Rochdale

Supporting Regeneration through Partnership

The Challenge
Situated just north of Manchester, Rochdale is characterised by a culturally diverse and vibrant population of more than 200,000. While the city has recovered from the recessions of the last few decades, the legacy of the Borough’s reliance on declining traditional industries has left challenges within the local economy in terms of strength and diversity. As such, the Council looked for a partner that could focus on economic regeneration across the area, including the four constituent townships, each of which has its own identity and devolved decision making.

The Solution
The Impact Partnership is an innovative joint venture partnership between Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council, Agilisys, and Mouchel. The 15-year Partnership seeks to tackle the economic and regeneration challenges of the Borough through:
Jobs creation – both flexible and sustainable, job creation will be in place from the initial stages of the Partnership, through, for example, the creation of a new contact centre that will support not only the Council but also private clients
Skills development – linking local educational providers, ongoing and improved training opportunities will ensure the local population is able to take advantage of new employment opportunities
Service transformation – supported by proactive BPR and change management, service transformation will evolve with the Council’s priorities. Initial areas for transformation include customer services, payroll and HR systems, and ICT support
Physical regeneration – delivered by Mouchel, plans include construction of a new Partnership building in the town centre, as well as local improvement projects across the Borough

The Benefits
The services Agilisys is providing are not only providing benefits now, but also building a platform from which the Impact Partnership can attract new external clients and deliver external growth.

Already the Partnership has delivered a number of significant enhancements – and generated more than £3m in savings (well on course to the guaranteed £19m in savings) as well more than 300 new jobs for the region through a number of transformational initiatives including:
 The introduction of a new, extended hours Contact Centre, providing improved customer service and delivered within months of the Partnership launch. The Contact Centre’s 55 agents now handles more than 65,000 queries each month, and was recently awarded ‘Best Contact Centre over 50 seats – Public Sector’, in an annual awards ceremony designed to highlight and reward excellence in the North West.
 Implementation of a more resilient infrastructure, including a new £1.5m data centre
 Strategy, design, and implementation of several schools projects, including provision of an ICT managed service for 90+ schools; development of the Rochdale Learning Platform; and creation of the Rochdale Schools intranet – a vital communication link used by all schools.

Projects are supported by the joint Benefits Realisation group established shortly after the creation of the Impact Partnership to ensure change and new ways of working are embedded in the Council and concrete savings are measured and delivered.

Additional investment in IT, processes, and physical regeneration projects have also started to deliver service improvements, which have already led to an increase of 20% in customer satisfaction, and that will continue to grow through the life of the Partnership.

Click here to download a PDF timeline of the partnership.