Standards of Sefvice

Revenues - Council Tax, Business Rates and Income

Revenues will provide a service to its customers based on the following standards:

1. We will be courteous whenever we communicate with people inside or outside of our organisation.
2. We will take care over the way we handle your requirements.
3. We will be fair, open and honest.
4. We will respect confidentiality and privacy.
5. We will provide clear and prompt information about benefit entitlement, bills and liabilities and avoid the use of jargon.
6. We will use any complaints as an opportunity to improve our service and talk to you about how we can put them right.
7. We will train staff to ensure that we can offer a service to match your expectations.
8. We recognise that the needs and wants of our Council Tax, Business Rates and Income customers are different so we will guarantee to provide specialist knowledge to meet those needs.
9. We will advise people where they can get independent advice with financial problems, for example the Citizen's Advice Bureau.

Revenues

The Revenues Section is committed to collecting Council Tax, Non-Domestic Rates and Sundry Debts due to the Council promptly, efficiently and in accordance with the appropriate legislation.

To achieve these objectives the section aims to: -

• Achieve collection rates of 98.5% or greater.
• Send accurate demands for payment promptly.
• Ensure discounts, exemptions and reliefs are allowed where appropriate.
• Take recovery action that is prompt, fair and effective.
• Refund overpayments within 20 working days of a request.

Face to Face

1. Customers should not need to wait longer than 5 minutes to see a member of staff.
2. Special arrangements will be made if it appears you will have to wait longer than 5 minutes.
3. If you need to be referred to a specialist you should not have to wait longer than 10 minutes.
4. We will be happy to make an appointment should you require it.
5. The reception areas will be maintained with up to date and relevant information at all times.
6. When we visit you in your home we will always explain what we are doing and show our identity card.
7. If required, an appointment can be made so that we can visit you when it is convenient to you.
8. We will guarantee our actions when we visit by giving you a contact name and telephone number.

Telephones

1. We will attempt to answer all of our telephone calls within 5 rings.
2. We will attempt to resolve all queries as a first point of contact.
3. We will provide customers with a callback service should a query not be resolved when customers first telephone us.
4. We will give customers our name and a telephone number for future reference if requested.
5. Where practicable we will do as much business on the telephone to avoid delays with the post.
6. We will provide an out of hours answer phone service and will respond to messages the next working day.

In writing (including email)

1. We will answer your letters/emails within 10 working days of receiving them.
2. If we cannot answer your letter/email within 10 working days we will acknowledge & explain why.
3. Letters/emails we write will be clearly written.
4. If we require additional information you will not be asked to pay for further postage.

With Forms

1. All forms will be clearly written, without the use of jargon and will contain, where appropriate, information about where to get independent advice.
2. We will provide help to fill in forms if you require it.
3. We want you to tell us if you find any of our forms not meeting the above standards.