MORE funding is needed to stop too many phones going unanswered at Fife Council's contact centre.

That's the view of the scrutiny committee who have agreed to write to the administration's co-leaders expressing concern over call handling performance figures.

It has emerged that in the last financial year just 73 per cent of calls were answered – that's a nine per cent drop compared to the previous year.

Just three years ago the figure was 90 per cent.

The contact centre should be aiming to answer 88 per cent of calls.

The crisis has been caused by budget cuts in 2016 which led to a reduction in staff.

Last year, one stressed-out council worker spoke to the Press to say that colleagues were dealing with a “staffing crisis” which was affecting their mental health at the contact centre.

It appears the situation has not improved, according to these new performance figures.

The whistleblower told us that pleas to management to resolve the situation had proved unsuccessful.

As well as creating stressed-out workers, the lack of manpower at New City House meant that anyone trying to phone the Fife Council’s environment, housing, faults and repairs, passes and concessions or money and payments lines would find themselves with a wait of between 30 and 45 minutes.

The employee said: "Staff members have got to a point where they have ended up in tears or are now going sick from work due to stress.

"They all feel they have no support and if concerns are raised, they just get a shrug of: ‘Just get on with it’.

"Despite the obvious fact the team is on their knees, they have been told that they have no plans to recruit."

Customer service manager Diarmuid Cotter told the Press last year that there was "no doubt" that conditions were placing a strain on staff but management was working on ways to make the council a more modern and accessible organisation so that people could carry out more business online.

Performance did improve in the second half of the financial year after staffing numbers were increased in September 2018.

The scrutiny committee heard that efforts to move more services online were continuing but there was a question mark over timescales.

As well as efforts by the committee to ask the administration for further funding, it has also been agreed that the customer service manager would provide an update on progress to members in six months' time.