Customer Service Charter:
The Quality Service Standards of Co. Westmeath VEC
1. Westmeath Vocational Education Committee (VEC) commits itself, through all of its centres, schools and programmes to providing a comprehensive, relevant, inclusive, accessible and quality education to all of its participants.
2. Staff, students and visitors entering our schools, centres and offices will be treated with dignity and respect, thereby providing a positive and satisfactory learning and working environment.
3. Discrimination on the grounds of Gender, Marital Status, Family Status, Sexual Orientation, Age, Disability, Race, Religion or Membership of the Traveller Community is unlawful.
4. It is our policy to have effective communication with our learners, staff and any others who have a current or potential stake in the work we do. We believe that to be effective, communications must be two-way. Therefore, we commit to providing accurate information about our programmes and services that is as relevant and useful to our learners and other stakeholders as is possible.
5. If you would like more information in relation to our services, copies of information booklets and Customer Service Action Plan can be obtained from reception, from any member of staff and on our website www.westmeathvec.ie. We will welcome all feedback to further enhance the delivery of our services.
Signed: _______________________
Gearóid Ó Brádaigh
Chief Executive Officer
Date: ______________
1. QUALITY SERVICE STANDARDS
1. Westmeath Vocational Education Committee (VEC) commits itself, through all of its centres, schools and programmes to providing a comprehensive, relevant, inclusive, accessible and quality education to all of its participants.
2. It is our policy to have effective communication with our learners, staff and any others who have a current or potential stake in the work we do. We believe that to be effective, communications must be two-way. Therefore, we commit to providing accurate information about our programmes and services that is as relevant and useful to our learners and other stakeholders as is possible.
2. EQUALITY/DIVERSITY
We undertake to comply with equality legislation (the Equal Status Act, 2000 and the Employment Equality Act, 1998) and to work actively to accommodate without discrimination all members of our diverse modern society in our dealings with them.
Westmeath VEC will ensure that:
· we offer open access to everyone who might seek our services, regardless of who they are
· we will also improve access to services for people experiencing poverty and social exclusion
· we treat our staff in accordance with equality legislation
Westmeath VEC undertakes to observe and uphold equality legislation by;
· Ensuring that all of our staff are aware of their obligations to both colleagues and customers under the law through the dissemination of comprehensive codes of practice
3. PHYSICAL ACCESS
All visitors to our premises are entitled to expect a reasonable standard of access, comfort and safety in which to use our services or to meet and talk with us.
Privacy
As matters of concern to our customers can often be of a sensitive nature, we will arrange to offer any of our customers privacy, booking an appointment for them in advance if necessary.
Health & Safety
Our Health & Safety statement is drawn up with both staff and visitors in mind, is reviewed regularly and is readily available for inspection. Comments and suggestions are welcomed.
Disabilities
We will ensure that customers with disabilities have unrestricted physical access to all of our services.
4. INFORMATION:
Westmeath VEC is committed to providing information on all of its services, activities and programmes both in print and on our website. In addition, where appropriate we will direct customers on how to find information from the Department of Education and Science and other appropriate agencies and organisations.
That information - will be clear, timely and accurate, and will be available at all points of contact and to everybody. It will be written and published with our customers’ needs in mind.
We are committed to ensuring that staff are also recognised as customers, and that they can expect similar standards in the information they receive and work with.
We will actively seek feedback from both customers and staff on how to improve both the standard of information and access to it.
5. TIMELINESS & COURTESY
Westmeath VEC is committed to ensuring that all customers are dealt with promptly and with courtesy, sensitivity and respect. We will do this consistently regardless of how customers get in touch with us:
Telephone Calls:
§ Provide a courteous, helpful, friendly and prompt answering service;
§ Ensure answerphone is on for out of hours calls
§ All staff to use voicemail when away from their desks
§ If we are unable to deal with your query we will re-direct you to someone who can provide assistance.
Correspondence/E-mails:
§ Where appropriate, acknowledge correspondence within 7 working days;
§ Where warranted, issue a definitive reply within 21 working days. If such a reply cannot be issued within this timeframe, then an interim reply will be issued, informing the sender that the matter is continuing to receive attention.
Personal Callers:
§ Ensure all personal callers are acknowledged, greeted, and treated with courtesy, sensitivity and professionalism.
§ We will provide for comfort and privacy as appropriate
§ We will provide a suggestion box for staff and customers
6. COMPLAINTS AND REDRESS:
Westmeath VEC will undertake to establish and maintain a well publicised, assessable, transparent and simple-to-use system of dealing with complaints and appeals about the quality of service we provide and we will ensure that such complaints/appeals are dealt with in a consistent fair and transparent manner.
Customers can direct comments, suggestions and complaints to the Chief Executive Officer/Delegated Officer, who will:
· Have the complaints investigated in a fair and impartial manner.
· Conduct customer surveys.
· Monitor, review and advise on customer services/standards.
· Be responsible for the customer complaints procedure.
7. APPEALS:
Westmeath VEC will establish and maintain a formalised, well publicised, assessable, transparent and simple to use system of appeal/review for customers who are dissatisfied with decisions in relation to services. If a customer remains dissatisfied with the response of the C.E.O. / Delegated Officer they may lodge an appeal with the Committee for resolution.
8. CONSULTATION AND EVALUATION:
Co. Westmeath VEC is committed to consulting with our customers and thereby more effectively evaluating our services to them. In our various roles we are sometimes service provider, client, promoter or independent adjudicator and we recognise that we must meet our responsibilities to all our customers across this diverse range.
We welcome all suggestions or comments as to how we might improve our service. Comment cards will be placed in a suggestion/comment box in the reception area at each centre.
9. CHOICE:
Westmeath VEC is committed to providing choice, where feasible, in service delivery including payment methods, location of contact points, opening hours and delivery times. We will endeavour to utilise available and emerging technologies to ensure maximum access and choice, and quality of delivery.
Our main public offices are open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. We will operate a voicemail service outside of these hours.
Our website address is www.westmeathvec.ie and e-mail address is info@westmeathvec.ie Individual e-mail addresses may also be obtained.
Opening Hours:
· Consideration will be given to lunchtime opening of our offices.
10. OFFICIAL LANGUAGES EQUALITY:
Co. Westmeath Vocational Education Committee is a public body under the terms of the Official Languages (Equality) Act 2003 and we will implement the terms of the Act when it is enacted.
We will reply to all correspondence received in Irish within 15 working days. We will publish corporate publications in Irish and English.
11. BETTER CO-ORDINATION:
Westmeath VEC is committed to ensuring a more integrated approach to the delivery of our services and improving internal communications is considered essential to the process. This will be achieved by means of the following:
§ Regular cross functional meetings in the VEC
§ Implementation of an Intranet service for all staff
§ Design, development and production of an internal newsletter for all VEC staff on a quarterly basis
§ Our website will contain up-to-date information on all our programmes and services – www.westmeathvec.ie
12. INTERNAL CUSTOMER:
Westmeath VEC is committed to ensuring that staff are also recognised as customers. We appreciate that delivering a quality service to the public is only possible by meeting the needs of our own internal customers with similar standards of timeliness, courtesy, consultation, information, etc.
