Clackmannanshire Council Online

Improving our Services to Communities

A decade of hard work and dedication within four sections at Clackmannanshire Council has been recognised as they have again received the Customer Service Excellence Award.

The Council services covered by the award are: Development Quality, Building Standards, Roads and Transportation and Environmental Health.

This recognition of exceptional service began 10 years ago when Development Services, as was, achieved the Charter Mark certificate.

In 2008 the Cabinet Office introduced the more demanding Customer Service Excellence Standard and the services set out to raise their game once again and were accredited for another three years.

And three years on, another tough inspection was carried out by an external, independent assessor. The services were all able to demonstrate excellent standards of customer service and care and so their Award has been renewed for another three years.

You are invited to send a photographer to Greenfield at 9.15am on Thursday 15th December when staff will be congratulated on their achievement by councillors.

Councillor Eddie Carrick, Portfolio Holder for Sustainability, said: "This is a great accolade. The Customer Service Excellence Award focuses on the service actually provided to the customer and this achievement shows that the citizen is at the heart of the service we are providing. This achievement means the whole of Services to Communities is a step closer to gaining Customer Service Excellence."

Assessors visited Clackmannanshire speaking to staff, customers, community councillors and partners. The assessor's report states: "Following the assessment, Clackmannanshire Council Development Quality, Building Standards, Environmental Health, Roads and Transportation were found to have a deep understanding and a commitment to Customer Service Excellence. The commitment was found from Senior Management through to operation and front line staff."

Areas of good practice highlighted by the assessors include:

• Staff appear to be very customer focused and take ownership of customer issues even where that involves other services
• The staff accompanied by the assessor showed high levels of interpersonal communications skills and easily built rapport with a diverse range of customers
• Staff spoken to by the assessor were all very aware of the need for high levels of customer care
• Customers were satisfied with the service provided by the Council. One customer in particular commented on the ease of dealing with the service due to its 'joined up' nature
• One part of the service demonstrated that it was now using postcard style satisfaction survey cards to gain information from customers about service provision and proactively fed this back top front-line staff
• Staff showed a high level of awareness about the availability of other Council services and how to access them

The Council's Strategy and Customer Services, Integrated Mental Health Service and Housing Service have previously achieved this quality standard and the Council's intention is that all services will achieve the Customer Service Excellence award and the Investors in People standards in the coming year.