I am advised that the number of SLC staff employed in customer contact roles for the financial years 2004-05 to 2008-09 are as set out in the following table. The resource forecast for financial year 2010-11 has not yet been finalised.
Full-time equivalent 2008-09 546 2007-08 431 2006-07 329 2005-06 309 2004-05 306 Notes: 1. Figures show the number of SLC permanent and temporary staff employed on customer contact functions in October in each year from 2005 to 2009, including outsourced call handling staff but excluding SLC staff re-assigned temporarily from other duties to help with customer contact in peak periods. 2. Staff deal with contact from potential students and sponsors relating to higher education services in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The figures exclude contact relating to mortgage style loan collection activities and further education services.
The following payments have been made by the Student Loans Company to Response Handling in each of the last five years for outsourced contact services:
Financial Year Amount 2004-05 1,183,212 2005-06 1,179,027 2006-07 1,365,867 2007-08 1,505,268 2008-09 1,710,264 2009-20 12,291,924 1 2009-10 figures are year to 31 October 2009.
The average speed to answer telephone calls relating to Student Finance England (SFE) at the Student Loans Company (SLC) contact centre in each of the last 12 months is indicated in the following table:
Average speed of answer (Minutes:seconds) Month 2008 December 00:27 2009 January 00:32 February 01:30 March 02:29 April 05:18 May 04:14 June 03:44 July 06:09 August 10:00 September 16:41 October 09:45 November 04:08
Calls are only routed to Response Handling when there is an advisor available to take calls under the terms of the outsourcing arrangement but that means that there are no queues at the outsourced provider and any queuing and wait time is always associated with the SLC in-house contact centre. The average speed to answer an SFE call at Response Handling in each of the last 12 months is indicated in the following table:
Month Average speed of answer (Minutes:seconds) 2008 December 00:07 2009 January 00:06 February 00:07 March 00:04 April 00:05 May 00:15 June 00:13 July 00:13 August 00:14 September 00:15 October 00:13 November 00:13 Notes: 1 Average Speed of Answer is calculated from when the customer enters the contact centre queue, having completed any prior identification, verification or other menu options on the IVR (interactive voice response system,) and ends when an agent answers. 2 Response Handling outsourcing was utilised to answer SFE related application calls only. 3 Although the figures provided are for SFE related calls only, SLC in-house Contact Centre resource is utilised across a range of services covering customers with applications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and borrowers across the UK.
Professor Sir Deian Hopkin's review of the delivery of financial support to students in England by the Student Loans Company for the academic year 2009-10 recommended that the company should reconsider its resourcing model for the contact centres. The SLC has accepted this recommendation and is taking urgent steps to implement improvements.
The information provided by the Student Loans Company (SLC) is set out in the following table:
Financial year Telephone charge revenue amount (£000) 2004-05 96 2005-06 283 2006-07 283 2007-08 332 2008-09 447 2009-10 (to end October 2009) 265
The split for revenue by calls answered/abandoned is not held.
These figures are in the context of the SLC’s net telephone expenditure as follows:
Financial year Net telephone expenditure (£000) 2004-05 970 2005-06 890 2006-07 838 2007-08 519 2008-09 459 2009-10 (to end October 2009) 307
Ministers and officials are in regular contact with the Student Loans Company (SLC) on a wide range of issues, including telephones. During 2009 there have been no discussions specifically about a geographical phone number for inquiries to the SLC.