STAFF at the council's contact centre are reducing overall waiting times for residents following the completion of an 'intensive' training programme.

Six new recruits have joined Contact Warrington, based on Horsemarket Street, to bolster the team and the impact is already being felt.

The average waiting time over the telephone in July was seven minutes 21 seconds but for August this shot down to five minutes 32 seconds.

While the face to face waiting time in August averaged nine minutes 28 seconds – an improvement of two minutes 10 seconds from July.

Executive board member for personnel and communications Cllr Hitesh Patel heaped praise on staff following the dramatic improvements.

"The new recruits joined the contact centre team during the early summer and completed their intensive training programme in August," he said.

"After completing their training the recruits joined the front line teams and the additional capacity is now helping to reduce overall waiting times.

"Looking further ahead, a continued improvement in performance is anticipated during the autumn as the new recruits become more skilled and experienced."

Between March and May Contact Warrington dealt with more than 30,0000 phone calls and almost 19,000 visits.

Customer contact manager Alex Grundy has welcomed the latest waiting time figures and is tipping the centre to experience more success.

Despite highlighting the need to treat each query with complete focus and attention, she admits there have been a few bizarre enquiries which have stuck in her mind.

"The times are great and down to the hard work of the staff," she said.

"When I first started six years ago we did not really get anything through social media or that many e-mails but now that is a big part of what we do and we encourage people to do things online.

"We deal with all calls and there can be a spike if there is something going on like an election, or an incident like at Mr Smith's.

"One call we received was from someone who wanted to check if they were still married!"