More than 1,500 staff at Walsall Council are set to transfer to a joint venture set up by the local authority and IT firm Fujitsu Services, with the two parties poised to sign a 12-year deal worth £650m.
The ‘Putting the Citizen First’ project will also create more than 750 new jobs in the borough, and will offer citizens round-the-clock and single point access to all council services, by phone, e-mail and the web.
The transferring staff have been promised full protection for terms and conditions and pension rights and improved training opportunities, the council said. It also said there will be no compulsory redundancies.
Annie Shepperd, chief executive of Walsall Council said: “Our citizens will be the real beneficiaries as our aim is to provide the highest quality services [within] the first three years of the partnership, as well as achieve real savings in time, cost and efficiency.”
