Cabinet Office Homepage
Last updated: 23 April 2009
The Contact Council has responsibility for customer contact across government. In the mid- to long- term the Council will focus on setting and implementing the strategy for delivering modern customer contact for public services. In the near term the Council is concentrating on implementing the Varney recommendations. This page sets out the Council’s current priorities:
In response to recommendation 24 of the Varney report, ‘that the Contact Council be tasked with approving a blueprint for public sector contact centres’, the Contact Council is publishing this compilation of the best examples of specific aspects of public sector contact centre operations taken from across government.
A set of performance indicators (the Performance Management Framework or PMF) were compiled with input from departments, agencies, local authorities and the police and published in May 2007. The next PMF report for January to March 08 is scheduled for publication in Mid July:
The Contact Council asks that each publicly-funded contact centre supplies its PMF data through the new PMF Report website. Any new contact centres wanting to register to become a contributor to the PMF should follow the details found on www.pmfreport.org. The website is now open to receive performance data for the period January to March 2009. The website will close on Wednesday 13th May 2009.
The Varney report recommends that all publicly funded contact centres undergo formal accreditation by December 2008. The Council provides guidance on accreditation [PDF 182KB, 6 pages] to contact centres. Practitioners are encouraged to submit their case studies, suggestions and experiences with accreditation to the Contact Council (email address below). The Council will update the guidance with new and relevant information from time to time.
In response to Sir David Varney’s recommendation that ‘Government explores the scope for providing more coordinated helpline services’ the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is conducting a survey of all publicly funded telephone helplines on behalf of the Contact Council.
To complete the survey there is a simple registration process at http://www.helplinesurvey.org.uk/[External website].
Completing the survey will help the MoJ to:
Results from the survey will be shared with all participants.
The MoJ offered to lead on this work because its work on social inclusion and civil and family legal aid has highlighted the need to get the best possible advice to vulnerable people at the earliest possible opportunity. Research highlighting this can be found at www.dca.gov.uk/laid/betteradvice.pdf[External website].
To contact the Helplines Review Team please email helplinesteam@justice.gsi.gov.uk.
The Varney report recommends that the new 0300 number range annouced by Ofcom would provide a sensible platform to organise public services number ranges and make access to public services easier for customers.
The Council is engaged with a number of other tasks which will be reported on this page as soon as appropriate.
To contact us about this website, use the website feedback form.
To get in touch with the Contact Council please email contactcouncil@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk.
