East Sussex County Council has beaten off the challenge of major private sector companies to walk away with a National Training Award.
The County Council has scooped the award for the way it has introduced a new integrated computer system that covers finance, personnel, payroll and procurement. The judges decided that the Council’s imaginative approach to training was enough to win the award against top-class opposition including Virgin Atlantic & Blue Sky Consultants, Pfizer Global Manufacturing and ING Direct.
The Council was the only local authority in the South East and London to make it through to the national finals.
Council Leader Peter Jones said the national prize is just reward for Council staff. "From the outset, we wanted to introduce a new IT system that would improve efficiency and deliver reduced costs. The net result is a better service for East Sussex residents and an ongoing boost to our aim of keeping council tax rises as low as possible.
"Introducing this new system was an enormous and extremely difficult task considering the areas it covers and the numbers of people involved. However, not only has our training team proved to be well up to the task, they have now been declared one of the best in the country for this area of IT training and change management. Considering the level of opposition and training budgets available to them, it is an outstanding achievement.”
To implement the new ‘Core Back Office’ computer system, the Council had to train 1,000 specialist members of staff. Classroom training was supplemented by members of the training team based in departments to provide on-the-spot advice, newsletters with competitions to raise interest and text message posters before the system went live.
The result of this intensive training programme was better knowledge of the new system by all staff and a 90% reduction in duplication and errors across the Council. Where possible the purchasing and payroll systems are now 100% electronic. Efficiency savings of over £300,000 per annum (from 2005/06) were identified and following further work, additional savings of a further £200,000 pa are expected from 2006/07 onwards.
Notes to editors
For further information please contact Leatham Green at the County Council on 01273 481415.
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