Staff work restrictions cause snags

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 5

Staff work restrictions cause snags

Congestion in public reception areas and a lack of telephone calls were the most noticeable problems caused by the Social Welfare Department staff work restrictions, said the director of the Christchurch department. Mr Terry Comer, last evening. Restrictions imposed by the workers at a meeting oh Wednesday include limiting public office hours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., a ban on the preparation of statistical returns, and a ban on implementing any new policies. Telephone operators are accepting only one call every five minutes during the restricted hours and none after those hours. The restrictions on the telephone calls had meant that the department had been virtually cut off. he said.

“It is very noticeable that the telephones are not going. Our operators usually take many thousands of inward calls and normally

you can hear telephones going all the time but they are just not going at all."

Mr Comer said he could only guess at the number of people trying to contact the department who were unable to get through. Although the public office hours were restricted, staff were still working the same number of hours, he said. When the staff were not serving the public they were doing paper work and had more time to do it in. "This is one of the more positive things (to come from the work restrictions) if you can find any.” Mr Comer said.

An arrangement had been made with the police for child-abuse calls or any other life-threatening emergency usually handled by Social Welfare staff to be handled by the police, he said.

Financial emergencies were still being dealt with by the department.