Councils in Staffordshire and Warwickshire are to work jointly to improve customer services and develop "change management" initiatives, it was announced on 25 October 2005.
As well as a change management programme, over the next two and a half years the councils will spend the money on improving partnership working and member development.
The programme, know as Staffordshire Plus complements the county's existing e-government partnership. It received the funding from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Capacity Building scheme.
Lichfield District Council corporate director Rita Wilson serves as the programme's executive official. She said there is "no doubt" that the new scheme and the Staffordshire Connects e-government partnership will have a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
"For example, a key aim of Staffordshire Plus is to improve customer services by enabling more service requests to be dealt with straight away. In this way Stafforshire Plus will complement the single Customer Relationship Management system introduced by Staffordshire Connects to enable councils to accept service requests for each other.
"Similarly by improving leadership and change management we will help partners to meet the challenges of the government's efficiency agenda providing better services while saving the public money," she explained.
North Warwickshire and Nuneaton and Bedworth join 10 Staffordshire authorities on the programme. They are: Staffordshire County Council and the unitary authority of Stoke-on-Trent City Council plus the districts of Cannock Chase, East Staffordshire, Lichfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme, South Staffordshire, Stafford Borough, Staffordshire Moorlands and Tamworth.
Quelle: KableNET, 26.10.2005
