A PRIVATE company which has taken over the running of Worcestershire's council contact centre has refused to reveal how much profit it is making from the deal.

Civica, which took over the Worcestershire Hub in April, attended a Worcester City Council meeting last night for a Q&A on the service.

During the debate:

- It revealed the performance of the service, which has faced heavy criticism in recent years, is getting better

- After taking on 50 workers it does not intend to slash staff but aims to attract new work in and will eventually take on more employers

- The company has no idea whether the performance targets councillors have set it are good enough

- It is making profit from the deal but did not want to say how much

In April the hub, which handles anywhere from 37,000 to 100,000 queries a month from the public, was taken over by London-based Civica under an eight-year deal aimed to saving £2.6 million.

The Hub, which has a call centre in Pershore, a face-to-face base at Worcester's Hive and smaller contact desks around the county, deals with everything from bus queries to pothole reports for the county council and district authorities in Worcester and Malvern.

In July, August and September this year 78 per cent of calls were answered within 90 seconds, beating a target of 70 per cent but below the previous three-month period of 82 per cent.

But queueing times for face-to-face queries are down drastically, from around 15 minutes, which is the actual target, to just over eight minutes per person.

Nick Jefferies, Civica's partnership director, told councillors he was confident it was improving.

"Anecdotally complaints are down - someone the other day had to even go hunting to find some because we really don't get many at all, especially compared to the number of calls we get," he said.

Councillor Stephen Hodgson asked him if the targets are "more or less stringent than the ones you'd set yourself".

He replied: "At the end of the day we could answer all calls within five seconds, but it would cost you more money.

"There has to be a degree of compromise within the funding being provided, but I can't be drawn on how the targets compare, the targets are the targets and it's up to you to decide if it's meeting your needs."

Councillor Richard Udall said: "You receive a lot of public money - the public deserve to know if Civica makes a profit from this, or whether it's a loss-leader?"

Mr Jefferies refused to be drawn on the profits but added "are we doing a loss-leader on this, no we're not".

He also said he intends to buy in work from other councils so the telephone service at Pershore Civic Centre can take on more work and employ extra staff.

Six months ago council officers said jobs would go under the deal, to achieve some of the expected savings.

* To see what was said about jobs when the deal launched, go HERE, or to read about how the Hub was missing targets last year click HERE.