Page 3437 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018

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We are also increasing the number of staff who are performing Access Canberra’s regulatory functions. This is going to include two new specialist WorkSafe inspectors to continue ensuring that our work sites across the city are safe and continue to be safe. There will also be two additional building licence inspectors to ensure that builders are doing what they can under the building code.

The government is growing the staffing in Access Canberra to increase the services that we provide for our growing city.

MS CHEYNE: Minister, how will the increased numbers of concierges and contact centre operators increase the level of customer service that Access Canberra provides?

MR RAMSAY: I thank Ms Cheyne for the supplementary question. The government is committed to providing a good customer service experience for everyone who interacts with Access Canberra. That is why we are growing the number of concierges and contact centre operators within Access Canberra. Our contact centre operators are some of the most knowledgeable public servants that we have. They answer calls on everything from vehicle registration and the maintenance of outdoor fitness equipment to waste issues and European wasp nests.

We are hiring five new call takers to help with an increasingly complex series of inquiries that Access Canberra now answers. This will help to reduce wait times to speak to our staff by having more operators available, providing the capacity to answer around 1,700 additional calls each week. In addition to this we will be employing extra concierges for our service centres. These friendly and knowledgeable staff help Canberrans as they arrive in our centres to ensure that they have what they need, the correct forms and fees, and can even help people lodge online in the shopfront if it will save time. That means that people do not need to wait to see someone at the counter just to check that they have everything they require. It also helps to ensure that transactions can be done in a timely and efficient manner.

This builds on other work that we have been doing to improve the experience people have, such as introducing a call-back function for the contact centre, installing touchscreens to allow online lodgement in service centres and continually improving Fix My Street so that people can lodge complaints and provide information online. This government continues to invest in our contact centre and our service centres to grow the service we provide.

MS CODY: Minister, can you outline how the extra building and WorkSafe inspectors will allow Access Canberra to better undertake its regulatory functions?

MR RAMSAY: I thank Ms Cody for the supplementary question and her for interest in workplace safety and the regulatory functions of the government. Access Canberra has many highly skilled and knowledgeable staff in its various inspectorates. As part of this budget, we are increasing the number of WorkSafe inspectors and building inspectors to meet the needs of our growing city.


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