A new local authority trading company (Latco) is now dealing with administration of revenues, benefits and customer services for three east Kent district councils including Thanet.
PartnershipOne is owned by Canterbury City Council, Dover District Council and Thanet District Council and has taken over from Civica which took a decision to no longer operate in business processing outsourcing (BPO).
Civica had previously taken on the administration and collection of Council Tax, Business Rates and corporate debts, the administration of Housing Benefit and Council Tax support and over-the-phone, online and face-to-face customer services from East Kent Services, a shared service, in 2018.
Mark Emery, Chief Executive Officer of the new company, said: “PartnershipOne is a brand-new organisation created to harness the very best of what the public and private sectors have to offer by expertly combining the public service ethos with a huge dose of commercial nous and best practice.
“The team joining the company has a 15-year track record of delivering award-winning specialist public services to a set of stakeholders with varying, sometimes conflicting, needs and will deliver an outstanding service to our customers by taking full advantage of the skills, experience and dedication of our staff.
“It’s a cliché to say our people are at the heart of everything we deliver but, in this case, it is indisputably true.
“Our teams put their customers first and their customer satisfaction scores prove it.
“Finally, we’re ambitious, aspirational and determined to be the best in class, the example others will want to follow. We’ll prove that too.”
The complex project to move to a Latco began in early 2024 and has been supported by Interim East Kent Services Transition Manager Jasvir Chohan who has coordinated the hand-over from Civica of roles including HR and payroll, finance, legal, information governance, communications and IT.
PartnershipOne’s directors will be Canterbury City Council’s Head of Corporate Governance Matthew Archer, Dover District Council’s Head of Finance Helen Lamb, Thanet District Council’s Head of Property Andreea Plant and Mr Emery.
More bollox/coroporate babble. It is just the old new name/lick of paint & the same incompetence. It is run bu the councils-so what can go wrong?
It appears from reading the article that persons who are paid officers of various councils will also be directors of the firm paid by the councils to deliver the services conducted by the councils.
Does that not constitute a conflict of interests ?
Alas not. It’s surprisingly common. Done usually so that staff are on different, less beneficial, terms and supposed performance based pay. They often do it to downsize individual functions and share them across wider areas. Such as this. It’s usually a pointless exercise with high paid leadership roles and little else of benefit. The client, i.e the Council, still has the same archaic processes and endless bureaucracy and it’s all just reshuffled deckchairs and wooden dollars round the budget.
Excellent that these admin services are now run in-house. Should have happened years ago. Paying private firms to do this is called keeping a dog and barking yourself! With the move to Unitary authorities, this should ensure a much smoother transition.
The only thing you get from anything council run, especially “in-house services” will be 93% working from home (nice publicity photo though), inept, lazy, clock-watching, useless jobsworths.
Do I have an alternative…. No, we in Kent and particularly in Thanet have absolutely no future other than oliving in an island-wide toilet.
Services such as local tax collection and benefit payments to vulnerable people should never have been outsourced to the private sector in the first place.
so this will be such a great success that our council rates will come down , marvellous news
A Yazz said the only way is up. Who else is going to pay for Starmer burning 11.6 billion ov overseas climate change & 22 billion on failed carbon capture technology in payback to his hedge fund, tax dodging, billionaire bung pals?
Outsourcing is usually cheaper for everyone as private providers are unlikely to have the luxury benefits on offer inside councils esp pension schemes. I’d hazard a guess they won’t be on the same terms and conditions otherwise why spin it up as a wholly separate company inside the council?
The question which springs to my mind, is why did each Council let CIVICA go?