Responding to enquiries: service delivery through National Enquiry Point

Delivery – resources

342. We considered the resources available within COPFS to respond to enquiries. This included staffing resources as well as the IT systems used by staff.

Workforce planning

343. Workforce planning is the process by which organisations make sure they have the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time and at the right cost. It requires an organisation to understand its demand and be clear about its objectives, and to balance these against the financial resources available to deliver the service.

344. At the time of our inspection, Enquiry Point had 40.9 full-time equivalent staff. This was made up of 34.15 operators, as well as 6.75 more senior roles. Operators are graded at Band B, the entry level to COPFS. A person graded at Band B+ carries out a quality assurance function, while managers are graded Band C and the overall manager for the Enquiry Point service is a Band D. There is a mix of full-time and part-time staff at operator and supervisory levels.

345. We sought to understand whether the staff resources allocated to Enquiry Point were sufficient. This proved difficult. As already noted, COPFS does not have a comprehensive understanding of demand for the Enquiry Point service. Nor has COPFS clearly and consistently articulated its objectives for Enquiry Point. While COPFS has said it wants operators to handle 90% of the calls presented to them, it has not stated how long it thinks it is acceptable for those making enquiries to wait before they are resolved or what volume of calls it is acceptable to turn away from the queue. As a result, COPFS has not been able to develop a workforce plan for Enquiry Point that analyses demand and assesses the staff resource required to deliver the quality of service to which it aspires (and compare this to the financial resources COPFS has available).

346. As noted at paragraph 71, 19% of callers are not admitted to the call queue and 50% of calls are abandoned after being admitted to the queue. Unless COPFS considers this level of service to be acceptable, we must conclude that Enquiry Point does not have sufficient resources to meet current demand. However, in order for the appropriate level of resources to be determined, COPFS must develop a workforce plan. To do so, it must first:

• be clear about the role and remit of Enquiry Point (Recommendation 1)
• set the standards which service users should expect from Enquiry Point, taking into account service user needs and feedback (Recommendations 1 and 5)
• understand its demand, including the impact of taking steps to pre-empt, reduce and divert demand and eliminate failure demand (Recommendation 4) as well as taking forward other recommendations designed to support more effective service delivery
• consider what it can afford (and consider what it cannot afford, by not delivering a service that meets user needs and maintains their confidence).

Recommendation 15
COPFS should develop a workforce plan for Enquiry Point. It should ensure Enquiry Point is sufficiently staffed to meet demand and deliver the desired level of service.

347. While there is scope to increase the productivity of some aspects of Enquiry Point’s work (notably by addressing the time spent attempting to transfer calls to other teams and improving the efficiency of IT systems), operators themselves have a high level of productivity. They work diligently throughout the day responding to call and email enquiries with little downtime.

Staff retention

348. Workforce planning is linked to other staffing issues such as retention and recruitment. Over the years, Enquiry Point has struggled to retain its staff. This is not unusual in contact centre environments. Between September 2021 and August 2024, 35 staff left Enquiry Point. Only five of those staff left COPFS, while the majority moved to other roles within COPFS either on level transfer or promotion. This data supports what we heard from many – that Enquiry Point can be viewed as a good entry point to the wider COPFS.

349. While the rest of COPFS benefits from staff who have acquired a range of knowledge about the service, high turnover has a negative impact on Enquiry Point. It results in a loss of knowledge and experience, decreased productivity and affects the morale of those left behind, all of which impacts the quality of the service. Managing turnover and persistently having to recruit and train staff takes up a significant proportion of manager time, limiting their capacity for other work.

350. There is no robust data on the reasons for high turnover within Enquiry Point. For example, exit interviews were not routinely carried out with those leaving COPFS at the time of our inspection, and exit interviews are not undertaken with those who move roles within the service. We spoke with current and former Enquiry Point staff to try to understand the difficulties retaining staff. Staff talked about the pros and cons of working for Enquiry Point, and how these compared to other teams in COPFS.

351. Positive aspects of working in Enquiry Point included:

• the support offered by Enquiry Point managers
• feeling part of the Enquiry Point team
• leaving work behind at the end of the day – when the phone lines are closed for the day and the calls waiting in the queue are dealt with, the work day ends
• the scope for part-time working and the higher degree of certainty about working hours compared to other teams. This means the work can be especially attractive to, for example, those with caring responsibilities.

352. The positives described by staff were supported in many ways by recent staff survey results.^[35] For example:

• Enquiry Point staff were significantly more content with their workload than COPFS staff generally (82% compared to 52%)
• Enquiry Point staff were happier with their work life balance compared to colleagues across COPFS (82% compared to 67%).

353. Working in Enquiry Point also provided operators with impressive levels of contact with staff across COPFS. They acquired broad knowledge of COPFS through managing a variety of enquiries, good customer service skills and experience of using IT systems. These positives did, however, make Enquiry Point staff well placed to achieve moves or promotion to other teams.

354. Negative aspects of working in Enquiry Point included:

• the location – some staff who were not local to Dumbarton did not enjoy having to travel there (although note the opening of a second site at paragraph 363)
• a lack of career development. Beyond the skills noted at paragraph 353, staff felt there were limited opportunities for promotion within Enquiry Point, hence them seeking opportunities elsewhere in the service
• not feeling part of the wider COPFS team – the staff survey showed that only 36% of Enquiry Point staff felt a strong personal attachment to COPFS compared to 53% across the service
• not feeling valued or respected by colleagues across COPFS
• frustration about some aspects of the role, such as dealing with failure demand caused by other teams in COPFS. As the first point of contact for many, customer dissatisfaction is often unjustifiably focused on operators
• the nature of the operator role
• the lack of flexibility, such as opportunities to work at home, compared to other COPFS staff.

355. With regard to the nature of the operator role, staff described their work as difficult, fast-paced, pressured and constant. Some felt that being an operator had a ‘limited shelf life’ and that they either had or expected to ‘burn out’. They also said the operator role can be lonely. Staff also noted that feeling this way was exacerbated when other staff left. Staff who dealt with email enquiries said this was a welcome opportunity to take a break from dealing with calls.

356. With regard to the lack of flexibility, operators felt their working conditions compared less favourably to colleagues in other COPFS teams. In the staff survey, only 39% of Enquiry Point staff felt they had a choice in deciding how they did their work, compared to 73% for COPFS overall. Operators noted:

• they had to work beyond their set finishing time to deal with any calls that were still in the queue when the Enquiry Point line closed
• the set opening hours of the Enquiry Point phone line meant there was little opportunity to take back flexi time or to work in a more flexible way
• there were almost no opportunities for home working. This was in contrast to many staff elsewhere in COPFS. As entry level Band Bs, operators are among the lowest paid staff members in the service and their commuting costs therefore represent a greater proportion of their income than others.

357. Some operators did not want to work from home. They preferred to keep their work separate from their home life, and liked having colleagues and managers on hand when dealing with difficult or upsetting calls. Managers were also keen to work with operators in the office, to ensure they had support whenever needed. The extensive use of the buddy system to train new operators also necessitated operators being in the office. More evenly spreading responsibility for responding to email enquiries among all operators, and allowing them to work from home while doing so, may go some way towards allowing operators a degree of flexible and home working.

358. Enquiry Point managers are well aware of the benefits of retaining staff and continue to explore how to improve retention rates. They could be assisted by corporate support to, for example, implement an exit interview process, analyse reasons for leaving and consider what action can be taken in response. If operator turnover cannot be reduced, however, COPFS should at least acknowledge the role Enquiry Point is playing as a training ground for other units within the service. This should be factored into workforce planning by, for example, allowing Enquiry Point to over-recruit so that turnover has less of an impact on the service provided to the public and partner organisations. Consideration could also be given to rolling recruitment and training programmes for operators.

Recruitment

359. Enquiry Point struggles to recruit operators from other teams within COPFS. This is unfortunate as operators with experience of working elsewhere in the service would be an asset. Within COPFS, Band Bs are also not a moveable resource – that is, COPFS cannot compel staff to move to Enquiry Point. As a result, operators are almost exclusively recruited externally.

360. Recruiting externally has also often been challenging. Some recruitment campaigns have resulted in insufficient applicants. In the past, this has been linked to the roles being office-based in Dumbarton. The opening of a second Enquiry Point site in Glasgow should assist with recruitment.

361. A consequence of high turnover within Enquiry Point is that recruitment is an almost constant endeavour. Given poor staff retention, managers appreciate the importance of getting recruitment right. They have sought to make changes that will increase retention rates, such as being clearer in job adverts about what an operator role entails. We welcome this work. However, we consider that more corporate support from COPFS could strengthen recruitment to Enquiry Point even further.

362. Operators must be especially skilled in communicating both verbally and in writing. They deal with the public every day and will be many people’s first or only interaction with COPFS staff. Despite the specialist skills required by operators, they are recruited using a generic Band B competency framework. We heard that applicants to be an operator may be asked the same questions as applicants to an administrative Band B post that has limited, if any, contact with the public. We also heard that operator applicants are not subject to any additional testing during the recruitment process, such as role play or testing their ability to interact with the public or the quality of their written skills. This recruitment process has sometimes resulted in the appointment of operators who are not ideally suited to the role, but who may be well suited to other Band B roles in COPFS. Delivering a more bespoke recruitment process may help Enquiry Point identify the most suitable candidates in the first instance, and improve staff retention in the longer term.

Recommendation 16
COPFS should explore the reasons for poor staff retention in Enquiry Point and take action to address them. It should consider what changes can be made to its recruitment process for operators to better identify the most appropriate candidates and to improve retention in the longer term.

A second site

363. In August 2024, Enquiry Point opened a second site within the procurator fiscal’s office in Glasgow. The business case highlighted three main benefits of a second site:

• an increased pool of potential applicants when operator vacancies arise
• co-location of operators with COPFS colleagues to allow for greater interaction and to address the sense that Enquiry Point is separate from COPFS
• improved resilience for business continuity purposes. For example, should one site experience a loss of service, Enquiry Point could continue to operate from the other site.

364. The opening of a second site is a positive development for all of the reasons outlined above. Enquiry Point managers have been alert to the potential risks of a second site, such as a divergence of practice between sites. They have sought to address these by, for example, having managers move between the offices.

Telephony and IT systems

365. Effective telephony and IT systems are essential to COPFS’s ability to respond to enquiries accurately and timeously. Enquiry Point handles an average of almost 550 calls per day. Most call and email enquiries require operators and other COPFS staff to use various IT systems to search for information sought, or to record information being provided.

366. During our inspection, we consistently heard from staff about frustrations with IT systems. Staff felt systems were antiquated, complex, not intuitive and unreliable. They also felt systems were inefficient and contributed to the under-recording of important information. Throughout this report, we have highlighted instances of systems not helping staff to do their jobs well.

367. We have previously reported on challenges faced by staff when using COPFS’s electronic case management systems. In our recent inspection of the prosecution of domestic abuse cases at sheriff summary level, we found that, ‘IT systems used by COPFS hamper staff productivity and do not help staff manage cases as efficiently and effectively as possible. This affects the service provided to victims and staff morale.’^[36] In another inspection published in 2022, we stated, ‘COPFS should not underestimate the daily toll poor systems are taking on staff, their productivity and the service provided to victims’.^[37]

368. A recent report commissioned by the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union called on COPFS (and SCTS) to urgently monitor and review the performance of all IT systems, and recommended the full replacement of IT systems to meet the requirements of a 21^st century justice system.^[38]

369. In our previous reports, we have noted that COPFS is aware of the deficiencies of its case management systems. It is not clear, however, whether COPFS is aware of the scale of the productivity losses caused by poor IT. COPFS is planning a next generation case management system using innovative digital technology to meet the delivery needs of a modern prosecution service. As we have said before, this system is much needed. Work to progress it should be expedited.

Contact centre application

370. In 2022, COPFS procured and implemented a new cloud-based contact centre application for Enquiry Point. This was linked to wider changes in the organisation’s approach to telephony systems. The new application could be integrated with Microsoft Teams, allowing operators to receive calls via their laptops rather than requiring operators to have traditional desk phones.

371. It was expected that the new application would ‘transform our customer experience by introducing new ways and channels of communicating with the service’. Some of the anticipated benefits included:

• new ways for Enquiry Point to engage with customers including opportunities for calling, webchat, email and social media channels
• modern tools to support staff to do their job, helping to reduce repeat contacts and providing a more customer-focused experience
• analytics to identify customer contact trends
• call recording to monitor quality
• integration with other applications.

372. The contact centre application was implemented in October 2022. In the 18 months that followed, we heard that Enquiry Point experienced significant problems with the application’s operation. This included:

• calls being disconnected
• calls being stuck in the queue and never presented to an operator
• stuck calls preventing other calls being presented to operators
• calls being presented to multiple operators at the same time
• call controls freezing
• poor call quality
• poor integration with Enquiry Point’s call recording system.

373. We also heard that much anticipated features of the contact centre application which it was hoped would support better customer service and generate data had to be switched off as they did not work as expected. Switching those features off was thought necessary to preserve other, basic functionality. Plans to manage email as well as phone enquiries through the application were also abandoned.

374. Generally, Enquiry Point staff found the application to be unreliable and they lost faith in its ability to support them to do their jobs well. Those we interviewed consistently said that the new application had been a retrograde step.

375. During the 18-month period when problems with the application were at their most acute, we heard that a disproportionate amount of the Enquiry Point business manager’s time was spent identifying and trying to resolve issues. This left her little time for other service development work. She was supported by a colleague from COPFS’s Information Services Division (ISD). Together, they worked well in excess of their contracted hours to improve the application’s basic functionality and stability.

376. It was not entirely clear why the contact centre application had not delivered what was expected. A range of factors may have contributed:

• while some consultation had taken place with Enquiry Point prior to the application being procured, it appears a more comprehensive assessment of the service’s needs may have been needed
• the contact centre application had originally been used internally at COPFS to help manage calls to its ISD helpdesk. We heard the application worked well for that purpose, but was perhaps not suited to the volume of calls received by Enquiry Point
• insufficient support and training around the implementation and operation of the application.

377. We met with another public sector contact centre using the same application as Enquiry Point. They said the application worked well for them, and they were exploiting its functionality to a greater degree than Enquiry Point. It is possible that it is the application’s interaction with COPFS systems and infrastructure that has caused difficulty. User acceptance testing of the application was carried out but had not flagged the problems that subsequently occurred. This raises the possibility that the user acceptance testing was not sufficiently robust.

378. At the time of our inspection, the application was operating in a more stable way, but the anticipated benefits, outlined at paragraph 371, were still not fully realised.

379. While governance arrangements are in place for IT projects within COPFS, we do not consider that those arrangements operated effectively with regard to the project to deliver the contact centre application for Enquiry Point. The project was reviewed following implementation of the application and both a lessons learned and closure report were prepared and signed off. Neither of these documents make any reference to the extensive difficulties experienced by Enquiry Point. The project closure report features a list of the benefits delivered by the new application. This list is inaccurate and there is an absence of supporting evidence. The closure report does not represent a robust assessment of what has actually been delivered and the impact this has on the quality of the service provided by Enquiry Point.

380. The closure report was prepared without input from Enquiry Point staff or the member of ISD staff who was familiar with the difficulties experienced. Not consulting with those who have used the application daily has resulted in a failure to properly explore and measure whether the intended benefits have in fact been realised. The closure report paints an overwhelmingly positive picture of a project which has hampered the delivery of the existing Enquiry Point service and failed to deliver some of the new features that would better support the service. A more robust assessment of the project would have alerted senior managers to the difficulties faced by Enquiry Point and the fact these had not been fully resolved.

381. Ineffective project governance has contributed to COPFS missing opportunities to both review the operation of the contact centre application and to consider whether an alternate solution should be procured. We heard that the contract for the application was renewed in the summer of 2024, without consulting the Enquiry Point business manager.

382. Currently, COPFS has a range of digital projects that are already underway or planned. The effective delivery of these projects is key to COPFS transforming its service and to it becoming a more modern and efficient organisation that better meets the needs of its users. It is therefore essential that these projects are subject to robust governance and oversight.

Recommendation 17
COPFS should ensure that the governance of digital projects is sufficiently robust.

383. With regard to the way forward for Enquiry Point, once its purpose and remit has been clearly defined as required by Recommendation 1, COPFS should consider the systems needed to deliver that purpose. There should be a comprehensive assessment of the requirements of Enquiry Point, not only in terms of how it currently works but how the service will develop in future. This assessment should take into account:

• the views and experiences of Enquiry Point staff
• service user needs and feedback
• benchmarking with comparable contact centres.

384. The assessment should inform the specification and procurement of appropriate products. Consideration should also be given to:

• the integration of Enquiry Point’s system for handling call and email enquiries. While it was anticipated that the current contact centre application would deliver this integration as well as creating new channels through which enquiries could be made, this has not been achieved. Prior to any expansion of its channels, COPFS should consider whether these meet the needs of its service users
• whether Enquiry Point would benefit from a customer relationship management (CRM) system. CRMs are common in contact centre environments and help centralise all customer-related information in a single, accessible system. On receipt of a call from an individual who has previously been in touch, for example, an operator could immediately access information about them, including any vulnerabilities or additional support needs, and reasons for previous enquiries and whether and how those have been resolved. In a criminal justice context, a CRM could help victims and witnesses avoid having to repeat information about themselves and their circumstances each time they contact COPFS. This could help achieve a more trauma-informed service
• whether a customer service ticketing system would help COPFS identify, assign and track enquiries, monitor resolution, and measure performance. Such a system could, for example, track response times and flag repeat enquiries and failure demand. Enquiries could be tracked and monitored even when they are passed by operators to other staff across COPFS.

Recommendation 18
COPFS should ensure that it has a contact centre application and other associated systems that help it deliver an effective and efficient Enquiry Point service.