Answering representations against penalty charge notices
Legislation requires the council to respond to standard representations within 3 months and to those relating to a removal within 56 days. Although our target is 100%, some cases can require more investigation than others. Responses to representations against PCNs did not fall below 95% during 2006 and have consistently achieved 100% during 2007. Responses to representations regarding removals did not fall below 81% during 2006 and have also remained at 100% during 2007. Instances where we have failed to answer representations within the statutory time (3 months or 56 days) will result in the cancellation of the Penalty Charge Notice.

NB:
The figure for the number of representations against removals for the 1st quarter 2007 has been revised from 81%, as previously published, to 100%.
Some figures may differ from previously published because we use the figures that are available to us at the time. In the case of representations against removals or penalty charge notices, some cases can remain unresolved at the time of initial publication.