Coventry City Council has agreed a three-year contract with Civica to improve IT support for its revenues and benefits function.

“Our council is trying hard to do real channel shift, we hope [Civica’s] expertise will help”, said Tim Savill, Head of Revenues and Benefits at Coventry City Council. Savill said the deal will help to free up staff time to allow them to “innovate” although he would not be drawn on the details. “We needed a company with good technical expertise to enable important day-to-day work”, he said.

One in three households within the Coventry City Council boundaries claim benefits. 

Savill and his team will also draw on the advice of the South Worcestershire Revenues & Benefits Shared Service. Last year Civica took over responsibility for the delivery of revenues and benefits services to the three councils and oversaw the transfer of 111 council employees. No Coventry City Council staff will however be transferred under the new agreement with Civica – “the attraction of the arrangement” according to Savill.

The shared service partnership’s Orchard Centre offers processing and collection services to support 15 other councils and aims to stimulate local jobs.

Coventry City Council plans to implement a customer portal as part of its drive towards channel shift. Civica will help to integrate this with back office systems said Savill.