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Telephone services provided by government departments
Following is a question by the Hon Albert Chan and a written reply by the Chief Secretary, the Hon Anson Chan, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
In his reply to a question on enquiry hot-lines provided by the Government which I raised in this Council in May this year, the Chief Secretary stated that government departments would continue to keep under constant review the possibility of installing more communication devices and making other improvements to enhance the services provided by the enquiry hot-lines. However, the enquiry hot-lines service provided by government departments still varies greatly in quality. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether it has conducted a review of the enquiry hot-lines service provided by various government departments since May this year; if so, what are the findings; and
(b) what measures the Government has put in place to improve the enquiry hot- lines service in departments such as the Legal Aid Department and the Immigration Department where the public have experienced difficulties in putting a call through?
Reply:
Mr President,
(a) In order to obtain an overview on telephone services provided by government departments, the Efficiency Unit co-ordinated a data gathering exercise from June to September this year. For the purpose of this exercise we defined a hotline to be a telephone service which provides direct and immediate access to members of staff. Information so gathered indicated that there are currently some 47 hotlines in 26 departments. These hotlines are supported by some 135 telephone lines of which 81 operate an 8-hour service, 13 operate a 16-hour service, and 41 operate a 24-hour service. From January to August this year, these hotlines handled an average of some 1,400 calls per month each, or 66,000 in total.