About our services

Here we set out the levels of customer service you can expect to receive when contacting MMO.

Customer service

As England’s marine manager, we protect and develop our seas, coasts and communities for the benefit of generations to come.

We are guided by the three pillars of sustainable development - society, economy and environment - and the idea that we are individually and collectively responsible for considering the interconnections between the three. Our decision-making is rooted in this belief to support strong, sustainable and balanced growth in all three areas.

If you contact us for information about our services or policies, we consider you as a customer.

MMO Customer charter

MMO’s customer charter lets you know what you should expect as a customer of MMO and what we ask of our customers.

What you can expect from us

We will:

  • Be helpful, honest and professional
  • Provide a high-quality, transparent and timely service
  • Explain what you can do if you disagree with our decisions

Our promise

We will:

  • Be inclusive: use clear, accessible language and clearly explain our decisions to you
  • Be engaging: listen to you and maintain communication channels * Be accountable - say sorry and put things right if we make mistakes
  • Be innovative – use your feedback to improve what we do and how we do it

Keep you informed and protected

We will:

  • Acknowledge correspondence from you, explain what will happen next and by when
  • Keep you updated of progress and any problems
  • Protect your information in line with our ‘personal information charter’

Making things easier for you

We will:

  • Be clear about how you can contact us
  • Make information about MMO services accessible
  • Use your feedback to improve our services

What we expect from our customers

We ask you to treat our employees with courtesy and respect. Our staff will always do their best to help customers and we support their right to end an offensive call or to ask a customer to leave our premises in threatening situations.

If a customer’s behaviour (written or spoken) is malicious, makes discriminatory comments based on disability, race, religion, perceived gender or any other personal characteristic or is deliberately threatening, we may choose to refer the matter to the police.

Unreasonable demands

You might make requests that we cannot reasonably accommodate. This may include but is not limited to:

  • the amount of information you request
  • the nature and scale of service you expect
  • the volume of correspondence you generate
  • a remedy or outcome that cannot be achieved.

This does not mean that we will consider regular contact from you as unreasonable behaviour. What is seen as an unreasonable demand will depend on the circumstances of each case.

For example, the behaviour of someone who persistently contacts us about the same issue, when that issue has been dealt with in line with MMO’s usual processes, can, in some circumstances, amount to unreasonable demand. Such behaviour takes up a disproportionate amount of our time and resources and can affect our ability to provide a service to others.

Read more about unreasonable customer contact on our complaints guidance page.

Our commitment

We are committed to our customer charter and providing an exemplary service. If you are not satisfied with any aspect of our service, or you feel we are not upholding our commitment, please let us know and we will do our best to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

Complaints, requests for information and appeals

Please refer to our customer complaints process for guidance if you are unhappy with the service we have provided.

As well as our commitment to provide exemplary customer services, legislation exists to give members of the public a general right of access to information held by any public sector organisation.

You can apply for information MMO holds about you under the Data Protection Act 1998 as well as request access to information we hold about our organisation and the environment under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) 2004, Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). Visit our [freedom of information requests] page for more information.

You should contact our central customer team to make a complaint or request information, using the information below.

Contacting MMO

MMO’s central customer team

Write to us:

Lancaster House
Hampshire Court
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE4 7YH
United Kingdom

Details for other teams and our coastal offices.

Contents