CUMBRIA COUNTY COUNCIL'S ICT PARTNERSHIP WITH AGILISYS CREATES MORE JOBS FOR THE COUNTY
17 November 2005
London, UK, NOVEMBER 17 2005 – Agilisys, the leading technology and business process service provider, together with their ICT Partner Cumbria County Council, the second-largest County Council in England, are pleased to announce close to 50 new jobs for the area as their Partnership goes from strength to strength, with a further 40 planned in the coming months.
In March this year, Cumbria County Council and Agilisys entered into a 7-year strategic ICT Partnership including TUPE transfer of 85 staff to Agilisys, ongoing ICT support, implementation of a modernisation programme, business process re-engineering and service transformation.
The Partnership is the result of the Council’s vision to provide improved services to citizens through innovative and efficient means. As a large, diverse and largely rural county, technology is seen as an enabler to provide improved access to services. Agilisys is now responsible for providing IT Support and IT Service Management across the Council and is also in the process of implementing a modernisation programme which will support the council’s efforts to provide better access to council services, mobile working for Social Services field workers and shared information to allow multi-agency working (including Social Care, Education, Health and Youth Offending).
The Partnership has already successfully bid for additional work, proving the benefits of working together. Agilisys and Cumbria County Council’s Trading Standards team were selected to provide the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Consumer Direct Northwest advice centre for the North West region of the UK.
The advice centre will stand as a single point of contact across the North West, with advisors providing comprehensive practical information, knowledge, tools and the confidence people need to resolve consumer problems themselves. Agilisys has already recruited 40 staff for the contact centre located in Barrow-in-Furness with training beginning in early October. Staff will be fully certified and taking calls in the centre in December. Following a nationwide campaign to promote Consumer Direct in April of 2006, it is anticipated that the number of calls handled by the centre will dramatically increase and will result in yet more jobs.
In addition to Consumer Direct services, Agilisys will also be bringing their own contact centre services to the area in the coming months resulting in an additional 50 jobs for the area.
County Councillor Elizabeth Mallinson, spokesperson for Customer Services and ICT at Cumbria County Council says: “We are extremely proud to be bringing Consumer Direct to Cumbria. We are confident it will ensure high quality advice to help people resolve their consumer problems. This is a great success for the county council and demonstrates the huge benefits of our partnership with Agilisys. Barrow will really benefit from the new jobs the centre will create.”
Charles Mindenhall, Agilisys CEO added, “Cumbria County Council was looking for a Partner who would able to bring investment to the local economy and we are delighted to have been able to show results already. We are firmly committed to providing additional services out of centres in the County and look forward to continued growth.”
About Agilisys Ltd
Agilisys is a leading technology and business process services provider for the UK public and private sectors, dedicated to helping our clients transform their customer services through innovation, flexibility and partnership. We design, build and operate technology-enabled business solutions and have earned a strong reputation across many sectors, particularly within local government, travel and tourism, and retail financial services. Agilisys has over 1,000 employees in the UK, Ireland and India. www.agilisys.co.uk
About Cumbria County Council
Cumbria is the second-largest county in England and contains almost half the land area of the north-west region. Its population of 491,000 is very dispersed, with a population density of only 0.7 persons per hectare, compared to an England and Wales figure of 3.2. To serve the needs of this diverse and sprawling sub-region, Cumbria County Council spends about £500 million annually with a workforce of 17,800 – a tenth of all those employed in the county.