East Lindsey and South Holland
Compass Point Business Services (East Coast) Ltd. was officially established in August 2010, by the South Holland and East Lindsey District Councils. The company is ambitious and forward thinking, working to provide a range of front and back office business support services. Its formation came as part of an innovative answer to the challenges faced by the two councils, as they looked for ways to share their services in a scalable, comprehensive and replicable way. With a unique blend of public sector knowledge and business acumen, CPBS offers great value for money services that will help to make substantial savings and increase the standards of customer services.
The proposal to set up a merged service company was for South Holland and East Lindsey district councils to continue to improve the efficiency and standards of service and, through this process, make significant savings across a portfolio of services that includes:
A combined team of specialists and staff from both Councils have been involved as part of the ‘redesign team’ for each of the five services or as contributors to the redesign. This led to a staff migration of employees from the councils becoming a recognised part of the Compass Point Business Services family, where we would all work together to create a healthy new direction for the councils’ services.
This was achieved by carrying out a fundamental review of each of the five services as they were, thus identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the current processes. With the expertise that were involved in the redesign process, the weaknesses were quickly identified and a plan of action was put into place for an agreed upon set of robust and achievable targets.
This enabled the teams involved to establish their desired levels of savings in the merged services for 2011/12 and year-on-year beyond this.
In order to help Compass Point Business Service’s provision of the most beneficial shared services, we have entered into working relationships with a number of the most reputable IT businesses in the world. In partnership with Hitachi Consulting UK, we were able to present the best vision for delivering modern and agile IT systems with both the scalability and flexibility to accommodate the needs of both East Lindsey and South Holland district councils.
Beyond this, a number of systems have been procured through a partnership with Capita, which aided the development of a redesign plan put into place for the Revenues and Benefits department of both district councils. This partnership enabled our CPBS redesign team to implement a standardised process through the merged services.
In addition to Hitachi Consulting UK, Compass Point Business Services works with Microsoft, who provide a version of Microsoft AX software that has been specifically catered to the requirements of a shared service environment, meeting the demands placed upon local authorities by the government. These partnerships contribute to the provision of a unique, highly integrated IT system that supports staff to deliver efficient, cost saving services to the councils and their residents.
