Council tax standards and performance

We are committed to continuous improvement, set ourselves challenging targets, and monitor our performance on a regular basis. The following are the overall standards we aim to achieve, together with specific standards for council tax.

Overall service standards

• We aim to answer 95% of your letters within 10 working days
• When answering the telephone, we will give our name and the name of the section
• When answering correspondence, we will use language that is easy to read and understand and provide details of a named contact or contact point
• We will use customers' complaints, compliments, and suggestions as a way of improving the service
• We aim to be fair, polite, and helpful
• We aim to provide a level of service that meets our customers' needs, but if we make a mistake we will apologise and give priority to putting it right
• We will not make promises we cannot keep
• We will keep under continual review the training and development requirements of our staff

Council Tax service standards

• For 2011/12 we aim to collect 98.75% of the council tax due within the current year, thereby achieving an above average collection rate in comparison with other local authorities
• We aim to process 90% of all applications for single person discounts, other discounts, exemptions, and disabled reliefs within 10 working days
• Where there has been a change of circumstances, for example you have moved home, we aim to send a bill within 10 working days of receiving all the relevant information in 90% of cases

There may be occasions during times of peak workload when we are not able to meet our aims. We aim to manage our resources as effectively as possible to keep such delays to a minimum. We monitor our performance, and our results for 2010/11 are set out below.

Council Tax performance 2010/11

• Council Tax collected 98.61% against a target of 98.9%
• Direct debit take up, 68.94% of all payers against a target of 68%