[19 September 2007]

Charter Mark Assessment

East Sussex Fire Authority has again successfully been awarded the Charter Mark; following a recent Charter mark surveillance on the 18th & 19th July 2007.

Charter Mark is the Government's National Standard for customer service excellence and East Sussex Fire Authority has held this prestigious award since 1998 after having successfully demonstrated its commitment to excellence in our service delivery to the community on two further re-assessments. Charter Mark is a powerful, easy to use tool to help everyone in the organisation focus on and improve customer service. Achievement of the standard is recognised by awarding the right to display the prestigious Charter Mark logo.

East Sussex Fire Authority underwent one of these service delivery assessments in May 2006. From a total of 63 elements that make up the Charter Mark performance criteria, only 6 were raised as partial compliance and we were complimented on having five areas identified as good practice. Following the recent surveillance, these six areas of partial compliance have been reduced to just two, demonstrating our continual commitment to improving customer service.

Feedback from the Charter Mark assessor highlighted the quality of improvements that had been achieved over the last three years since the first visit. Feedback from our Partners reinforced this by supporting the positive efforts being made by all our staff in creating innovative ways of delivering a high quality service to the community.