Council working to reduce tax helpline long waits

Sheffield City Council said it was working to improve its council tax helpline, after callers reported waits of up to an hour before speaking to an adviser.

Councillor Mohammed Mahroof told a meeting callers had reported being "on the telephone for 45 minutes, an hour" before the line dropped out and they gave up.

Senior finance manager Linda Hunter said phone delays were among the "key complaints" received by the council.

The council said the public should start to see improvements to the service later this year.

Mahroof, who chairs the council's audit and standards committee, said although the issue had been raised and solutions promised several times, nothing had changed, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"I've had people coming to me with stories saying that this happened, especially when they've been served with a statutory notice and are really keen to get in touch with somebody because you're really, really concerned about this," he said.

Finance and commercial services director Philip Gregory said he shared people's frustrations.

He said there was a "huge amount of effort" going into the council's customer experience and that work to solve such issues was a key priority.

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