Council’s Transport and Environment teams earn top accreditation

03 February 2017

Aberdeen City Council’s Transport and Environmental Policy teams have earned a national accreditation for excellent customer service.

The Customer Service Excellence award was given to five teams within the Planning and Sustainable Development service – three within Transportation for strategy, road projects and the public transport unit for putting the customer at the heart of service delivery.

The team behind the Council’s Local Development Plan, just recently agreed, and the environmental policy have also won the Government accreditation.

The standard is rigorous and the assessment was against 57 individual criterion categorised under five broad headings: customer insight; the culture of the organisation; information and access; delivery; timeliness and quality of service.

Aberdeen City Council Leader, Jenny Laing said: “This award is a real testament to our staff who have gone above and beyond to meet the needs of the residents in Aberdeen.

“By encouraging feedback and self-assessment, our teams are committed to consistently improving and building on their customer service for the benefit of everyone in the city.

“This award is a very high achievement which is not issued lightly and I commend everyone involved.”

The teams compiled 120 separate documents for submission which ranged from evidence of the way the Council consults and evidence on using customers feedback and survey results. The results of mystery shopping and evidence of staff development opportunities were also part of the submission.

Working groups were formed from all levels of staff across all teams to create change and improvements faster as part of the submission process.

The audit process has also helped to identify areas where a number of improvements can be introduced.