The Wirral Council Development Management Service aims to provide excellent customer service and to help us do this we have published this customer engagement framework.
The purpose of the framework is to outline how we will engage with our customers, our service commitments and also what we expect from our customers.
When you use the council’s Development Management Service we will:
- always treat you politely and with respect
- provide additional support to customers who need it to access our services
- hold any information you provide securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- dispose of any information we hold about you securely and in accordance with our document retention policy when we no longer have a need to keep it. Provide a secure network facility to protect any personal information that you provide when applying or paying for goods and services on-line
- apologise if we get things wrong and do our best to put things right
- let you know the person you are dealing with
- clearly explain why we are making decisions. Be friendly, whilst retaining professional standards, and be contactable in accordance with the council’s customer service standards
- encourage you to use the council’s pre-application advice service at the earliest stage of development to increase certainty in the planning application process for applicants and embed high quality design in development proposals
- encourage customers to engage the necessary professional representation where appropriate to assist in navigating through our services
- we recognise that because planning is required to make balanced decisions weighing the advantages and disadvantages of development proposals in accordance with planning policy and we may not always be able to give you the outcome that you want. However, we will give your views full and careful consideration in an open and transparent way
- provide a constructive solution where possible whilst recognising that there may be occasions where development proposals are contrary to the development plan and may not be capable of being supported
To help us to help you we expect you to:
- treat us politely and with respect. We will not be able to help you if you are aggressive, threatening, violent or use bad language – we do record calls if necessary. We will inform you if it is necessary to record a call and we will terminate calls where necessary and ensure that any future communication is in written form.
- provide constructive feedback on our services. Let us know what we can do better and just as importantly, let us know when you’ve received excellent customer service. Submit the necessary and high quality plans and provide all relevant supporting information for your application or enquiry in a timely manner. Your professional planning agent should assist you with this.
- involve a professional agent to help you with the Planning process or the Land Searches process. Where you are represented by an agent we will only liaise directly with your agent.
- keep your appointment time, or let us know, with as much notice as possible, if you cannot make a pre-arranged appointment
- design and deliver high quality sustainable development and build in accordance with approved plans and conditions
- follow our policies, guidance and procedures and use our pre-application advice service
- recognise that we are required to work within a statutory framework and meet government targets
- make best use of electronic methods of communication and use the website to access guidance and reports on all aspects of our service
- use the Planning Portal to submit and pay for planning applications
- use our online services if you wish to make comments on planning consultations
Customer service standards
- we request that you contact the department via email to allow us to respond to your inquiry in line with other work priorities. If you write to us, we will respond as quickly as possible, and in all cases within 15 working days
- due to the very high volume of representations we receive in connection with planning applications, we are not able to respond to each of these individually or acknowledge their receipt. Instead, all material planning considerations set out in any representations will be taken into account by the case officer as part of the process of determining the application and will be summarised within the case report
- we will only answer phone calls to our general enquiries number(s) between the hours of 10am and 3pm. We do not have public facing reception areas in our office building
- we will try to resolve your inquiry at point of contact, or tell you within 15 working days what actions we are taking. We will keep you informed of the progress of your enquiry
- we will respond to all complaints as quickly as we can, and in all cases within 15 working days, or explain why a reply may take longer