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NATIONAL ENQUIRY CENTREIn order to provide a better telephone and email service to clients contacting the FamilyCourt and the FMC, the National Enquiry Centre (NEC) was established in April 2006 aspart of the Combined Registry Program. The NEC is able to answer many queries andonly diverts calls to a registry where necessary. This reduces the number of callerstransferred which only occurs if they need another specific service.Overview of the court Part 2The NEC aims to provide a quality service to clients. Its service benchmarks are:80% of calls are answered within 90 seconds,less than 5% of calls abandoned,less than 10% of calls transferred to a Family Law registry,100% of emails answered within 7 days, and100% of requests for divorce certificates processed and sent within 3 working daysof receipt.Of the calls received by the NEC only 8% require a transfer to a Family Law registry,approximately 5% are referred to the Family Relationships Advice Line or other externalservice provider, 1% are transferred to the Federal Court of Australia, and 3% require theassistance of other Courts, eg. local courts and the Family Court of Western Australia.The Manager National Enquiry Centre at workThe effectiveness of the NEC was evaluatedby an external consultant during 2006-07. Thereview concluded that the centre provides a costeffective, reliable, timely and client focussed firstpoint of electronic contact for clients of bothCourts. The evaluation further illustrated thatthis services provides a highly visible, nationallyintegrated and seamless telephone service,ensures uniformity of approach and consistencyin response to general family law telephone andemail enquiries. 11 See Part 6 for more information on the evaluation outcomes.16Family Court of Australia Annual Report 2006–2007Back to contents page