The council is facing a massive challenge to save up to £70 million by 2018 as cuts in Government grant start to bite. It has already saved £60 million since 2010, deleting 600 posts and imposing a recruitment freeze in an effort to protect essential services for the most vulnerable in the city.
Now its 5 year programme, known as FutureWorks, is set to help the council close the budget gap and create a modern organisation with the implementation of the market leading Agresso Business World IT solution which is used by more than 100 local authorities across the UK.
Cabinet Member for Resources, Councillor Andrew Johnson, said: "In the face of massive cuts to Government grant, we must change fundamentally the way the council operates internally. Austerity is the new reality for local government and we must introduce modern and radically different ways of working to protect our front-line services as much as possible."
Cabinet (Resources) Panel will be asked on 24 July to approve the final business case for the FutureWorks Programme which it is delivering in partnership with UK based IT and business service provider Agilisys to transform business support processes and replace outdated ICT systems on the council's mainframe. The go-live date for the new system is April 2014.
The transformation will not only help Wolverhampton provide efficient services but will also form a foundation for further change and efficiencies across the authority in the future.
Councillor Johnson said: "While the focus of the Programme is primarily on our internal support service, the impact of this radical change will be on the whole council including such essential front-line services as waste and recycling, schools and academies and Wolverhampton Homes."
The Programme is expected to save £3.4 million in the first 2 years.
However, the first phase of changes will see at least 80 job losses in Finance, Human Resources, Payroll and Procurement.
Councillor Johnson added: "All those employees directly affected by the initial impact of the Programme have been informed of the tough decisions the council must make. And staff across the council know that this radical change will affect them all to some degree. They are under no illusions that in a few years, far fewer people will be working at the council. Nonetheless, we hope to reduce the need for compulsory redundancies by the extension of the voluntary redundancy package."
Work is now underway to define how the services in scope for change will operate in future - and the kinds of roles that will deliver internal services. For example, with the help of up-to-date technology, managers and employees will have faster access to management information and will be able to deal with most HR, Finance and other issues themselves, reducing the need for some in-scope roles.
Councillor Johnson added: "We recognise that this will be a difficult time for staff who have experienced years of constant change. But our longer term goal is to create a modern council that delivers efficient and cost-effective services for our citizens."
- released: Tuesday 16 July, 2013