RAL quality symbol for medium-sized community administration
Nowadays, promoting medium-sized businesses is one of the most important tasks of cities and districts. Certification showing that your dealings are cost-effective and your management is implemented, communities can now provide certification with the RAL quality symbol "medium-sized local government administration". TÜV NORD CERT provides the certification needed for this.
The basis is 13 obligatory criteria. These were worked out by the "Quality control association of medium-sized business-oriented local government administrations", which has been joined by 14 local authorities and RAL – the German institute for quality assurance and marking. The criteria catalogue includes:
- firmly promised processing times of building applications within eight weeks
- the payment of invoices within 15 workdays
- a complaint management system
- short response times to calls and e-mails
- the setting up of an administrative directory
- of a pilot programme for the founder of a new business or analyses of the customer satisfaction
The RAL quality symbol documents that communities have developed and are using successful tools, which improve the cooperation between medium-sized companies and public administrations. The measures are an important site factor and are suitable for breaking down bureaucratic red tape.
In particular, the certification encompasses the following steps:
- Working out a self-monitoring system
- Test phase (covering at least three months)
- Self-monitoring with internal evaluation of the self-monitoring system
- External monitoring/certification audit on the basis of the RAL quality and testing regulations
If all of the steps have been completed, the local government will receive the RAL quality symbol "Medium-sized business-oriented local government administration" for two years. Re-certification takes place after the two years have elapsed.
Four districts and two cities were the first communities in Germany to have undergone and successfully passed the test process by TÜV NORD CERT.