arvato and East Riding of Yorkshire Council partnership delivers efficiency savings and service improvements

“Since 2005, the Council’s partnership with arvato has demonstrated that it is possible for partners to provide a seamless, customer-focused service, across organisational boundaries, for local people. The partnership has been described by the Audit Commission as exemplary and it continues to be highly effective with all service delivery performance improvements either in-line with or exceeding targets.”

Councillor Stephen Parnaby, Leader of East Riding of Yorkshire Council

Partners since 2005

challenge

East Riding of Yorkshire Council is geographically England’s largest unitary authority covering approximately 1000 square miles, employing over 10,000 staff and serving more than 337,000 residents. The Council’s goals were to maintain service quality and bring new jobs and investment to the region and its ambition was to remain one of the top 10% performing councils in the UK. Supporting this, arvato’s objectives were to transform services through process innovations and investment in ICT.

solution: a partnership approach

East Riding of Yorkshire Council recognised in arvato a long-term partner with a shared vision. In 2005, arvato signed an 8-year public-private partnership with the Council to deliver a range of services including customer services, revenues and benefits, payroll, print and design, training, occupational health and IT.

The transition of services was seamless and more than 500 staff were transferred to arvato on their existing terms and conditions, with no redundancies or redeployments. From the start, the partnership has focused on exceeding its performance targets, and achieving high levels of customer satisfaction.

successes: we delivered on our promises

• Achieved top 10% performance nationally for:
• Collection of Council Tax (out of all unitary authorities)
• Collection of rent (out of all local authorities)
• Processing of Housing and Council Tax Benefit claims (out of all local authorities)
• Met all 2009/10 performance targets:
• Processed over 601,500 payroll transactions and 45,000 expenses
• Printed and distributed 150,000 Council Tax bills and 10,000 Non-Domestic Rates bills
• Handled 847,000 customer enquiries handled through the Customer Service Network, including calls and emails, in the year in 2009/10
• Achieved 97% customer satisfaction for Print and Design services, quality and value for money

services: putting the customer at the centre

• Customer Services
• Revenues
• Financial Assessments
• Payroll
• Accounts Payable and Invoice Processing
• ICT
• Occupational Health
• Training
• Print and Design

awards

• IRRV: Excellence in Social Inclusion (Winner 2010)
• IRRV: Revenues Team of the Year, Excellence in IT (Finalist 2007)
• Association of Public Sector Excellence: Public-Private Partnership Award (Winner 2007)
• LGC: Best Public-Private Partnership Award (Winner 2007)

“The Council’s aim was to form a strategic partnership to help take the range of already high performing services to the next level and to secure wider economic development objectives, by establishing a business centre and creating new jobs targeted at the most deprived parts of the East Riding.  The partnership is a fit between a nationally recognised high performing local authority and a world class international business working together for the benefit of the area.”

Nigel Pearson, Chief Executive, East Riding of Yorkshire Council