The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service has once again earned CSE accreditation.
Customer Service Excellence is a well recognised accreditation standard which offers public, private and third sector organisations a tool to drive customer-focused change.
The 2016 award is based on the assessors reviewing corporate evidence and visiting the Sheriff Courts in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hamilton, Lanark, Paisley and Perth; the High Court in Edinburgh; the Office of the Public Guardian; and Human Resources Unit and Operations Delivery Business Unit in SCTS Headquarters. Tribunals will take part in CSE assessment visits from 2017 onwards.
The organisation has been assessed over a three year rolling programme against 57 elements, grouped under the headings:
- customer insight
- culture of the organisation
- information & access
- delivery
- timeliness & quality of service.
This year, eleven elements were given the highest rating of ‘compliance plus’ (outstanding) – up from eight in 2015; 42 elements were rated ‘fully compliant’ (satisfactory), and only four were rated ‘partially compliant’ (improvement needed).
Chief Executive Eric McQueen spoke of the organisation’s continual endeavour to improve the quality of service saying: “This commitment was evident in the most recent court user satisfaction survey which showed that satisfaction levels remained very high at 89% overall. The 2016 CSE results show a marked improvement on our 2013 assessment and assessors praised what they described as the “professionalism and humanity” of SCTS staff who were observed dealing with a wide range of court users and difficult situations.”