New Revenue And Benefits System Set To Save Hull Council £5m
Hull City Council has chosen a company to take over the running of its Revenues and Benefits service, including the payment of housing benefit, collection of council tax, business rates and debt.
The local authority opted for software, technology and outsourcing services firm Civica after it demonstrated it could save £5m whilst safeguarding jobs.
The seven-year deal will see all 214 employees from Hull’s Revenues and Benefits department and some other related services transfer across on protected terms and conditions.
The partnership is expected to commence on 1st November 2015 after finalisation of contract terms and staff consultation.
“We looked forward to welcoming Civica as our new partner for the Revenues and Benefits service. This partnership will be good news for the council as by saving money it will enable us to continue to try and protect services that we consider to be important to residents and the city whilst budgets are cut,” claimed deputy leader of Hull Council and Portfolio Holder for Finance, Councillor Daren Hale.
“Contrary to previous inaccurate reports, there will be no redundancies either before or during this seven year partnership. The 214 staff are safeguarded throughout our deal with Civica.
“If this partnership agreement had not been given the go ahead we would have seen up to 30 FTE staff redundancies as part of a need to reduce the service budget by £700k per annum so we are delighted that we have been able to protect all the affected staff whilst making significant budget savings.
“Our Revenues and Benefits customers will not be affected by the changes as we transfer these services,” he added.
Potential Expansion
The agreement will see Civica deliver Revenues and Benefits services locally on behalf of the local authority and also potentially provide services for other local authorities through the creation of a transactional processing centre in the city called the ‘Kingston Centre’ based in the existing treasury building.
This partnership is the firm’s third local government business process outsourcing win in less than a year, a unique achievement in the sector.
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