Westmorland and Furness Registration Service - Customer Service Strategy

Civil Registration is a vital service that affects everyone at some point in their lives. It provides a name and identity within society; a facility for marriage and civil partnership; evidence on parentage; and evidence of entitlement to inheritance.

It also plays a vital role in securing and protecting basic human rights and in supporting community wellbeing and social inclusion. The statistical information derived from civil registration is important to policy making and in allocating national and local resources and information from death registration is essential to the monitoring the health of the nation.

The activities of the registration service also underpin and support the Home Office's priorities of protection from terrorism, reducing crime and tackling immigration abuse. It is essential therefore that the local registration service continues to record high quality information and plays it's part in protecting human life and upholding the rights of individuals on access to information.

Westmorland and Furness Registration Service is committed to providing customers with high quality registration services at key times in their lives, reflected in the facilities provided within the registration offices and the skill and dedication of staff.

The public are served in accordance with relevant legislation and regulations and the principles outlined in the Westmorland and Furness Council's policies and procedures. The service is totally customer focused and the high standard of service delivery achieved reflects positively on the local authority. This service plan strives to further improve our essential service and enable it to be fully maintained against the backdrop of budget pressures.

To maintain a high level of customer service success, it is vital to understand the needs of our customers as well as their views on the services and products that we provide. This will assist in maintaining the high level of service reputation that Westmorland and Furness Registration Service currently holds. We can achieve this understanding by ensuring regular dialogue with our stakeholders is established and maintained.

We aim to provide opportunities for all our customers to actively engage in the delivery of services. Not just by using the service at those various points in their life when there is a legal requirement to do so, but also by encouraging users and potential users to contribute to its development and direction both locally and nationally.