Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Accepted
Teleperformance has a service level target of 80% of calls being answered by a person...
Conclusion
Teleperformance has a service level target of 80% of calls being answered by a person within 30 seconds. It failed to meet this target from April to July 2022. In April, it received 625,000 calls in one week, nearly 350% above the forecast, during which time 55% of calls were answered within 30 seconds. Its worst performance was in in May 2022, when only 14% of calls were answered within 30 seconds.34 We heard that constituents had been hung up on when trying to contact the customer support telephone line, and that many people had turned to contacting their MPs instead. HMPO accepted that there were significant issues with Teleperformance, and that a number of customers lost confidence in its system. It told us that it worked “very closely” with Teleperformance “once we saw how off-track their performance was” and that it was continuing to do so in order to prepare the supplier for the surge in 2023.35 30 C&AG’s Report paras 2.9–2.9, 3.11 and Figures 1, 9 31 Q 76; C&AG’s Report para 2.8, Figure 9 32 Q 67; C&AG’s Report para 3.12, Figure 9 33 Q 76 34 C&AG’s Report, para 3.13, Figure 9 35 Qq 30, 33, 102 14 Investigation into the UK Passport Office
Government Response Summary
The Home Office states that HM Passport Office has worked closely with Teleperformance and Sopra Steria to ensure they meet the required service level throughout 2023 and that Sopra Steria has consistently met its key performance measures since June 2022, while Teleperformance has met the required service levels since August 2022. They also appointed Serco to handle approximately 25% of calls to the Passport Adviceline.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
4.3 For the work of Teleperformance and Sopra Steria, HM Passport Office has worked closely with them to help ensure that they meet the required service level throughout 2023. 4.6 While Teleperformance did not meet the required standard until August 2022, HM Passport Office worked with them constructively to resolve this as quickly as possible. Following the introduction of a number of improvements, Teleperformance have met the required service levels for call answering since August 2022. 4.7 However, as part of lessons learned from last year, HM Passport Office has added greater resilience to its provision of customer contact services by appointing an additional supplier. Serco, who commenced this work on 22 March 2023, will handle approximately 25% of calls to the Passport Adviceline and provide extra resilience to Teleperformance, with the overall contact centre spend estimated to deliver around £2 million savings over a two-year period.