Charnwood Borough Council - Leading in Leicestershire

Environmental Protection Performance and Customer Service Standards

Setting and monitoring performance against standards that we set for ourselves is of the up most importance in helping to provide the best service we can.

The drivers of these standards come from a number of sources. By the nature of the work we do some standards are prescribed to us by law or in guidance issued by government. In other cases we have some discretion and we can set our own targets based on consultation with customers and stakeholders. This web page aims to provide some brief information about how our targets are set and how well we perform against them.

Setting our Priorities

1. The business priorities of the Council as a whole are set out in its Corporate Plan. These priorities are then embedded within each of the various parts of the Council by each producing an annual Service Development Plan (SDP). Any commitments in the Corporate Plan that the Environmental Protection Team can play a part in are contained in the SDP of the Directorate of Housing and Health, of whom we are a part. The costs, timescales for completion and targets and performance measures for these priorities are contained in the SDP.

2. A lot of the work we do is because the Council has a legal duty to provide a service. Some of these services are subject to comparisons against national standards, known as Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPIs). This allows our performance to be compared against that of other Councils. We have also produced our own standards for some of the services we provide based on the views of our own customers and by comparing ourselves against the way other Councils do their work and how well they do it.

3. The way in which we treat our customers is set out in the Councils Customer Services Standards and Customer Service Strategy. We have developed some ways of measuring how well we perform against these.

Measuring Our Performance

Based on the different factors that influence how we set our priorities we have established a detailed set of criteria that measure our performance.

Dealing with complaints of environmental pollution

Every year we respond to between 1800 and 2200 complaints and requests for help. We have various targets which we have set to try to deliver the best service we can within the resources we have available to us.

1. We have set target response times for us to respond to different categories of complaint based on the likely severity and impact of the complaint. These are enshrined in the Council Service Standards
2. We have set a target for the proportion of complaints that our customers tell us have been either solved or improved following our intervention.
3. We monitor how we perform against the four criteria in the Customer Strategy - namely quality, responsiveness, accessibility and value for money.

Taking Action to Reduce Environmental Pollution

We have legal powers to deal with known sources of pollution that may have a potential health impact specifically in relation to,

1. Air pollution released from certain types of industrial activity.
2. Land contamination produced during previous eras when there were fewer controls over sources of pollution.

Preventing and Mitigating Possible Future Sources of Pollution

We are consulted by Planning Authorities, the Environment Agency and the Licensing Authority about applications for developments or licenses that may have an impact on the local community or the environment. All of these agencies are usually working to tight deadlines to process the applications and require speedy but detailed responses. We therefore have a target time in which to respond to all applications.

• Performance Standards 2003 to 2007 (PDF Document 49.08 Kb.)

Responding to Customer Feedback and Consultation

Much of what we do is defined by law, however we do have some discretion about how we do it. We carry out regular feedback surveys to try to elicit how the service can be improved. As well as using this as a tool to measure how we are performing, we have also used the information we gathered as as part of a three yearly review of the service. A copy of the action plan from our last review is included here.

• Environmental Protection Service Review (PDF Document 66.41 Kb.)