About the Worcestershire Hub

Vision

The Worcestershire Hub Partnership includes organisations from the wider Worcestershire Partnership and provides crucial leadership in taking forward the Worcestershire Hub. The organisations involved share a common vision and commitment; to explore new ways of working together, to strive to improve services and to seek to increase choice in how customers can access services.

The partners all recognise that they have a responsibility to try to meet customers' expectations of better quality public services in that customers:

• want a more ‘joined-up’ response to their queries
• wish to provide information once only
• wish to access information related to their enquiry, without being passed from 'pillar to post'.

The partners also recognise that while technology has an important part to play in helping them realise their vision, it is service delivery that must be at the heart of the programme to meet the needs of the customer in terms of when and how they access services.

The Worcestershire Hub therefore aims to respond to both the customers’ needs for improved services and the partners’ drive to secure more efficient and effective ways of working.

Description

The Worcesterhire Hub is focused on improving access to services for the people of Worcestershire. This requires a significant change in the way that contacts with customers are handled and managed. The Worcestershire Hub:

• improves access to services
• changes the way customers contact the councils
• joins up services
• involves working in partnership
• manages the relationship with customers in a more holistic way
• makes use of technology
• improves access to and management of information
• improves provision / delivery of services
• improves the flow of work through organisations.

Aims

• To secure an inclusive, seamless approach to service delivery, developed over time, to involve a range of public and private sector partners.
• To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of systems and processes needed to support access to and improve quality of services.
• To introduce new access channels with extended service access to enable services to be accessed quickly, simply and effectively.
• To utilise the potential offered by technology to meet customers needs - from all sections of the community - for joined-up access to and improved quality of services.
• To introduce technology to enable sharing of information and service delivery between partners and across all access channels.
• To improve services at less cost by securing economies of scale and reducing the number and complexity of business processes.

Objectives

• To introduce a one stop service covering; web based portal, telephone, service centres, smaller local centres, kiosks and mobile centres.
• To change the way services are delivered, as necessary, to reflect citizen needs and preferences.
• To procure technology from a private sector strategic partner.
• To raise public awareness of the opportunities presented by joined-up access to public and private services.