Cheshire West and Chester Council excel at Local Government IT Excellence
Awards 2009

Capita partnership acknowledged for successful service transformation

Cheshire West and Chester Council has been awarded the Service Transformation Award at the Local Government IT Excellence Awards 2009. The authority established itself as a new unitary council in April 2009, challenged to deliver a single technical and operational platform for the new revenues and benefits service. This was successfully achieved by the four constituent district and county councils working in close partnership with Capita.

The transformation was delivered on time and on budget to coincide with the launch of the new council. This project has already delivered efficiency improvements with an enhanced single service to the citizen and will be the foundation for transforming citizen services in future.  Jerry Faulkner, Senior Manager, Revenues and Benefits at Cheshire West and Chester Council, said: “Being a new unitary authority, our overall aim from the outset was to provide our residents with access to all revenues and benefits services from the authority through a single application. We also hoped to ensure we remain an approachable and responsive organisation. Providing a top quality service for our many customers and communities is our main priority and we believe Capita is helping us achieve this.” Prior to being formally engaged, Capita, as an incumbent supplier to the three district councils, agreed to support the proposal and development of an outline project framework.

Other suppliers also supported this process and partnered with Capita to ensure the draft project proposals were aligned and deliverable. Capita faced a huge task in aligning all the systems and designing the new primary platform, working very closely with the internal team to ensure this work was completed successfully.

Paul Millard, Operations Director at Capita Software Services, commented: “Working with Cheshire West and Chester Council was an exciting project as it established itself as a new entity. Facilitating such a merger, especially from a technical and process point of view can seem daunting but the joint working and commitment demonstrated by all parties from day one ensured a smooth transition. It is great that this project has been recognised by the industry, but more importantly, that it has resulted in a high level of service being provided, which the citizens of Cheshire West and Chester expect and deserve.”

The awards, announced at the Socitm 09 Conference in Edinburgh on 12th October 2009, are in their 14th year and seek to highlight and reward local authorities using IT systems or processes to improve the efficiency and delivery of services within local communities.