Liberals hint at budget boost for EI call centres to fix poor service

theglobeandmail.com
By Bill Curry
Feb. 1, 2017

Liberal MPs are calling for a budget boost to Employment Insurance call centres after a review found out-of-work Canadians continue to have a hard time getting anyone on the phone when they call for help with their EI claims.

A new federal survey found fewer than one in four Canadians reach an agent the first time they call Service Canada, which is the main point of contact for federal services. Even when they do reach an agent, a separate survey of call-centre employees found that only 26 per cent of cases are resolved on the first call, while 44 per cent of cases require multiple calls to resolve.

The findings are the result of a year-long review of federal service levels for the employment-insurance program, which delivers income support for unemployed Canadians who have worked enough hours to qualify.

The government’s decision to release data on its own poor performance appears to be timed ahead of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s 2017 budget. Liberals hinted Wednesday that the budget is likely to include new spending to address some of the problems at Service Canada call centres.

“I don’t think it’s an accident that our report is being tabled before the budget,” said Liberal MP Terry Duguid, who was one of three Liberal MPs who led a project called the Employment Insurance Service Quality Review, which released a detailed and glossy report Wednesday produced by Employment and Social Development Canada.

Mr. Duguid, along with Rodger Cuzner and Remi Masse, have presented their findings to the Finance Minister, who is expected to release a budget soon, though no budget date has been announced. The research project included hearing from users of the EI program as well as government employees who work in federal call centres across the country.

The feedback highlighted the fact that the federal government currently lacks basic call-centre services such as the ability to return a client’s call at a set time, rather than having the customer call repeatedly and wait on hold for long periods of time.

“We have these 40-year-old technology platforms that we have patched and stitched without making some of the major investments that we’ve needed to make,” Mr. Duguid said. “We need new technology, new telephony, new computer systems. We need to proceed prudently and that’s exactly what we have recommended in the report.”

The federal government has a poor track record of late when it comes to major information technology projects. The head of Statistics Canada resigned last year in protest over concerns he had with Shared Services Canada, a project aimed at merging back-office IT services across federal departments.

Meanwhile, thousands of federal public servants continue to face financial hardship over the continuing problems with the introduction of the Phoenix pay system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got an earful recently from some public servants during his cross-country town hall tour. The Prime Minister was chastised for failing to fix the problem.

Liberal MPs said Wednesday that any changes to technology at federal EI call centres would need to be done prudently in light of the problems Ottawa has faced with other major projects.

“I think we’ve learned from many lessons of the past,” Mr. Duguid said.