The national standard for customer service has described the Planning and Building Standards service within the City of Edinburgh Council as open and approachable in their dealings with customers.

The service was accredited with Customer Service Excellence following an assessment last month. The success follows work over a number of years to improve and develop these services.

The assessor from Customer Service Excellence said: "The feedback from customers and partners regarding the openness and approachability of the service was overwhelmingly positive and overall a very competent assessment."

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Planning and Building Standards provide the direction for future development of the city, championing the city and ensuring that developments are well planned, sustainable and executed to the highest quality.

The service fulfils the statutory functions of preparing development plans, processing planning applications and issuing building warrants.

Customer Service Excellence is the national standard for delivering excellent customer focused services.

John Bury, Planning & Building Standards Head of Service, said: "I am delighted that our service has been accredited with Customer Service Excellence. External scrutiny of our customer service is vital to form objective views about our performance. I would like to thank all our hardworking and dedicated staff for their commitment to customer service, and working with our partners, customers and stakeholders to continually improve the service we deliver."

The Planning & Building Standards Service CSE Accreditation is an important step towards the Council target of 60% of Council Services being accredited by 2012.

(GK)