WEST?Devon Borough and South Hams District Councils have been awarded the prestigious title of Council of the Year at the Improvement and Efficiency Social Enterprise (iESE) Awards.

The two councils have also been given a gold award for ‘transforming through people’, for the recent changes they have made to the way they work. 

iESE is a consultancy who specialise in helping the public sector meet the challenges that they currently face. Their awards recognise councils who have risen to those challenges.

To come first place in both awards provide West Devon and South Hams with national recognition for the dedication and effort they have shown towards a transformation programme which has completely changed how they do their work. 

On top of this the councils were also given a Certificate of Excellence for Working Together, for their work with the region wide Better Business for All Partnership.

Leader of West Devon Borough Council, Cllr Philip Sanders said: ‘I am absolutely thrilled that we have won these awards. And I would like to say a big thank you to all the staff and customers who have persevered with us during our time of change.

‘Our transformation has been tough for everyone, we knew we had to try and close a joint funding gap of £4.7-million, and cutting services simply wasn’t an option.  So instead we set about redesigning how we work and focusing our organisation around the needs of the customer.’

West Devon and South Hams were pioneers in 2007 when they first agreed to share a chief executive, the first councils in the country to do so. 

Now the councils are pushing the boundaries once more by designing a new model for local government that completely breaks apart the old council department focused offices and offers customers more options for how they choose to interact with their council.

The number of staff across both councils has been reduced by 30% and those that remain have been employed based on a set of behaviours, to ensure that they are more customer focused.

Cllr John Tucker, Leader of South Hams District Council Said: “If you were to walk into our Council offices at Follaton House two years ago, you would have found whole departments of people working on pieces of work in their individual team, so planning had an office, Environmental Health had an office and so on. Departments were inward facing and a customer might have to deal with a number of different officers in different departments in order to get something done. 

‘Now all officers have been issued with a laptop and head set and they can work at any desk in an open plan office, so one day an officer might sit next to the executive director and the next to someone from finance. The atmosphere in the office has completely changed there is much more interaction between services and best of all customers are now being given one point of contact, called a case manager, who can help them by bringing in the relevant expertise as they are required.’

The councils have also introduced new computer software which will enable customers to register for an online account.  The online account will be one single place where all of their interactions with the Council can be viewed by them at any time.

Executive director of strategy and commissioning and head of paid service, Steve Jorden, said: ‘The new software that we have brought in, really is the backbone to our transformation.

‘It means that for the first time customers can report something to us or request a service from us through their own dedicated account on our website, and they can then track the progress of that request.

‘This will also make it quicker and easier for customers to get in contact with us and it enables us to link all of their interactions with us directly to that one account.’

The iESE awards recognise the changes that both councils have made in the last two years and with a potential joint saving of £5-million from the transformation programme, both councils have achieved their aim of not cutting front line services.

However, both councils also recognise that this is just part of the journey, as executive director of service delivery and commercial development, Sophie Hosking said: ‘While this is fantastic news and we have come a long way, we are now looking at ways that we can secure our long term future and that includes income generation. 

‘We know that funding from central government is going and a funding gap will come back.  Both councils have agreed to commission a business case which will explore the possibility of setting up a local authority controlled company, so that we could sell our services to other people.  That business case will be brought back to full council at both authorities and the councillors will decide if it is a viable option.

‘This is just one of the avenues we are exploring to enable us to continue to deliver services by generating an income.”

For more information on the transformation programme visit www.westdevon.gov.uk