Customer Care - Standards of Service

We believe our customers should always receive the highest standards of service in an efficient, open and accountable way. This page sets out the standards of service you can expect from us.

To ensure we provide the service you expect, we welcome feedback - good and bad!  You can help us improve our service or tell us what we are doing well by completing and returning this Comments/Suggestions form.  Any comments will be passed to our Chief Executive for attention.

Visitors to our Office

Our office are open from 08:30 to 17:00 hrs - Monday to Thursday and 08:30 to 16:30 hrs on Fridays. Interviews with staff are by appointment only. Persons wishing an interview should telephone or email us, preferably at least one full week prior to the desired date for appointment, and advise us of what they wish to discuss. The will allow for arrangements to be made and for staff to properly research the matter raised. If you call at an agreed time you will be seen at that time or at least within 10 minutes.

General Correspondence and Telephone Enquiries

We aim to:

• Answer telephone enquiries promptly. If we cannot deal with your enquiry at the first point of contact, you will be passed on quickly to someone who can. Failing that, we will take your details and ensure you are contacted later that day or the next working day. 
• Respond to all correspondence within 20 working days of receipt. If we cannot provide a full reply within this period, we will write to you to explain why there will be a delay and when you can expect to receive a full response.

Please note that we do not accept any letters that are delivered with insufficient postage. These will be returned directly to you by Royal Mail.

Media Enquiries

We aim to deal with all media enquiries as quickly as possible and arrange a response within 2 hours. If this is not possible, you will be advised at the time.

Performance

We publish our performance in our Annual Report which is available free of charge from our offices or download a copy from our forms and leaflets page.

Regulatory Applications

We aim to:

• Provide you with an appropriate form and on request, discuss, in general terms, the nature of your proposals.
• Acknowledge receipt of your application within 5 working days.

Finance

We follow the Government's policy on payment performance and aim to pay all invoices not in dispute within 10 days (or the agreed terms if different).