A Birmingham, UK, contact centre which handles over two million calls a year on behalf of Birmingham City Council has been awarded a top industry award - for the third consecutive year.

The Customer Service Excellence (CSE) standard is an official UK standard for public sector organisations. It measures quality of delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude in the provision of public services.

Service Birmingham, the joint venture between Capita and Birmingham City Council has run the contact centre since February 2010 and has been awarded the CSE standard every year since.

The CSE Standard is an accreditation covering five key criteria and awarded to organisations that:

• Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of customers
• Build a customer-focused culture
• Provide information to customers that is accurate and detailed
• Deal effectively with problems that arise
• Show that standards and targets for dealing with customers are measurable.

Welcoming the CSE Standard re-accreditation, Service Birmingham’s chief executive, Stewart Wren said: "Achieving the Customer Service Excellence standard for three years running is testament to the dedication of the Service Birmingham contact centre team and the importance we place on maintaining front line services to residents. As the first link in the chain, we must continue to work with the City Council to develop the end-to-end service provided to Birmingham citizens."

Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, Ian Ward said: "Many vulnerable people rely on the contact centre as the first step in obtaining key public services so we have a duty to make the whole system - from initial call to the frontline service provided - as efficient and easy to use as possible. It’s great news that Service Birmingham has retained the standard and I look forward to working together to improve further."

Established in 2006, Service Birmingham is a joint venture between Capita and Birmingham City Council. As well as the contact centre, the company runs the council’s ICT function and helps drive forward its award-winning Business Transformation programme. It also took over responsibility for Birmingham’s Revenues department (Council Tax collection processes) in April 2011.

Service Birmingham’s contact centre handles enquiries for the following Birmingham City Council services:

-Waste collection

-Revenues (Council Tax)

-Benefits enquiries

-Housing repairs

-Environmental Health

-Parks service

-Parking enquiries

-Planning applications and enquiries

-Council complaints, comments and compliments

-Highways

-Neighbourhood offices

-Recruitment enquiries

-Birmingham Anti-Social Behavioural Unit

-Elections enquiries

-Neighbourhood advice

-Out of hours homecare

-Skip service

-Private sector housing

-Emergency duty team

-Councillor enquiries