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The Rent Service Customer Service Charter

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Our Future

The introduction of the new Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in April 2008 is part of the Government’s wider Welfare Reform agenda and will have a significant impact on The Rent Service (TRS) and its workload. We expect our workload to reduce by 40% this year and by 2011 it will be 75% lower than the level in 2007-08.

As such the new system no longer requires a separate stand alone body to support it and Ministers have announced that TRS residual functions will transfer to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) in April 2009.

Our Mission

“We will implement the new LHA and transfer TRS functions to VOA, whilst continuing to deliver high levels of customer service”

Our Commitment

We are committed to delivering a high level of service to all our customers. We aim to be open, helpful and professional, to answer for our actions and to provide information quickly and accurately.

Helping us to put things right

We are always keen to hear the views of our customers, particularly the general public, about our performance - what we do right, and what we do wrong. We recognise that things can go wrong and, as a result, we do not provide the standards of service that we have set ourselves. We are especially keen to know when this happens as it gives us an opportunity to put things right and to learn from our mistakes. View our Contact Details.

What you can expect from us

As a public service we are committed to providing a quality service to our customers.

  1. What we mean by customer
  2. Access to our service
  3. Our standard of services
  4. Open Government Code of Practice
  5. Our commitment to equality and diversity
  6. Surveys
  7. How to find and contact us
  8. Our complaints procedure
  9. How to complain

1. What we mean by customer

1.1 We have front line customers who are directly affected by our service delivery and we have indirect or stakeholder customers.

1.2 Our front line customers include:

  • Local Authority Housing Benefit staff
  • Landlords (including housing associations, registered social landlords, individuals and managing agents)
  • Tenants with regulated (fair rent) tenancies
  • Housing Benefit recipients currently living in the private rented sector
  • Local Housing Allowance exempt customers, these include:
     - Board and attendance
     - Caravan or mobile home (including site rent)
     - Houseboat (including mooring charge)
     - Hostel, or
     - Registered social landlord

1.3 Our indirect/stakeholder customers include:

  • Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)
  • Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
  • The taxpayers to whom we are accountable.
  • Additionally, those who are affected by what we do, such as landlord’s associations, tenant groups, minority representatives, etc                                                    

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2. Access to our services

2.1 We will make our services more readily available to as many of our customers as possible by the use of up to date technology. Many of our forms and leaflets are available to download from our website (Fair Rent or Housing Benefit advice and guidance) and our core public information leaflets have been translated into several languages. Our website complies with Government e-accessibility and meta-data standards. These standards ensure that TRS continually reviews its data on the website to make relevant information available and in a format that is user-friendly. This has been particularly important during this time of substantial change and will be used as a key resource of information and communication with our customers and stakeholders.

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3. Our standard of service

3.1 Our standards of service aim to provide you with a friendly, efficient level of service.

3.2 If you telephone us, we propose to:

  • Answer within 3 rings
  • Give the name of our organisation
  • Connect you to the right extension first time
  • Answer your query immediately, where this is not possible we will return your call within 48 hours.

3.2 If you visit us and have not made an appointment, we propose to:

  • Ensure that a member of staff sees you on arrival
  • Ensure that you see a member of staff who is able to attend to your enquiry or request within 15 minutes
  • Make arrangements to provide interpreting services if required for customers where English may not be their first language or have other communication difficulties. These arrangements will be made in advance of the meeting on request.
  • Make it easy for people with caring responsibilities to see Rent Officers or other staff.

3.3 If you write or e-mail us, we will:

  • Respond to your letter or e-mail fully within 5 working days
  • Where this is not possible we will tell you why and aim to provide a full response within a further 10 working days.

3.4 If we visit you, we will:

  • Arrive for fixed pre-arranged meetings within 15 minutes of the scheduled appointment time
  • Arrive for time-banded appointments within the given time band.

3.5 In terms of security:

  • All our staff who visit you in your home have identity cards giving their name, photograph and job.
  • All our staff who you will meet at our offices will be wearing name badges.

3.6 In handling your affairs, we will:

  • Deal with them on a strictly confidential basis, within the law
  • Treat you with equality and fairness
  • Respect your privacy
  • Find a private room for you if you visit us to discuss your affairs.

3.7 We agree that you have the right to:

  • Know how we have determined your rent assessment and the outcome
  • See the personal information we hold about you subject to the guidelines and limitations set out in the Data Protection Act 1998
  • Ask us for any other information we keep and to receive a response from us in accordance with the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
  • Have home visits if you are a customer who has access difficulties and whose business cannot be dealt with by correspondence or over the phone.

3.8 However you contact us, we will:

  • Provide a clear, accurate and helpful response
  • Make clear what action we will take next, and by what date
  • Make clear what action you need to take next, and by what date
  • Give our names
  • Be courteous and professional at all times

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4. Open Government Code of Practice

4.1 The Rent Service follows the Open Government Code of Practice. The Code involves careful handling of information, efficient delivery of service, providing accessible information to the public within reasonable time-scales and restricting information only when there are good reasons for doing so.

4.2 The Rent Service complies with the Data Protection Act (DPA) and our customers have the right to see personal information that we hold about them to ensure that it is correct and is being processed fairly and lawfully.

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5. Our commitment to equality and diversity

5.1 The Rent Service wholeheartedly supports the principles of equality and diversity and opposes all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination on the grounds of religion, colour, race, nationality, ethnic origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation or disability.

5.2 On 1 April 2004 we became an Executive Agency of the DWP. The DWP is committed to providing services that embrace diversity and provide equality of opportunity for all.

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6. Surveys

6.1 Customer Satisfaction

The Agency places great importance in gathering views and opinions from its customers as it aims to provide an even better and more efficient service.

In 2008-09 TRS will conduct the following two surveys:

6.2 Local Authority (LA) Survey

The 2008-09 survey will canvas the views of LAs who are our primary customers. Our target is to achieve at least a 95% satisfactory or better rating from our LA customers who respond to the survey. The survey will provide us with helpful feedback on what we do well, and will highlight areas of our service where we may need to make improvements.

Past Surveys

pdf Local Authority Satisfaction Survey Report 2007-08

pdf Local Authority Satisfaction Survey Report 2006-07

6.3 National Customer Satisfaction Survey

The 2008-09 survey will canvas the views of Fair Rent (FR) and Housing Benefit (HB) customers. Our target is to ensure at least 95% of our FR customers, and those HB customers that we inspect, rate our service as satisfactory or better.

The surveys will assist the Agency with meeting:

  • TRS requirements of our continuous improvement process
  • DWP business plan targets set each year by the Secretary of State

We aim to increase the response rate in both of these surveys in order to gather a broader and fuller picture from a wider range of our stakeholders. This will help us to continue to shape our services to meet the needs of our customers.

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7. Our complaints procedure

7.1 The Rent Service aims to satisfy any complaint that you may have and is interested in suggestions on how our service can be improved.

7.2 Our complaints procedure is published in the About section of The Rent Service internet site and is also available as an information leaflet from any of our offices.

7.3 Problems we cannot solve

  • If your complaint is about a matter of government policy, we will not be able to deal with it. You should contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or Communities and Local Government (CLG). Click here for contact details.