Vancouver hotline cuts through the bureaucratic maze

The City of Vancouver has launched a quick-dial information service in an attempt to help people cut through the red tape and get the answers they need.

Dialling 311, according to the City of Vancouver's website, will "provide citizens with ready access to most City information and non-emergency services by phone." The line will operate seven days a week, 24-hours a day and language translation services will be available.

The "soft launch" of the system took place in February, with 12 agents answering calls. That number was boosted to between 30 and 35 agents in June, and is expected to expand to 40 agents by June 2010.

The 311 service was approved by city council in November 2006.

According to Barbara Pearce, a business consultant with the city, Vancouver City Hall received more than a million phone calls from the public in 2008, and more than 100,000 of them were lost in the bureaucratic maze.

Pearce also said city employees spend too much of their time answering calls, rather than working on city business.

"The concept of 311 is to take approximately 80 per cent of the city business calls off the plates of the employees so they can concentrate on doing what they do best — delivering services," Pearce said. 

Until the service is fully operational in approximately a year, many of the calls will be transferred to the appropriate departments, but eventually the 311 operators will be able to deal with most issues directly.

Data collection will also be a benefit for the city, according to 311 Contact Centre manager Darcy Wilson. 

How it works

Using a major snowfall as an example, Wilson said that complaints or requests for snow removal would be directed to a 311 operator instead of the engineering department. The complaint will be recorded, a case number given, and a computer program will track the areas of the city where the complaints originate. 

"We'd be able to provide lots of data to the engineering department so they'd be able to go back and understand what the concerns were by citizens and they might be able to make adjustments based on what we are supplying them," Wilson said.

Vancouver is the first city in the Lower Mainland to implement the 311 system, which is already in use in many North America cities.