TELEPHONE SERVICE. (Hansard, 31 October 1946)

THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOEL)

I am aware that the quality of service at some exchanges in London and elsewhere is below that given before the war, and the officers of my Department are using their utmost endeavour to eradicate weaknesses, which are largely the result of post-war transi-954WA tional conditions. The concentration of Post Office resources in plant and manpower on providing communications for the Defence Services and war industries during the war inevitably resulted in a deterioration of the service given to the general public. Since the end of 1945, however, when the requirements of the Services began to decline, considerable progress has been made in re-establishing normal conditions. On the plant side, for example, the number of public telephone circuits over 25 miles in length has increased in the past two years from 9,000 to over 13,000 (including 150 circuits added to the busy London-Birmingham route early this year). Only a few of the longer inland routes connected to London Trunks are now deficient in circuits, namely, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield, and these also will shortly be brought up to standard by the provision of additional circuits. When this is done, practically all inland routes connected to London Trunks will have sufficient circuits for a "no-delay" service, and this will apply equally to inland routes throughout the country. From the circuit aspect, conditions on the trunk service will then be even better than before the war.

In spite of the improved situation in regard to circuit capacity, I cannot deny that subscribers who wish to make toll or trunk calls have, in general, to wait for attention longer than I would wish and that on occasions a considerable time may elapse before the operator answers. This is due to difficulties on the personnel side, where the service has suffered from rapid changes of staff with the result that there has been a serious shortage of operators as well as a serious reduction in the number of experienced operators.

This situation has arisen primarily from war-time restrictions which prevented the Post Office from recruiting an adequate number of telephonists from its normal sources. During the war the younger women were needed in the Auxiliary Forces and munition industries and the Post Office was therefore compelled to recruit its telephone operating staff from older women, many with domestic responsibilities, whose service was essentially of a temporary nature. As the proportion of these increased, the rate of wastage grew until it reached a peak during the main period of the husbands' demobilization. I am glad to say it is now receding.

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Unfortunately this period of heavy wastage coincided with a rapid rise in telephone traffic and the Post Office was faced with the problem of recruiting telephone operators at an unprecedented rate from a limited supply of labour. For the last 15 months, despite strenuous efforts, it has been impossible to find adequate staff for the London exchanges and, notwithstanding considerable assistance from provincial exchanges, it has not been uncommon for exchanges to be short of staff to the extent of 10 to 20 per cent. I am glad to say that during the past few months the efforts to obtain, more staff have met with greater success, but a large proportion of the staff are still lacking in experience.

At the end of September there were in all 12,000 telephone operators in the London exchanges. Owing to the high rate of wastage and growth in traffic during the last twelve months, over 6,000 of these operators were recruited and posted to exchanges in that period. At the present time, therefore, over half the operating staff in London have less than a year's experience and well over a quarter have less than six months. As it takes about two years for a telephonist to reach full efficiency, the overall efficiency of the staff is obviously far from normal at present. To a limited extent it is possible to counterbalance lack of experience by increase in numbers and this has been done to the maximum degree possible. There are, however, some features of telephone operating in which numbers cannot compensate for lack of experience; for example, nothing but experience can give that dexterity and ease which is essential if an operator is to give consistently good and courteous service.

Regular measurements of service efficiency show that much improvement has already been effected. In London Trunks the average time to answer has improved from 30 seconds in the summer of 1945 to 13 seconds at the present time; some further reduction in this figure is expected in the future. In the London local exchanges, as a whole, recent tests show an average time to answer of 14 seconds, compared with 18 seconds earlier this year.

My Department will continue to exert its utmost powers to overcome the difficulties with which it is faced during this present period of reconstruction and to 956WA regain, as quickly as possible, its traditional high quality of service to the public.