National Indicator 14 is one of the 198 indicators, against which councils will be assessed within the new performance management framework.

The indicator aims to reduce ‘avoidable contact’ between the community and councils. Examples of ‘avoidable contact’ include calls from citizens to chase progress on service requests and calls following failure to undertake transactions on websites. Such calls are usually of little value to either the citizen or the council, but can often represent a significant proportion of contact volumes.

Implementation of a Channel Migration Strategy can have a major impact on reducing the number of 'avoidable contacts' by ensuring customers obtain the information or service they require at the first point of contact - be that face-to-face, by telephone or on the internet.

A comprehensive guide to NI14 has been published by Government - see the link on the left for further information.

No council has included NI14 as one of its Local Priorities in a Local Area Agreement for 2008/09.

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