Swindon Council is planning to transfer some of its HR services to a strategic partner in a 10-year deal worth £185m.
Under the deal, the winning bidder will also take over the running of the council’s revenues and benefits work and parts of other back-office functions, including finance and IT.
Rebecca McKenzie, director of HR at Swindon Council, said: “It is an incremental partnership which means that the range of services transferred to the partner may grow during the life of the agreement.
“We anticipate transferring a number of HR support services with effect from November, including payroll, recruitment, HR systems and administration. We intend to retain our strategy, policy and high-level advice functions in-house.
“The partnership arrangement will enable us to focus our energy on those HR activities that contribute most of the achievement of our corporate business objectives.”
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To avoid the problems associated with a prolonged procurement process that affected similar projects at Swansea and Walsall councils, Swindon has hired Hitesh Patel, a private sector IT director with expertise in outsourcing, to oversee the deal.
Gavin Jones, the council’s deputy chief executive, said: “Patel was chosen to be the programme director because he had experience of three major outsourcing partnerships while he was with Diageo.”
