Customer Service Action Plan 2018 - 2020
This Customer Service Action Plan sets out the standards of customer service which you can expect when dealing with the City Council and also sets out what is expected from you. It identifies specific actions to help us improve our customer service, explains how you can complain if you feel our standards have not been met and describes how we will monitor our performance.
Our services are delivered through a wide range of contact points and channels including telephone, website/online, public offices and written correspondence. Dublin City Council is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers through these channels and improving this service wherever possible.
Dublin City Council
Dublin City Council is the democratically elected local authority that governs Dublin City.
Dublin City Council’s vision for the City is that it is:
“The best place in which to be, to live, to work to do business and to enjoy. A city that has everything by being friendly, progressive, different and brilliant”
(Vision for Dublin City, Corporate Plan 2015-2019)
Our mission statement in the Corporate Plan commits that:
“Dublin City Council will provide quality services for its citizens and act to promote Dublin’s distinct identity in a way that acknowledges our past and secures our future”
We provide essential services to the public, visitors and business including:
- Housing and Community Services
- Planning and Property Development Services
- Roads and Transportation Services
- Environmental Services
- Culture, Recreational and Economic Services
- Local Enterprise Service
- Dublin Fire Rescue and Emergency Ambulance Service
The City Council provides services directly and also works with a broad range of local, regional and national bodies in making the city a better place to live, work and visit.
In addition to providing these services, a fundamental role of democratically elected local government is to represent local communities by voicing local concerns and responding to local needs.
Our Customers
Our external customers are residents, businesses, communities and visitors to whom we provide a service. Other external customers include government departments, statutory bodies, voluntary bodies and other groups with whom we interact.
Our internal customers are individual employees, departments and the Elected Members of the City Council.
Developing the Customer Service Action Plan
This Customer Service Action Plan has been developed in the context of the following:
- The City Council’s Corporate Plan 2014-2019 recognises the changes occurring in our external social, economic and technological environment and identifies the continuing requirement to adopt a customer-centred approach to service delivery. It acknowledges that the City Council needs to be flexible and adaptable to the changing ways in which customers expect to engage with us and access our services.
- Public and local government reform programmes require local authorities to become more efficient in the delivery of services, to give commitments to service standards and increase engagement with customers, to take advantage of developments in new technologies and the changing expectation of customers that has arisen because of this.
- Engagement on the Customer Service Action Plan through surveys of customers/citizens, Elected Representatives and staff identified where we can change and improve our customer service to better meet expectations. The actions set out in this Plan have been developed from the priority issues raised in responses we received. These issues are: making it easier to contact us, access our services and find information; giving a faster response to customers; providing more online services while making sure there is choice for customers; communicating in clearly understood language and improving our web-site and information for customers.
- Our obligations under legislation that impacts on how we deliver our services to customers including;
- Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014
- Equal Status Acts 2000-2015
- Disability Act 2005
- Official Languages Act 2003
- Irish Sign Language Act 2017
- Data protection legislation
- Freedom of Information legislation
Our commitment to Quality Customer Service
We are committed to delivering quality customer service. Our commitments and the actions we will carry out to maintain and improve the quality of our customer service, are set out below.