Customer Service Performance Information for Financial Years 2021-2025 (FOI2544)

Customer Service Performance Information financial years 2021-2025

Request for information - Ref no: FOI2544

September 8, 2025

Information request

We received your request on 15 August 2025.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000.

A copy of your request is set out in the extract below:

This is an information request relating to customer service performance levels.

Please include the following information for the financial years 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25:

• The average call wait times for your customer service phone lines are each year.

• The percentage of calls answered within your target time for each of those years.

• The average response time for written correspondence (email, letter, or online submissions) in each of those years.

• The percentage of correspondence responded to within the organisation’s target timeframe in each year.

• The number of formal complaints received relating to delays, unanswered calls, or
poor customer service, broken down by year.

• If held, the department’s official service level targets for customer interaction
(e.g., target wait time, target response time) and whether those targets were met in each year.

Our response

I confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold some of the information you have requested. Where the information is not held or exempt from disclosure this is stated.

Financial Year	Telephone Average Speed of Answer (sec)	% Calls answered in target	Average time to respond to emails/webforms/letters (working days)	% of correspondence responded to in target	Number of Formal Complaints relating to delays, etc
2021/22*	Not held	Not held	2.7	91%	Exempt under section 12 FOIA
2022/23**	36	80%	3.1	83%	Exempt under section 12 FOIA
2023/24	26	84%	3.1	93%	Exempt under section 12 FOIA
2024/25	46	78%	4.5	70%	Exempt under section 12 FOIA

* The average call wait times and percentage answered within target for 2021/22 are not held due to our supplier’s data retention policy.

** Note that the figures for 2022/23 are held from 9 May 2022.

Internal Target 2021-2025	% Calls Answered in 20 sec	80%
Target 2021-2025	Average time to respond to emails/webforms/letters (working days)	5

Section 12 of the FOIA

We do not hold the information you have requested in an easily accessible format. Our system does not record the reasons for complaints. It would require a manual exercise to locate and extract the information, taking in excess of the appropriate limit of 18 hours of work.

During 2021/2022-2024/2025, we had 6182 registered complaints. To determine the reasons for these complaints, we would need to check each case manually to determine whether the complaint related to delays, unanswered calls or poor customer service. If we allocate an average of one minute to check each case, acknowledging that some may take longer and others shorter, it would take us approximately 103 hours to comply with your request.

As this exceeds the 18 hour time limit, we are entitled to refuse to comply with the request under section 12(1) of the FOIA, which exempts requests that would exceed the appropriate cost limit.

This is an absolute exemption and therefore not subject to the public interest test.

Next steps

Internal review

If you are unhappy with our response, you may request an internal review with our Internal Review Officer by contacting them, within two months of receipt of our final response to your request, as follows:

Internal Review Officer
Customer Service Centre
Ordnance Survey
Adanac Drive
Southampton
SO16 0AS

Please include the reference number above. You may request an internal review where you believe Ordnance Survey has:

Failed to respond to your request within the time limits (normally 20 working days)
Failed to tell you whether or not we hold the information
Failed to provide the information you have requested
Failed to explain the reasons for refusing a request
Failed to correctly apply an exemption or exception

The Internal Review Officer will not have been involved in the original decision. They will conduct an independent internal review and will inform you of the outcome of the review normally within 20 working days, but exceptionally within 40 working days, in line with the Information Commissioner’s guidance.

The Internal Review Officer will either: uphold the original decision, provide an additional explanation of the exemption/s applied or release further information, if it is considered appropriate to do so.

Appeal to Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

If, following the outcome of the internal review you remain unhappy with our response, you may raise an appeal, within three months of receiving our response, with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You should make complaints to the ICO within six weeks of receiving the outcome of an internal review.

Visit the ICO website to report a concern.

Call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.

All information requests

See our previous responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

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