What is a Customer Contract?

We are committed to providing high-quality services to everyone in Nottingham. One of the ways we are working towards this is to give more information about our services and the standards of service that you can expect.

Our customer contracts give this information and tell you how to make a complaint if you are not happy with the service you receive.

We have a range of customer contracts covering different services. We have also produced a City Wide Contract which gives general service standards you can expect from all departments - for example, how we reply to letters and phone calls, and what will happen if you have to complain.

About our service

We want to raise standards safely

In Nottingham, both we and the Health and Safety Executive are responsible for health and safety at work.

Our Workplace Health and Safety Team is responsible for about 7,000 workplaces, including retail and wholesale buildings, warehouses, offices, residential care homes, hotels, leisure, culture and religious buildings and other consumer services such as hairdressers, beauticians, shoe repairers and funeral directors.

We are responsible for making sure these employers keep to the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Other businesses are usually the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive at:

City Gate West
Toll House Hill
Nottingham
NG1 5AT

O115 971 2800

What you can expect from us

You can expect the following:

• Polite, professional, knowledgeable, well trained staff who are fair, consistent and helpful.
• Clear advice and information on what we need you to do to meet safety laws.
• Priority inspection of workplaces depending on what you do, the dangers of your business and previous safety standards.
• Clear information about what we plan to do following an inspection or investigation.
• We will give you information if an inspection or investigation has revealed problems with your business.
• We will not reveal the name or address of anyone who has complained if they asked us not to.

What we will do

We will do the following:

• Inspect businesses and events and provide written reports.
• Advise employees on conditions in their workplace.
• Organise special safety events for local businesses.
• Run a consistent and fair enforcement policy, which will include advice, guidance, education and formal steps involving legal action.
• Reply to your complaints within five working days and keep you fully informed.
• Investigate deaths, some accidents and diseases in the workplace.
• Keep public registers for legal notices, Sunday trading and cooling towers.
• Provide a service to check for asbestos (fees are available if you ask).
• Provide information, advice and leaflets if you ask us.

What you should do

Please do the following:

• Keep a healthy and safe workplace.
• Tell us if you think you have a problem or need advice and help.
• Ask us for help if you are not sure what you need to do, or if you need translations.
• Tell us about any major accidents, events or diseases in your workplace.
• Give us brief and relevant information if you need to complain about our service. Also give us your own details, so that we can keep you informed of our progress.
• Register your workplace if you are an employer.
• Contact our Service Manager or Team Leader if you have any comments about our service or if you feel we could improve it.

If you are not satisfied

We hope that you will be happy with our service. But if you are not, or if we do something wrong, please tell us.

We can deal with most complaints quickly. If it will take us longer to investigate your complaint or to put right something we have done wrong, we will write to acknowledge your complaint within 10 working days.

When we answer your complaint, we will send you a Customer Response Form so you can let us know if you are satisfied with the way we dealt with your complaint.