A case study in public-private joint venturing

Service Birmingham is the joint venture between Birmingham City Council and Capita. A truly collaborative partnership, it was set up in April 2006 to provide world-class information and communications technology (ICT) to help drive service transformation across Birmingham City Council.

This in turn would improve services, cut costs, increase employee motivation and benefit citizens in the local community.Since its formation, the partnership has been extended from its original ten year contract by a further five years to March 2021 – and expanded to include a revenues service which has been in operation since April 2011.

Service Birmingham provides:

• Information Communications Technology
• Contact centre services
• Education services
• Revenues
• Business transformation.

Achievements include:
In a little over a year, all three existing ICT networks were replaced with one quicker and more robust network linking 450 schools, 60 libraries and 240 other sites. This has saved £350,000 in annual infrastructure costs and cut management costs by 40% a year.

In December 2010, less than a year after Service Birmingham took over operations at the contact centre, the company was awarded Customer Services Excellence (CSE) accreditation, the Government’s customer service standard. Productivity and call handling quality have improved and customer satisfaction levels have increased

Citizens have better access to council services through the Council’s award-winning Customer First programme and more queries are now resolved on first contact.

The business transformation programme has designed and implemented technological capabilities that have enabled the Council to deliver c.£244m of savings by early 2011, as well as other benefits for citizens and employees. The programme is well on track to deliver savings of more than £1billion over ten years.

“The partnership gives us the freedom to turn traditional service delivery models on their head and adapt to meet the inevitable, but not always predictable, financial challenges of the current economic climate as well as the changing needs of the city.

"This ability to evolve, without going right back to the drawing board – or going elsewhere – is vital for such a long-term relationship.”
Stephen Hughes, Chief Executive, Birmingham City Council