Chapter 4
Charter standards

What are charter standards?
4.1
Charter standards set out clearly the service that users can expect to receive. Good standards are vital for an effective charter, and should be expressed in a way that is meaningful to all users. They usually focus on different issues from the strategic performance targets set by ministers for their departments and agencies.

Relationship with the Whitehall standards
4.2
The six Whitehall standards - covering correspondence handling, keeping appointments, the provision of information and telephone enquiry points, consultation with users, complaints handling, and accessibility - set out the minimum service that central government departments and executive agencies should apply in their dealings with the public. Your charter standards should build on these. Guidance on the application of the Whitehall standards can be obtained from the Cabinet Office on 020 7276 1764.

How should they be developed?
4.3
The standards you adopt should be based on the views of your users and potential users. Find out what is important to them. Others (especially front-line staff) should also be involved to tap their ideas for increasing the efficiency and quality of services. Complaints and comments will help you identify those issues that users think are important and any weaknesses, but you should also consult users direct. Senior managers should also be involved to ensure and show top-level commitment to the process.

What should they cover?
4.4
Your standards should cover the main services you provide. They should focus as much on the quality of the service, and the overall experience for the user as on the more easily assessable measures of activity and process.

4.5
Standards should relate to: the service provided (for example issuing correctly documented passports, or payment of the correct rate of benefit on the due date); the way in which you deliver the service (for example the speed with which you answer letters or phone calls); and the quality of service provided.

'We will reply to all your correspondence within a maximum of 15 working days or acknowledge within 5 working days if the matter is complex. We will make every effort to resolve your enquiry in full before a reply is sent. If this is not possible, the reply will detail current progress and tell you when to expect a full answer. Letters will tell you the name and phone number of the person replying. We will use plain language and send any requests for additional information promptly and accompanied by an addressed reply label.' (UK Passport Agency)

Quality
4.6
The quality of your service is critical. For example, a quick reply is no use if the information in it is wrong. The development of good quality measures is difficult, and individual circumstances vary. Start by establishing clearly what your organisation is there to achieve and the main services you provide. And consider what the benefit is to your users and how this might be measured.

Coverage of users
4.7
Charter standards should, wherever possible, address all users. Try not to write your standards in such a way that they address only some (even if the majority) of your users (for example 80% or eight out of ten). For example, a management-style target that 80% of cases should be cleared within two weeks of receipt leaves individual users wondering whether they will be part of the unlucky 20%. Depending on the nature of your operation you might try the following:

4.8
Research shows that many people do not understand percentages. So wherever possible you should avoid their use. For example, say '9 out of 10' people in place of 90%. If your target cannot be directly converted from a percentage (for example 83% or 97%, you might round up or down to the nearest whole number (for example 8 out of 10 or 97 out of 100). Alternatively, you could give the percentage and include a short explanation.

Coverage of services
4.9
Your standards should cover the key aspects of the services you provide. You should therefore include, for example, standards on waiting times, in-service time of automated service machines (and time taken to repair them should they go wrong and the procedures for telling people how long it will be before they can use them again), and the supply of personalised information to users (for example parents or patients).

'We will make every effort to deliver your driving licence to you within 3 weeks of receiving the application, except in those cases which require medical investigation - which often requires us to contact your doctor - in which case we will complete our work within 5 weeks for car/ motorbike licences or seven for HGV or PSVs. ' (DVLA)

'We aim to keep our stamp vending machines in service for at least 98% of the time. If they go wrong we aim to get them working again within 8 hours. ' (Post Office Counters Ltd)

What are you promising?
4.10
You need to think carefully about the wording of your charter. It should make clear whether your users have a right to each standard that is enforceable through the courts or other means (for example a complaints procedure or independent review), or whether you simply aim to meet them as targets.

Enforceable right - a charter standard that applies to all users all of the time they use the service. It must be clear when the standard has not been met, and a remedy must be available. Either the provider must immediately put things right, or it must be possible for the user to enforce a remedy through a dispute resolution process (for example the courts, regulator, an ombudsman, or appeal panel).

'If your landlord does not do an urgent repair costing up to £250 promptly, you are entitled to have it done by an alternative contractor approved by your landlord. When the work is done, the contractor will send the bill direct to your landlord. Your landlord must make clear how quickly he expects to do a repair covered by the scheme. ' (The Tenant's Charter for Scotland)

Target - a level of service which the provider is aiming to provide, but which the user cannot always expect to receive, and for which a remedy is not necessarily available. A target that is likely to be unattainable more than 25% of the time should be changed.

4.11
Whether your standards are rights or targets, you should make clear what happens if they are not met.

4.12
You might tell users that some standards may not be met if they fail to provide full and accurate information. But you need to be sure that your forms and instructions are clear and easily understood. Research shows that poorly designed forms and complicated procedures lead to mistakes.

Challenging
4.13
Your standards should be challenging, but realistic. You should draw them up, where appropriate, by comparing them with those developed by comparable organisations in the UK, and where relevant, overseas. You will need to be careful when developing your standards to avoid unintended results, for example to focus staff on easy cases at the expense of difficult ones. You should also be honest about what can be provided. Raising expectations unrealistically leads to frustration, which may in turn provoke rudeness or worse.

Keep them simple
4.14
Your standards should be easy to understand and written in plain language.

'To make sure road signs are cleaned and maintained so that they are clear and visible at all times. ' (Highways Agency)

'We will clean the common areas in multi-storey flats at least once every week. ' (Northern Ireland Housing Executive - Tenant's Charter)

Measurable
4.15
Your standards should be measurable. There is no point telling people that they will be seen 'quickly' unless you tell people what this means and then monitor your performance.

'We will repair lifts that have broken down within 24 hours and door entry systems within 4 days. ' (Northern Ireland Housing Executive - Tenant's Charter)

Monitoring
4.16
You should develop procedures to monitor your organisation's performance against its standards. This could be done either as part of your normal operating procedures (for example time taken to process claims and error rates) or by surveys of users, or mystery shopping (for example sampling how your service is actually being delivered). Whichever method you adopt, the results are critical to shape your own performance review, as well as to inform your users of how you are performing. You may need to train your staff to do this, and to appoint someone to pull the information together. Complaints too should be managed in a positive way and used to inform service changes. Information from complaints analysis should be fed back to staff and users.

Independent validation
4.17
To demonstrate the effectiveness of your service in an open and verifiable way, you should, wherever possible, arrange for an external organisation to validate your performance independently against your charter standards. This task could be undertaken by a statutory body or a commercial auditor. You will need to consider the cost of such a move against the benefits to be gained. The outcome will vary between organisations.

Publishing information on performance
4.18
Your users have a right to know how you are performing against your standards. The results of your monitoring should be published in such a way that it gets to as many of your users as possible, and is easily understood by them. You will need to think about how you do this. Much will depend on the nature of your organisation and its users. You could consider some of the suggestions for distributing new or revised charters in the chapter on publicity and distribution (Chapter 8).