District councils make service available to other public bodies
Two district councils in the east of England have set up a shared service for front and back office functions which they are offering to other public authorities.
East Lindsey and South Holland have created a limited company named Compass Point to handle HR, finance, payroll, IT support, revenues and benefits and customer services, operating from two centres in Manby and Spalding.The joint venture is owned by the two councils, with shareholdings reflecting the size of their services and investment at 63% for East Lindsey and 37% for South Holland, although they have equal voting rights with three members each on the governing board.
Almost 300 staff, about a quarter of the total for two councils, have been transferred under arrangements to Compass Point, which began operations on 1 April.
The move has involved an investment of £4.5m in new technology, including a BizTalk server to connect the legacy applications, a Microsoft Dynamics ERP and an Avaya telephony system.
Nigel Howell, chief executive of East Lindsey, told GGC: "We're offering two sets of services. There's the traditional outsourced services where we might tender for work, or other authorities might invest and become new partners in the company.
"We are relatively young but we've had interest from a number of organisations already, mostly in potentially becoming partners. This is the most novel aspect of what we've done."
He said the two councils have estimated that Compass Point can deliver £2.1m in savings in the first full year of its operation and £30m over 10 years.
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