Speeches by Cane.

“It would be interesting to see that, and to see the trend. The suspicious person in me thinks that, when you have a KPI, there is a temptation to drop calls so that you can answer calls within the required time.”

“How many complaints have you had regarding inappropriate service from call centre staff?”

“I am not suggesting there would be a policy, but it is a behaviour that has been found on lots of other KPIs.”

“That is good to hear, but I would like to see the figures. As you know, at PACAC there was discussion of insensitive call handling. I understand from the media that you consider the particular case that was raised to have been during MyCSP rather than Capita. Could you talk us through the sort of training you are givin…”

“What are your current customer satisfaction scores, and how are they measured?”

“Thank you for letting me guest today. I need to declare an interest; I am also a civil service pensioner, a retired member of the FDA, and indeed, a member of the Civil Service Pensioners Alliance. My first group of questions is about the telephone answering service. We have heard of the problems that people are having…”

“You said that the average wait time for people with a general query, not one of your priorities, is less than 100 seconds.”

“Once somebody is answered, are any of those calls dropped partway through—do you measure that?”

“When does the wait time start from? Calls start with the instruction, “If your call is about X, press number 1,” so is the 100 seconds measured from when they get through to that, or from when they are speaking to a person?”

“They are speaking to a person and then the call gets cut off.”

“Mr Holroyd, you told this Committee in November 2025 that the new portal website would be ready to go live on 1 December. Why is it still not functional for all members four months into your administration?”

“I hear that, but you are not able to do it in those three cases we heard about, so why don’t you simply say: “We are sorry that it is taking us so long to resolve this properly. We are working as fast as we can. In the meantime, we would like to offer you a loan”—”

“Are you sure that is working correctly and consistently?”

“Are you also measuring how many calls are dropped?”

“So it is 100 seconds until they speak to a person, and for the higher priority lines it is less than 20 seconds before they speak to a person.”

“Yes, I do. We heard at the beginning about the gentleman who is terminally ill and not yet receiving regular payments, and about some widows who are not receiving them. Why are they having to come up with the magic words to ask for a loan? Why don’t you automatically offer them a loan?”

“Do you ask for this at the end of every call? How do you do that?”

“As I mentioned, I am a civil service pensioner, so I have had the pleasure of calling those helplines. I do not remember being asked for my satisfaction, particularly on the two occasions when I was told that, even though I had been on the line for nearly two hours, the office was now closed. I certainly was not asked …”

“So how many people are using it?”

“What number were you expecting four months in?”