Peterborough City Council's business
transformation programme, which has saved the authority more than
£23 million over the past two years, has been recognised as the
best efficiency programme in the country after winning a national
award.
The city council won the Efficiency Initiative
category in this year's Local Government Chronicle Finance awards
for the transformation of its customer service function and back
office support services.
The city council began its business
transformation programme in October 2006, and since then has
introduced a raft of measures to improve efficiency and offer the
best possible services to the people of Peterborough.
These have included implementing a central
customer contact centre to deal with enquiries; the development of
the new city council website which has improved access to payments
and services; improving the efficiency of back office functions;
developing opportunities for flexible and home working; and trading
services with other local authorities to increase income.
Councillor David Seaton, cabinet member for
resources, said: "I am absolutely delighted the hard work and
innovative measures introduced to improve public services and
improve efficiency in Peterborough has now received national
recognition.
“Peterborough City Council already has a
growing reputation among other local authorities as an innovator in
business efficiency and winning this award shows this is justified.
The work undertaken so far has enabled us to offer better services
and improved value for money for our taxpayers and we are
continually looking at new initiatives to build on these
improvements."
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