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Case Study: arvato government services

Residents in the East Riding of Yorkshire are benefiting from a more efficient service from their local Council, thanks to a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with arvato government services.

In October 2005, arvato government services - part of arvato AG - entered into a ground-breaking partnership with East Riding of Yorkshire Council. As part of the eight-year agreement, arvato took responsibility for delivering a range of local government services to its 325,000 residents- from customer services to revenue services.

Top ten

The Council was already rated in the top 25 per cent of local authorities in England for service quality and cost efficiency. Despite this, it decided to outsource some of its services to help further improve its performance and achieve a top 10 per cent ranking.

"arvato is already a leading provider of outsourced customer solutions in the private sector," explains Rainer Majcen, Managing Director of arvato government services. "For us, this partnership was a chance to apply our proven expertise to the public sector."

Exceeding targets through innovation

Through a combination of business process engineering and new technologies, the Council's performance has improved significantly since the partnership began. For example, 94 per cent of all calls to the Council are now answered within seven rings, compared to 69.3 per cent before 2005. Changes in circumstances of people claiming housing and council tax benefits are processed within four days, compared to almost nine beforehand.

"These are issues that really matter to local residents, so we are proud of our joint achievements," says Majcen.

"But, we are not resting on our laurels. We're constantly looking for ways to innovate and further improve standards. This is about making the East Riding a centre of best practice for public service delivery."

Regeneration

A further aspect of the PPP was a commitment by arvato to the area's economic regeneration. This has already translated into around 100 additional jobs at a newly opened regional business centre, which provides a hub for further planned job creation activity.

In the wider community, arvato is engaged in the East Riding of Yorkshire Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), working together with other local organisations to improve the quality of life in the region. It is also supporting two local schools in their bid to achieve specialist status and attract further government funding.

Recognition

As part of the PPP, 500 of the Council's employees transferred to arvato. Feedback shows that the transition to their new working environment has gone very smoothly.

"In the employee satisfaction survey carried out by our parent company Bertelsmann in September 2006, our employees rated arvato government services in the top 10 per cent of all arvato companies globally," says Majcen. "Considering their transition was part of the contract, this was quite an achievement. We set out to value and empower people — and that's precisely what we're doing."

The partnership has attracted several other accolades. In October 2006, the Council was awarded the Benefits Team of the Year Award by the Institute of Revenues, Ratings and Valuations. And in 2007, the Council won the Local Government Chronicle PPP award.

"These awards are really important to us," says Majcen. "This is arvato's first experience of a Public-Private Partnership, so to get this early recognition reinforces our confidence that we are doing a good job and approaching the market in the right way."

"This is arvato's first experience of a Public-Private Partnership"

What the Council thinks

The fresh approach and new initiatives that arvato has brought to East Riding have been welcomed by the local Council.

"The partnership with arvato has delivered major benefits to both our Council and, importantly, to the citizens of East Riding," says Nigel Pearson, Chief Executive of East Riding of Yorkshire Council. "Innovative new technology and business processes are helping us to continually improve our service delivery, and new employment opportunities are being created through arvato's expansion in the region."

As a testament to that success, the Public-Private Partnership is now being used as a best practice example in the UK and internationally, putting East Riding on a global stage as an innovative local authority with a vision for the future.

"This clearly demonstrates how the public and private sectors can work together effectively as true partners, for the mutual benefit of an area's residents," says Pearson.

Sector Focus

• Under a central drive to efficiency following the Gershon Review, the UK Government is leading the way in driving the adoption of shared services in the public sector
• Public organisations are now expected, as a matter of best practice, to consider sharing services that are common across different sectors, such as IT, finance and procurement, to improve efficiency and reduce duplication between agencies
• According to Global Industry Analysts, the UK market for Business Process Outsourcing rose from £19 billion in 2005 to £21 billion in 2006. The market is further projected to increase to approximately £23.35 billion by 2007 and £31.95 billion by 2010
• ICT research company Ovum expects the UK market for software and IT shared services in the public sector to rise from £351 million in 2005 to £1.6 billion in 2010
• Ovum also predicts that shared services is poised to become the single biggest opportunity for software and IT service suppliers to the UK public sector