WP3473A Provision of Out of Hours Telephony Contact

The following specification sets out the Council's requirements to ensure emergency telephony enquiries are managed outside of the standard office hours of 8.45am to 5.15pm Monday to Thursday, 8.45am to 4.45pm on Friday, every Saturday and Sunday, every Bank Holiday and any additional concessionary days agreed by the Council's leadership team (for example, in 2018 this includes the 24th December). Additional concessionary days will be communicated to the supplier at least 4 weeks in advance to ensure the supplier can resource plan.

The role of the chosen partner out of hours contact provider will be principally to receive enquiries from stakeholders including residents and partners and outside of the core hours (set out above) in a way that is friendly, helpful, professional and polite. The out of hours partner provider will then ensure timely, accurate messages are issued to appropriate on-call officers providing key aspects of information needed for officers to make informed decisions and take any forward any required actions.

The supplier will answer the calls advising the caller they are managing out of hours enquiries on behalf of Walsall Council and will ensure the highest standards of professionalism in each interaction with the public. The supplier will ensure colleagues receiving out of hours enquiries are empathetic, helpful and understanding of residents' concerns and will act to liaise with on call emergency duty teams in a manner that is prompt, efficient, understanding and helpful.

The Council seeks to work fully in the spirit of partnership with the supplier to ensure effective delivery of the contract and will regularly monitor outputs and service performance of the contract in an open and honest way to deliver service improvements.

Additional information: Is a Recurrent Procurement Type? : No