Stephanie Ajayi has challenged Ealing Council over lengthy telephone waits and missed performance targets in its housing repairs service.
At the Housing and Environment Scrutiny Panel on 14 October, the Labour councillor asked how long residents were waiting for calls to be answered. A senior housing officer said average waits had at times reached 40 to 50 minutes, against a target of five to ten minutes.
Figures presented to the panel showed that 78.5% of repair appointments were kept in August. The proportion of jobs completed on the first visit was 79.3%, while 79.7% of urgent repairs were completed on time.
Each of those measures was below the council's 95% target. The discussion also covered missed appointments, unfinished work and the need to keep tenants better informed about outstanding repairs.
Officers said staff had been taken away from telephone duties for training ahead of a move to a new repairs service. They reported recent improvement but accepted that staffing levels and real-time communication with tenants still needed attention.
Ajayi represents Greenford Broadway and serves on the scrutiny panel. Ealing is a Labour-controlled council, but the intervention showed Labour members using scrutiny to press their own administration on service performance.
