Dartford Crossing procedures
Case reference FOI2024/01837
Received 23 December 2024
Published 10 February 2025
Request
I wish to make a FOIA request. This request is primarily around the Dartford Crossing and the website below (and relevent linked pages).
https://www.gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge/
1. Is there an internal policy/procedure on how to recognise and deal/escalate a complaint? If so please provide the most recent version of this. If the Dartford Crossing and National Highways have a different document/process please provide both copies.
2. Are Dartford Crossing complaints/queries subject to monitored metrics/SLA's whereby they must be resolved/closed in a certain amount of time? This includes at Customer Service level, not just escalated complaints. If so please provide details of these. Please provide any policy/procedure/guidance document around these if so.
3. How are customer service staff at Dartford Crossing monitored regarding performance? Are calls and emails QA'd by a supervisor or other department?
4. Is there a policy/procedure with regards to monitoring job performance and doing QA on work done by customer service staff at the Dartford Crossing? If so please provide this. If question 3 is answered within this policy/procedure then feel free to disregard question 3.
5. In relation to the Dartford Charges website I have been advised "User feedback indicates that the information provided on our website is clear, transparent, and widely understood.". Therefore I request a copy of the user feedback and associated documentation in relation to the website particularly around the charges page. The feedback should relate to the current layout of the website or the most recent (I accept some minor text changes may have occurred and I appreciate you can't do a feedback survey each time you change a word). If possible are there images of the website at the time of the user feedback? If specific questions were asked please provide these.
6. The bottom of the Dartford Crossing website has a "Is this page useful?". Can I be provided with the data/feedback from this for the past 3 years, ideally each bit of feedback would clarify what page it is in relation to.
7. Who or what department is responsible for maintaining the Dartford Crossing part of the website? Do department heads submit a request for change to a central IT department or can someone within the Dartford Crossing team do it themselves? If it's an individual I'm happy to accept the relevant job title.
8. If someone uses the "Is this page useful?" what happens to the submission? Is it collated centrally by a goverment department and analysed there or is it collated and sent to the department the web page is about etc? Basically what is the process when this option is used?
Response
1. All new customer service representatives go through complaints training, as part of the new starter training programme. Details on how to deal with and escalate a complaint are provided in the PDF document “FOI2024 01837 Question 1”. National Highways complaints process can be found on the following link https://nationalhighways.co.uk/about-us/complaints-process/.
2. Dart Charge customer services should respond to customer enquiries within 24 hours and customer complaints within 5 working days.
3 & 4. Dart Charge customer services have a Quality Assurance (QA) team who review the quality of calls and correspondence. Please see the attached PDF document “FOI2024 01837 Questions 3 and 4” for details of the QA process.
7. The official Dart Charge website is jointly managed by National Highways, Government Digital Services, Emovis Operations (Leeds) Ltd and Conduent Public Sector UK Limited.
Information withheld
5. We are unable to provide this information as the feedback received contains personal customer information.
This information has been withheld under the exemption at Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 because we cannot provide information that can identify an individual or their personal details.
6 & 8. National Highways do not hold the information to answer these questions. Feedback from the “Is this page useful” link is managed by Government Digital Services. You will need to contact the UK Government Cabinet Office directly for this data.
Documents
This is National Highways' response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.