Harrowing (good) news

The council of the London borough Harrow has announced the completion of work on Access Harrow, an early stage in the area’s £100 million business transformation scheme. The announcement marks the first major milestone in the project. Capita is a co-partner in the arrangement, which began on September 30, 2005 and will run until 2015.

The early emphasis of the work has been on creation of an integrated infrastructure. As Harrow business transformation director Carol Cutler explained the mammoth undertaking: “The Access Harrow project has involved physically building a one-stop shop and contact centre at our civic centre site, kitting it out with customer relationship management and a lot of business process re-engineering.” Access Harrow will ultimately become the first point of contact for every service the council offers.

While the formal opening is now set for mid-July, Harrow is releasing the service in soft launch, with the first customers using the new shop as early as last week. The shop will start by handling enquiries related to revenues and benefits, parking, housing and tourism. Cutler estimates that eighty percent of customer inquiries will be dealt with at first point of contact, and that the completed projects could earn saving of to £45 million, which is “roughly equal to what we have paid out for them.”

In actuality, the £45 million represents the first payment on what could represent £100 million to Capita when all is said and done in the incremental contract. Next up for Harrow borough are a document management system, mobile working and social care records improvement. The improved IT infrastructure of the first stage of the project is expected to form the foundation of a major business transformation project of the council.

Under terms of the contract, Capita is responsible for the installation of a new contact centre, improved internal operational systems and processes, and the upgrade of the local authority’s management information services, associated ICT infrastructure and systems management. In specific terms, the most transparent result will be the reduction of the boroughs 100-number contact list to a handful.