Welcome to Swale

How the Council works

Customer Service – It’s everyone’s job!

We expect everyone to deliver excellent services to internal and external customers. This includes responding to emails and telephone calls from our residents and colleagues in a timely manner and always trying to get things right first time.

To support you and ensure that you know what is expected of you, we will provide you with the training you need to be able to deliver excellent customer service to our residents

Complaints Handling

Not everything goes well and when it doesn’t, we have a formal process to respond to a complaint. The council has a complaints handling policy which can be found on the intranet. We also operate an electronic complaints handling system and training will be provided on how to handle customer complaints effectively. Complaints are very valuable to our organisation as they highlight opportunities for improvement.

Freedom Of Information

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the public can request information held by public authorities. This includes printed documents, computer files, letters, emails, photographs, and sound or video recordings. It does not include access to their own, or other peoples, personal data. Once we receive a request, we are required by law to respond within 20 working days.

This means that staff need to be careful about what they say in channels such as email or the chat facility in Teams. You should never say anything on those channels that you would not want disclosed to the world at large.

We can apply certain exemptions if data shouldn’t be released. The Information Commissioners Office has information on exemptions we can apply. If you are thinking about refusing a request, please contact a member of the Information and Business Improvement Team.