Your feedback to us
We welcome your comments and suggestions about our Website or any parts of our Service - positive or negative! They are really useful to us in striving to build and develop our website and to improve our Service.
Nigel Lutt is the Operations Manager for Customer Services & Outreach, and welcomes comments on the service. You can contact him by telephone on (01234)228834 or e-mail him from the link below.
Please don't by shy - tell us what you really think! We promise to listen and consider what you say.
To provide us with feedback please send an e-mail to:
archive@bedscc.gov.uk| and please entitle the e-mail "Feedback"
For details of how to complain see:
A Charter For Our Service|
Join our user panel
Here in Bedfordshire, we have always taken a pride in offering a good quality user friendly service. - with personal attention - to all visiting users of our public searchroom and researchers who contact us by post, telephone and e-mail. The award of five successive national Charter Marks - for excellence in public services - in 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002 and 2006 shows our commitment to customer care, efficiency and value for money.
However, we recognise that there is always room for improvement. In 1992 we set up a User Panel as a forum for the exchange of information and ideas between users and staff. The panel of regular users of our service, and often of other Archive Services, meets two or three times a year to discuss plans for changes, and acts as a sounding board for suggested improvements. It is not a management committee, but a group of interested friends with whom we can have frank and useful discussions about weaknesses in our services and the way to put them right.
Members also help on an occasional basis with specific jobs between meetings. This includes advice and consultation on customer feedback including considering matters raised through the Service's complaints procedure which allows dissatisfied customers to refer specific difficulties to the Panel. We are always looking for additional people who might wish to serve as panel members.
We try to ensure it includes individual users with varied representative interests and from different parts ofthe County. People representing local history societies and user groups are also invited to attend meetings. We would like to extend the membership to include contributions from members who use our service 'remotely', from the rest of the UK and overseas. We appreciate that it is not practical for such users to attend meetings but if you are willing to be consulted on a bi-annual basis about issues which affect those who use the service - such as fees and charges, website development and the expansion of our online database - then please let us know.
The role of all user panel members will not be demanding, but members do have an opportunity to influence change. Travel expenses are offered for attendance at meetings and light refreshments are provided.
Are you interested? If so then please
contact| us with your name, address, telephone number and e-mail details. Please also let us know your usual research topics and whether you visit the searchroom or use our service remotely. You can telephone Nigel Lutt, Operations Manager for Outreach on 01234 228833/34 for an informal discussion if you would like to discuss the role of a user panel member further.
Please help us to help you!
Nigel Lutt
(Operations Manager)