Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council has signed a
£200m, 15-year deal to create a partnership that will manage the
council's back-office services and build a 70-seat contact
centre.
About 300 council employees will be seconded to the partnership,
with IT supplier Agilisys and property management company Mouchel
Parkman, on 1 April. The new organisation - the Impact Partnership
- will run the council's IT, highways, payroll and property
departments.
Council IT director Paul Young said, "The elected members were
very keen that the contact centre was in Rochdale. They had two
reasons: so that people working in the contact centre had an
affinity for the local area, and so that the contact centre would
help Rochdale's economic regeneration."
Agilisys has promised to bring a minimum of 1,300 new jobs to
the metropolitan borough over the 15-year term of the contract. The
jobs will be created by moving the call centres of some of its
private sector clients to Rochdale.
Agilisys chief executive Charles Mindenhall said, "We are
bringing a number of those private sector jobs and roles to
Rochdale. We will be aiming to do work with our clients, such as
HBOS, in Rochdale."
The contact centre will account for between £15m and £22m of the
£200m total value of the contract. The partnership will also
implement a customer relationship management application, which is
expected to be Lagan Frontline version 6 and a new payroll system,
which is likely to be Midland HR & Payroll Solutions' Trent
application.
Part of Impact's £13m annual budget will be put aside as a
contingency fund for IT-enabled business transformation
projects.
The council said it chose to start a partnership rather than
enter an outsourcing arrangement so that it retained the freedom to
change its requirements.