At work
- Cameron’s ‘beacon’ bank's off to sluggish start June 2010
- Essex County Fears over job cuts May 2010
- Essex CC openness on cuts March 2 2010
- 275 job cuts - Feb 2010
- MP Expenses - Feb 2010
- The Future - Jan 2010
- IBM News - Jan 2010
- SEEC - Dec 2009
- IBM Deal - Dec 2009
- School Dinner Lady Sacked - Nov 2009
- Essex County The Battle for Public Services June 2010
- EX-COUNCIL CARE WORKERS TAKE EXCELCARE BACK TO COURT
IBM News - Jan 2010
The aim of the deal is to make a saving of 20% of the authority's annual budget of £1.2billion within three years. As strategic partner, IBM will provide services including the design, management and delivery of front-end customer services, back-office and corporate systems as well as business consulting and technology implementation and integration.
"Working together [with IBM] we will also be able to keep council tax low and deliver real value for money for Essex residents,” said Lord Hanningfield, leader of Essex County Council. “This is the most ambitious project that the Council has undertaken, and finding the right partner to help us deliver it is a vitally important step.
“IBM has demonstrated its ability to help us deliver our vision of providing the very best quality of service for our residents. With the additional capacity, capability and skills that IBM will provide, we are now looking forward to working with them as we move towards a more efficient, customer-focused organisation, providing first class front-line services.”
All services in the county - such as schools management, social care, highways and libraries - will be reviewed one by one by IBM which will then decide whether it would be cheaper and more effective to keep the service in house, or contract it out to a private provider. The first two projects, which are the initial stages of the transformation programme, will involve the modernisation of the council's back-office function and streamlining procurement operations.
Brendon Riley, chief executive of IBM UK and Ireland added: "We will work closely with the council as it moves towards a more efficient, customer-focused organisation that delivers first class front-line services."
But unions have claimed the Essex deal would lead to thousands of job losses. “The pressure to extract profits and make dividends to shareholders leads to cost-cutting at the expense of investment and service quality,” said Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison.
The deal is being watched closely by the Conservative Party which is believed to view it as a test case template for a future standard outsourcing model. Tory Party Chairman Eric Pickles confirmed: “I certainly think this is the future and we will be watching developments in Essex very closely.”
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