The City of York Council is committed to providing an excellent service to our customers that is professional, fair, and efficient and we will always do our best to help. In return, we expect our customers to behave and act appropriately and treat our employees with courtesy, consideration, and respect, to allow them to carry out their work.
This policy draws on the document produced by The Commission for Local Administration England which provides guidance for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to inform this policy. We also acknowledge trauma informed approaches to customer relationships.
Throughout this policy we have used the term customer to indicate a person that contacts or interacts with an employee of the City of York Council for any reason.
About this policy
This policy supports all customers by providing officers with options on how best to manage challenging customer interactions, ensuring that other customers and staff are safe and supported.
This policy is designed to support employees and their managers, by setting out the steps they can take, to manage expectations and interactions with confidence and empathy. This policy has a particular focus on enabling employees to deal with challenging behaviour such as aggression and abuse, professionally and consistently. It sets out what both parties can expect from each other and outlines the steps that may be taken, to deal with specific cases of extreme or repetitive behaviours. It applies to all our staff and customers, whether they are accessing council services at the time or not.
This policy sits alongside and acknowledges the following policies:
- Public Participation rules - Annex 8 in the Constitution
- City of York Council Complaints Procedure
- City of York Council Social Media Policy
- The York Poverty Truth Commission’s Charter for Organisational Standards
It is also supported by our associated Recording for Staff Guidance document.
Human Rights and Equalities
In applying this policy, we will make sure that our actions are in accordance the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Convention Rights within it.
When a customer is disabled, we will adjust our interactions where required, considering that different approaches for successful interactions may be required to reflect individual requirements.
We are required to uphold our Public Sector Equalities duties as set out the Equality Act 2010 and Customers should always be given the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments.
Data Protection
You can find details about what the council does with personal information at york.gov.uk/privacy
Also see
Claire Foale
Chief Strategy Officer