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Customer Service charter
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Published on
Last updated on
From Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information (OCEI)
Published on
Last updated on
The Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information is an independent body that reviews decisions public authorities make on requests for access to environmental information under the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007 to 2018. This document sets out our commitments and the service standards you can expect from us.
If you contact us by telephone we will aim to:
• Answer your call promptly
• Give you our name when we answer your call
• Be courteous and helpful to you at all times
• Answer your query in full
• If we cannot do so immediately, we will take your details and call you back as soon as possible
• Respond to all voicemail messages promptly
If you send us a letter, email or online enquiry we will:
• Acknowledge your correspondence within 2-3 days
• Ensure you receive a full reply within 10 working days
• If we cannot provide a full reply within 10 working days, we will write to you and explain why. We will let you know when you can expect a full reply
• Give a contact name and contact details as well as a reference number (where appropriate)
• Write to you in simple and clear language and avoid using technical or legal terms where possible
If you appeal a decision taken by a public authority, we will:
• Acknowledge your application within 2-3 days
• Keep you advised of progress on your case
• Inform you as soon as possible and as clearly as possible of the outcome of our review
If you visit us in person we will:
• Treat you with courtesy, respect your privacy and be fair in our dealings with you
• Meet you at the agreed time if you have an appointment
• Provide appropriate facilities for meetings
• Keep our public offices clean and tidy and ensure that they meet health and safety standards
We will assist people who wish to carry out their business with us through Irish
• Correspondence received in Irish will be answered in Irish
• We will publish key documents including our Annual Reports in Irish and English
• We will ensure that information leaflets aimed at the public are available in both Irish and English
• An Irish version of our website will mirror as far as practicable the English version
• We will meet our other commitments under the Official Languages Act 2003 and the Office’s Official Languages Scheme as published on our websites
• We commit to dealing with you without discrimination or prejudice
• We will respect equality and human rights in accordance with Public Sector Duty principles
• We will aim to have our services and facilities easily available and accessible to you
• We will respect your right to privacy
• Contact email for our Access Officer under the Disability Act is accessofficer@ocei.ie
• In developing this Customer Service Charter, the Office has had regard to the considerations regarding eliminating discrimination, promoting equality and protecting human rights identified in section 42(1)(a)-(c) of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014
If something goes wrong and you are not satisfied with our service, please tell us. This refers to the issue of customer care and service in how you were dealt with by our staff.
• In the first instance, please raise the matter with the person you are dealing with in the Office, so that we can respond and try to deal with the matter as early as possible
• If you are not happy with the response and wish to make a formal complaint about the standard of services you received from this Office, you can write to the Director General Ms Elaine Cassidy by email to: privatesec@ombudsman.ie
• We aim to acknowledge such complaints in five working days and try to provide a full reply in 20 workings days
Please note that a disagreement over the outcome of our review in your case will not fall within the scope of this type of complaint. The decisions we issue following the completion of our reviews contain details of statutory appeal rights.
Help us to help you
You can help us as we try to give you a high quality service:
• Please state the reason for your appeal as clearly and as concisely as you can
• Please send us copies of key supporting documents when submitting your appeal
• Quote any relevant reference number in all communications with us
• As part of our customer charter, we commit to dealing with users of our service professionally and with respect. We also expect you to treat our staff and the service we provide with respect. Our Reasonable Conduct Policy sets out how we expect people to interact with us and also explains how we manage unacceptable actions against our staff and our process. Here is a link to the policy (LINK TO RCP)
We are always interested to hear suggestions on how we can improve our service. If you would like to comment or make a suggestion please e-mail us at info@ocei.ie
You can also find details of our other services, policies and contact information on our website www.ocei.ie
What we expect from public authorities
We expect public authorities to:
· Give people clear and timely decisions on their AIE requests
· Make people aware of our service when giving them their decision
· Treat people who make requests, and our staff, with courtesy and respect
· Work with us to enable us carry out our reviews as quickly and effectively as
possible
· Give us all the information we ask for within the timescales specified
FOI officer: info@ocei.ie
Data protection officer: dataprotection@ombudsman.ie
Throughout this document references will be to “our Office”.
“Our Office” collectively refers to the individual statutory bodies listed below.
• Office of the Ombudsman [OTO]
• Standards in Public Office Commission [SIPO]
• Office of the Information Commissioner [OIC]
• Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information [OCEI]
• Commission for Public Service Appointments [CPSA]
• Office of the Protected Disclosures Commissioner [OPDC]
While the individual bodies each carry out separate and distinct statutory functions they share the same building and are supported by a “corporate spine”. Our Office functions as a single amalgamated agency in organisational terms. Our Office is funded by one Vote and overseen by an Accounting Officer (Director General) who is supported by a Management Advisory Committee (MAC).
This document gives general advice in relation to our Reasonable Engagement policy.
In developing this Reasonable Engagement Policy, our Office has had regard to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 the Office, as an employer, must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety, health and welfare at work of our employees.
The requirement for each of the bodies to be able to fulfil their statutory obligations efficiently and effectively and to provide a service to the public as a whole.
The requirement to conduct our enquiries and investigations in private.
We have also had regard to the considerations regarding eliminating discrimination, promoting and protecting equality and promoting and protecting human rights. These are identified in section 42(1)(a)-(c) of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014.
We recognise that the issues leading up to a complaint/disclosure/appeal can be challenging, frustrating or upsetting. We try to treat all those in contact with our office with understanding, respect and dignity. Likewise our staff deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect. If frustration or upset turns into unreasonable behaviour, however, we will take action to manage it.
We expect people to act reasonably when engaging with our Office. This is how the vast majority of people engage with us. Our staff are not expected to tolerate behaviour that is abusive, offensive, threatening or, due to the frequency of contact, takes up an unreasonable amount of time and resources. It is important that we share our time and resources fairly and proportionately among our customers.
We will let people know how they can engage positively with our services. We will support people to express concerns about our office and our service in a constructive manner by ensuring:
i) we apply our customer service complaints process fairly and openly when individual concerns are raised;
ii) people understand what stage they are at in our process and, what options they have for providing information and engaging with us.
iii) when our action has concluded we will clearly explain when ongoing engagement is no longer constructive and would not lead to a change in outcome.
iv) we engage with you positively and constructively, addressing any concerns we have as and when they arise by seeking to resolve them informally before considering taking action in line with this policy.
v) we provide information to help ensure concerns can be made about our service
If we decide we need to manage engagement with an individual, we will consider whether they have accessibility needs that we should take into account. Where a person requires or requests an accessible service we have an Access Officer who can provide help with accessing our services.
We support positive engagement. There are some situations, however, (examples below) that we need to respond to or manage because of the negative impact on the wellbeing of our staff and our ability to provide a service. When we need to manage engagement in this way, we will ensure responses are proportionate to the behaviour and the impact on our organisation and our staff and our customers. Managing engagement in this way seeks to maintain our ability to deliver our services while minimizing the impact of the situation that is causing the disruption.
The following types of engagement are considered unreasonable:
i) Unreasonable Demands
An unreasonable demand can include:
• repeatedly demanding updates or responses within an unreasonable timescale
• unreasonable persistence in raising the same issue repeatedly
• a demand for action regarding a matter that is outside of the Office’s remit;
• demanding a solution that is not realistic or proportionate; or
• insisting on seeing or speaking to a particular member of staff or refusing to communicate with the assigned staff member.
ii) Unreasonable lack of co-operation
An unreasonable lack of co-operation can include:
• a refusal to clearly define the matter you are raising with the Office;
• presenting large volumes of documentation in an unreasonable way;
• repeatedly changing the substance of the issue or raising unrelated concerns while the Office’s process is ongoing;
• withholding information and/or not being honest about facts;
• non-cooperation which may hinder, obstruct or delay the process.
iii) Other Unreasonable behaviour
Unreasonable behaviour can include
• multiple phone calls, emails or letters about the same matter;
• threats of violence, abuse of the Office staff, rude or aggressive conduct or sending profane imaging;
• inflammatory statements and unsubstantiated allegations;
• engaging in unnecessary and time-wasting argument;
• recording and using publicly or live streaming may be regarded as harassment even if there is no directly abusive content in the statement.
• personalised commentary on individual staff members online. Anyone who wishes to comment publicly on our Office online should refer to our Office and not to individual staff.
Unreasonable engagement may include one or two isolated incidents or may be the accumulation of incidents or engagement over a period of time. If we consider your engagement to be unreasonable, we will tell you why and we will ask you to change it.
A) Our immediate response to unreasonable engagement
• We will tell the person if we think their language during telephone calls is unacceptable and ask them to stop using such language. Staff have the right to terminate the telephone call if this unreasonable engagement continues.
• We provide guidance to our staff on managing unreasonable or unacceptable demands. In specific situations and without terminating all engagement with a person our staff may end or suspend a particular engagement or interaction if they find the person’s behaviour abusive, distressing.
• If emails are received with profanities and/or unacceptable images they will be automatically blocked by our firewall. Such emails may be delayed or blocked completely. If such emails persist the email address they are being sent from will be blocked.
B) Other actions we may take to address unreasonable engagement
If the unreasonable engagement continues or constitutes a serious risk, our Office, in accordance with our duty under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, will take action to restrict your contact with our offices and staff.
To ensure consistency, a decision to actively manage a situation needs to be made by a manager. Restrictions will be fair and appropriate and proportionate to the nature of the behaviour. The options we are most likely to consider are:
• not permitting attendance in person at our Office.
• not permitting you to contact us by phone.
• directing phone calls to an automated service (when phone contact is blocking others from accessing our service or is abusive).
• not providing direct contact details or staff names when we consider there is a risk this may lead to harassment.
• restricting contact to a named staff member or to a specific email address.
• additional correspondence relating to the same matter, which has been closed, is read and then filed but no response will be provided.
• restricting time and volume of contact e.g. asking you to call by telephone only on certain days and times.
• blocking your phone or email address.
• communicating through a third party such as an advocate rather than direct contact.
• restricting contact to a particular channel e.g. asking you to contact us in writing by post only.
• as a final option, terminating all contact with you if this behaviour persists (the Director General will make this decision).
In all cases, we will write to you to tell you why we believe your engagement is not reasonable and what action we propose to take.
It will be possible to engage in the future, on any new issues arising, with a person with whom contact has been terminated if the conduct that gave rise to the termination ceases and is not repeated.
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C) There are some situations below that we will not accept and on which we will always take action.
• We have zero tolerance of threats, violent and abusive behaviour towards staff. This is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff and also protects the office and others. If a person’s behaviour is so extreme that it threatens the immediate safety and welfare of the staff of the Office or others, we will consider other options. These could include, reporting the matter to An Garda Síochána or instigating legal action. In such cases, we may not give you warning of that action.
• Harassment of staff, whether accompanied or not by violence or abusive comments, is not acceptable. Harassment could include:
o Repeatedly contacting or continuing to contact individual staff members when previously asked not to.
o Contacting staff outside of the office to seek to influence them.
o Targeting and naming members of staff on social media.
• We will not accept correspondence or language that is abusive or threatening to staff. We will not respond to any correspondence containing such content.
o Abusive language includes all language that is designed or could be perceived as designed to insult or degrade, is discriminatory or which makes allegations that individuals have committed criminal, corrupt or perverse conduct without any supporting evidence.
o Abusive language also includes language which makes unfounded allegations about an individual’s professional ability or capability or seeks to belittle or denigrate them personally.
• Abusive language also includes violent or abusive comments sent to our Office which are not aimed at us but at third parties. Such language is still unacceptable because of the effect that listening or reading it may have on our staff.
D) Unreasonable engagement which constitutes a serious risk.
Where a person’s engagement with one of our individual statutory bodies is considered to constitute a serious risk, the matter will be brought to the attention of appropriate Senior Management in other of our offices who may, in order to comply with our duty under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, inform each of the other individual statutory bodies of the person’s behaviour.