Guidance on Implementing the revised Service Standards for Central Government

These standards apply to all central Government departments and agencies in England and to non-devolved services being delivered elsewhere in the UK. It is for the devolved administrations to decide if, or to what extent, they will adopt these standards in respect of devolved services.

1. Answer your letters quickly and clearly. Each department and agency will set a target for answering correspondence (including letters, faxes and e-mails) and will publish its performance against this target.

Detailed guidance on correspondence handling (Guidance for Departments on the handling of Ministerial and other correspondence) is published separately and should be read alongside the notes below. This guidance concentrates on the steps departments and agencies should take to monitor and report on their performance against this standard, and in particular, the issues not addressed in the above guidance.

You should aim to reply in full to all correspondence within the target set. For the purposes of monitoring against this standard, a reply may be by letter, e-mail, telephone or any other appropriate method. Where you are not able to reply in full, you should send a holding reply. For monitoring purposes, a substantive holding reply sent within the target, counts as having met the target. (A substantive holding reply is defined as one that tells the correspondent: what action is being taken, explains the reason for the delay, gives (unless there are serious security concerns) the name and contact details for the person dealing with the correspondence, and says when a full reply can be expected.) But you should have systems in place to ensure that a full reply is sent within the new deadline and that your system can calculate the number of items of correspondence actually received. (Some systems require you to re-enter the item after a holding reply has been sent; these should not be counted as new items when reporting on performance.)

You may choose to acknowledge letters on receipt or within a targeted period. It is for you to decide if you want to acknowledge correspondence on receipt and what the target will be. Where you do so, you should have systems in place to monitor performance against these targets, but we will not ask for a report of performance. (Acknowledgements will normally say that you have received an item of correspondence and inform the correspondent of your correspondence target.) Acknowledgements will not count as having met the correspondence target.

For the purposes of monitoring, this standard covers letters, e-mails, faxes sent from members of the public to officials or Ministers (treat official correspondence). This includes general enquiries and complaints. You should not normally count forms (for example, claims for benefit or requests to issue court proceedings) unless they are forms or pro-formas provided specifically for customer complaints or feedback (not responses to surveys). You are not required to count or monitor for the purposes of this standard, internal correspondence, invited correspondence (eg responses to consultation exercises), letters from other government departments, or correspondence that does not need a reply (eg thank you letters). Separate arrangements apply for monitoring correspondence from MPs and Peers to Ministers.

There are various methods you can employ to monitor performance. Some departments and agencies have systems to log and track all correspondence; others take a sample. If you base your performance on a sample you should ensure that it provides a statistically reliable picture of performance across the department or agency. Sample size and spread will vary depending on circumstances but advice can be obtained from Internal Audit divisions or the Office of National Statistics. You should explain the method used when reporting on your performance. Whatever system you use, you should ensure that your system is flexible enough to allow performance to be reviewed across the department on at least a quarterly basis so that trends can be identified and any necessary action taken. It is good practice to collate performance information on a monthly basis and to make it available to Ministers/Chief Executives and officials at all levels.

Many department and agencies receive ‘campaign’ mail. As a general rule, such mail should be treated in the same way as other correspondence, although there may be scope for using a standard reply. From time to time you may receive ‘campaign mail’ in response, for example, to an article in a magazine or on the Internet. You may be able to respond to these letters by placing one reply on the web or in the magazine. In this instance we would not expect you to count every letter ‘in and out’, although if you reply to every letter individually, this may be appropriate.

We will not be reporting centrally on the quality of replies, but all departments and agencies should have appropriate procedures and training in place to ensure that replies are of a high standard. All letters should clearly show the date written and not show ‘date as postmark’. For the annual report to Parliament, we will ask for information on: your departments’ target; the total volume of correspondence received; the percentage replied to within target; and, where this is available, the number of holding replies issued. In addition, departments and agencies should publicise this information, for example in their annual report.

2. See you within 10 minutes of any appointment you have made at its offices; it will set a target for seeing callers without an appointment, and publish performance against this target.

The standard is designed to cover appointments between members of the public (excluding contractors and other civil servants) and staff. But it may be easier for departments and agencies to monitor their performance in starting all appointments within 10 minutes of the scheduled start (or the visitor’s arrival time if later). All staff should be aware of the need to see people within 10 minutes, but it is for departments and agencies to determine the most appropriate monitoring arrangements without incurring disproportionate costs, for example, by using sampling techniques. Departments are not expected to monitor performance in reception areas (or similar) in headquarters buildings with little public contact. Central reporting on performance will concentrate on those departments and agencies with substantial public contact and will focus on the percentage of people seen within the target.

The second part of this standard, which comes into effect from 1 October 1999, commits all departments and agencies to set a target for the length of time members of the public without an appointment should have to wait before they are seen by a member of staff. For the purpose of this standard, this is the time taken to see the receptionist or first point of contact in the organisation. It may be that the receptionist needs to make an appointment for the visitor to return to see a colleague at a pre-arranged time. This standard applies to offices providing a public enquiry service on a full or part time basis (as above, it is not intended to cover reception areas, for example in headquarters building, with little or no public contact). It does not require unmanned (or partly staffed) offices to be permanently staffed, although it should be made clear to users how and when they can contact someone. If people do have to wait, you should normally provide waiting areas and ensure that they are kept informed of any further delay.

Targets should be challenging, but realistic. Circumstances will inevitably vary between departments and agencies and therefore targets will differ. There may be cases where a department or agency needs to set a different target to cover ‘peak’ periods (eg busy times of the day, particular days of the week, or periods of the year). Where this is necessary, it should be clear to users what constitutes a ‘peak’ period. As for the appointment standard, central reporting on performance will concentrate on those departments and agencies with substantial public contact and will focus on the percentage of people seen within the target. It is for departments to decide how best to monitor their performance without incurring a disproportionate cost.

3. Answer telephone calls quickly and helpfully. Each department and agency will set a target for answering calls to telephone enquiry points, and will publish its performance against this target.

The first part of this standard applies to all telephone calls, and departments and agencies are responsible for putting appropriate systems and training in place to ensure this is met. This element will not be centrally monitored.

From 1 October 1999, each department and agency must set a target for responding to calls to designated telephone enquiry points. You will need to decide which telephone number(s) are covered by the standard, and publicise them accordingly. The following are examples of the sort of numbers likely to be covered by the standard: helplines such as the VAT Helpline and NHS Direct, or central departmental enquiry points like those at the Treasury or DTI. The standard does not necessarily cover the publicly listed telephone number for local offices or headquarters buildings, although it is good practice for them to be answered promptly. The opening hours of all enquiry points should be widely advertised.

Targets should be challenging, but realistic. Circumstances will inevitably vary between departments and agencies and therefore targets will differ. There may be cases where a department or agency needs to set a different target to cover ‘peak’ periods (eg busy times of the day, particular days of the week, or periods of the year). Where this is necessary, it should be clear to users what constitutes a ‘peak’ period. The standard can be measured by reference to the number of rings or time taken (measured in seconds or minutes) for the call to be answered. Recent research conducted through the People’s Panel can provide information on users’ expectations.

In meeting the standard, it is generally acceptable to count calls answered by an automated call handling system (for example, one that provides the caller with a number of choices). This should be explained in your standard. But calls answered by an automated message telling people, for example, that all the operators are busy, should not be counted as meeting the standard. You may find it helpful, where systems permit, to keep a separate record of the number of callers who are unable to get through because the lines are engaged, and the number of callers who hung up before their call was answered. The opening hours of the enquiry point should be clearly advertised. If, for some reason, it is not possible to answer calls on any given line they should normally be redirected to another extension or to an answering machine or voice mail system.

We will not be reporting centrally on the quality of advice or information provided, but all departments and agencies should have procedures and training in place to ensure that callers’ needs are met. In preparing the annual report to Parliament, we will ask departments and agencies to tell us how they have performed against their target for designated enquiry lines.

4. Provide clear and straightforward information about its services and those of related providers, along with one or more telephone enquiry numbers and e-mail addresses to help you or to put you in touch with someone who can.

You should tell users and potential users about the services you provide. Each department and agency will do this in different ways, for example, through the Internet, telephone directories, leaflets, helplines, and posters. These should be in clear and straightforward English and, where appropriate, in Braille, audio, large print and minority languages. Information should be provided about other related services where it is likely to be relevant to users’ needs.

All departments and agencies must have at least one telephone enquiry number, and from 1 October 1999 must also have at least one e-mail address to receive and reply to enquiries from members of the public. For the purpose of this standard, the e-mail enquiry point could be linked to the department or agency’s web site. The e-mail address should be publicised along with other sources of information. E-mail enquiries should be treated as items as correspondence and answered within the correspondence target.

For the annual report to Parliament, we will ask departments and agencies to give us examples of how they are providing information to their users, and to list their telephone and e-mail enquiry points.

5. Have a complaints procedure, or procedures, for the service it provides, publicise it, including on the Internet, and send you information about it if you ask.

All departments and agencies must have at least one complaints procedures, and should be able to provide information about it on request.

For further information on setting up an effective complaints procedure, a free guide – How to deal with complaints – is available on this website, or by calling 0845 7 22 32 42.

For the annual report, we will ask all departments and agencies to confirm that they have a procedure – or procedures - in place covering all their services, and that this is set out on the Internet.

6. Do everything reasonably possible to make its services available to everyone, including people with special needs. Consult users and potential users regularly about the service it provides and report on the result.

Public services should be accessible to all including the disabled, parents with young children, the elderly, those whose first language is not English, the socially excluded or those who have learning difficulties, and those in full-time employment.

All departments and agencies should be aware of their responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act and the Welsh Language Act, and have taken or have planned the necessary adjustments to the services they provide.

You should seek the views of your users and potential users to find out how best to meet their needs. Wherever possible you should involve them in setting priorities, targets and standards. You should also involve users and front-line staff, for example, when drafting new publications and forms.

The definition of ‘regularly’ will vary between organisations and between units, groups, and sections within organisations depending on the extent of contact and the nature of your work. The process of consulting and the conclusions should be made public so that people can see the main suggestions made and what you are doing to implement them.

When reporting on performance against this standard, we will ask departments to give us examples of how they are consulting their users and making their services more accessible.

For further information on setting up an effective consultation techniques, a free guide – How to consult your users – is available on this website, or by calling 0845 722 32 42.

Further Information