A computerised telephone hotline used by thousands of residents to make emergency calls or complaints to Bradford Council is to be reviewed.

The news has been welcomed by the Council's Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Jeanette Sunderland who has branded the system "impersonal, confusing and difficult to use."

The group was pressing for the review and is now calling for the automated system to be scrapped.

More than 3,000 people use the service each week to register complaints or to gain further information on Council services.

Callers are greeted by a recorded voice, which guides them through a series of options by using their touch-tone telephone, or they can wait for an operator.

Coun Sunderland has now received a letter from Paul Webley, the Council's head of strategy and finance, stating that he has "commissioned a review of the operation of the telephone management system".

Coun Sunderland said the automated system means a higher phone bill and a more impersonal service for residents.

"You start paying for the call as soon as the recorded message starts playing and this means a bigger phone bill when you are waiting to hear the various options," she said.

"It is also an impersonal service and fosters a belief that the Council is remote and uncaring - people want to talk to a person. As a result many people just put the phone down."

Her views seem to be consistent with the results of a new Government survey.

The People's Panel was set up to gauge the public's attitude to services which it believes can be improved.

The survey revealed that nine out of ten people thought it was more important that a person should respond to the caller - rather than a caller dealing with a range of recorded options.

Coun Sunderland said: "People want to talk to a human being, they do no want to talk to a computer.''

Bradford housing services sub- committee chairman Coun Jim O'Neill said: "One of the things that has already emerged is the fact there is scope to reduce the length of time it takes people to get through to the operator and cut the amount of automated responses. We will consider the options once the review is complete."

The automated system was introduced last year, but the hotline has been in operation since the early 1990s.

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