9:32am Monday 23rd October 2006
By Vicki Foster
SWINDON Council won't be open all hours from April, but it will be open at times more convenient to residents.
Deputy leader Fionuala Foley said the council was pushing to get its first-stop shop open for business by next spring.
The idea is to provide a front door to all the council's services - and cut confusion about who deals with what and where.
She said the agreement this week naming Capita as preferred bidder for the council's outsourcing scheme would clear the way to set up the shop and contact centre.
Coun Foley (Con, Old Town and Lawn) said the council was not open when residents wanted it.
"If you're home during the day it's fine but if you work long hours it's no good to you," Coun Foley (Con, Old Town and Lawn) said.
"If I get home and there's a letter waiting for me, I want to be able to ring them and sort it out.
"We are in consultation about what people want and what hours people want it to be open.
"The contract will be signed, all going well, in November.
"I would expect the first-stop shop by the spring - April."
Coun Foley said the centre would be open from 8am to 6pm Monday to Wednesday and on Fridays. It would hopefully open later on Thursdays - up to 8pm - and from 9am to 1pm on Saturdays.
"It will be open for people who work," Coun Foley said.
"It is the way forward. We know our satisfaction levels are good but we want to be doing better. These days all big businesses are open longer."
While the council is congratulating itself on getting closer to opening the shop, it comes after an announcement last year that it could be open by the middle of this year.
The idea of a first-stop shop was included in interim chief executive Sir Mike Pitt's full recovery plan for the council.
"It is one of our most important proposals," Sir Mike said in September last year.
The council promised to have the first-stop shop up and running by 2010 but said then it was looking at a much closer deadline with a temporary facility.
Coun Foley said the council had been forced to abandon the temporary plan when it realised it needed help from an outside contractor.
She said Capita would be expected to run the first-stop shop and contact centre, where the vast majority of issues could be sorted out in the first call.
The civic cabinet says that taxpayers will save at least £4m over the next 10 years after approving a preliminary agreement with Capita to outsource 350 jobs.
The motion means the council and the services company will move into the final stages of signing a 10 to 15-year contract.
The contract would mean Capita takes over the council's customer services, ICT, office management, administration, finance, payroll and part of its human resources management.
But council unions have opposed the outsourcing. Unison branch secretary Bob Cretchley said that the process had been rushed and the uncertainty was sapping employee morale.
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