The Government's 1823 Call Centre handled almost 3 million calls and more than 100,000 emails from the public last year, triple the volume handled when it launched in 2001.

Of the calls, 86% were enquiries, 11% complaints, while the rest were suggestions. The first-time resolution rate - a measure of whether the officer answering the call can assess and reply directly, or must seek further information and call back later - was as high as 97%.

Last year also saw the highest public satisfaction with the centre's service, with staff and services winning numerous awards. They included the Best Public Service Application Grand Award and Best Public Service Application (Transformation) Gold Award in the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2009; Hong Kong's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) Award; the Departmental Service Enhancement Award (Small Department Category) (Merit) in the Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme; and, PCM Biz IT Excellence 2009 in IT Case Excellence.

The centre will expand its service this year to cover the Lands Department. More business intelligence technology will be explored to provide better analyses and statistics to discover issues for better resources planning and deployment. Its webpage will also be revamped to include frequently asked questions.

Since 2001 the centre has received 16.5 million calls from the public.