City Council extends service agreement with Capita

BIRMINGHAM City Council has agreed a five-year contract extension with its outsourcing partner, support services group Capita.

The agreement will see Service Birmingham – the joint venture created between the city council and Capita – extend the provision of ICT support and contact centre services from 2016 to 2021.

As well as generating £135m of gross savings for the local authority over the next decade, the deal will see Service Birmingham improve council tax collection rates from 96.3% to 98% by 2017 – a move which represents an increased annual income of £4.8m.

As part of the new deal, 132 revenue services staff will transfer from the city council to Service Birmingham from April this year under TUPE regulations.

Announcing the contract extension, Cllr Randal Brew, Cabinet Member for Finance said: “Our relationship with Capita through Service Birmingham has been a successful one, as we have begun to modernise services despite this being a huge challenge for an organisation that had previously done things in traditional ways for a very long time. We need to keep this momentum up over the coming years and the proposals will do this.”

Paul Pindar, chief executive of The Capita Group, added: “We are delighted to be signing this new contract with Birmingham City Council. The long-term partnership between the city council and Capita is at the heart of this deal. We have already helped the council achieve considerable savings while improving service quality to their customers. This extension will help us to continue to do so.”

Service Birmingham chief executive Stewart Wren said the deal was a vote of confidence in the work carried out by the JV.

“We will deliver what we promise and provide even greater service and value for money for the people of Birmingham,” he said.

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