A late amendment to the council agenda confused Councillors Chris Holstein and Greg Best, who thought they had had a quick win on getting their colleagues to agree to continue to outsource a Council after hours call centre.
Instead, the two were unaware of the late amendment which instead asked for a further report outlining more details behind the estimated $1M cost of bringing the service inhouse.
Mayor Lisa Matthews said she knew Cr Best worked full-time but councillors had had a briefing on the matter that he had not attended.
The Director of Connected Communities, Julie Vaughan, had told the briefing that there were complexities to the two alternatives of external providers or an in-house service, and that was why the councillors were deferring a decision.
Cr Doug Vincent said Cr Best should have gone to the briefing, and then with comic timing he added – “or Specsavers, so he could have read the motion on the screen”.
The call centre was the subject of confusion at the previous meeting too, when councillors first voted to stick with the out-sourced agreement and then one councillor changed their mind at the second vote, leaving the matter hanging over to the December 9 meeting.
Cr Kyle MacGregor moved at the November meeting that Council create an in-house call centre.
At that meeting, Cr Best noted the differences in cost with an external service provider. He said the report showed it would cost $214 per call to do the call centre in-house for a total cost of $1.35M. “Or $55 average cost per call, or $350,000 if run externally, so the cost difference is $1M, ’’ he said. The matter will now come back in 2020.
Source: Meetings, Nov 25 & Dec 9 Central Coast Council Reporter: Merilyn Vale