As a part of Canterbury, Dover and Thanet Council’s ongoing shared service efficiencies, the three local authorities are consolidating on to a single technology platform enabling online services for customers.
Jadu, a UK based digital services company, has won a contract with EK Services (the East Kent Shared Services partnership) to deliver a transactional platform for online forms and integrated digital services. The EK Services partnership was set up by Canterbury City Council, Dover District Council and Thanet District Council to drive fast-track, large-scale cost efficiencies and ensure resilient local services in East Kent.
The new service aims to replace three CRM systems, which each council currently maintains and licenses individually and is set to save the councils significantly in both licensing and management costs for the legacy CRM systems.
Donna Reed, Director of Shared Services for the EK Services Partnership said: “In times of budget challenges, but wanting to improve services to our customers, we need a more agile and modern way to deliver digital services that focus on ease of use. We decided that implementing a platform that was secure, scalable and designed for delivering services to all devices was what we needed. We are moving from old customer management systems and making the leap into modern digital services with Jadu as our partner.”
The project will use the Jadu XFP ‘Universe Forms’ platform to deliver online forms, e-payments and integrated digital services.
“We’re thrilled that the EK Services Partnership are trusting us to help them deliver their vision - we’re committed to making sure they and their customers get outstanding value for that trust. We’ve become very specialist at delivering digital services for Government - both from a security perspective and importantly, from a user needs perspective’ says Suraj Kika, CEO of Jadu. “It’s time for innovation to lead the way with delivering online services for Government and for large IT to go on a long, long holiday.”
EK Services will be digitising over 200 existing forms and services including Revenues and Benefits, Housing and Council Tax for new digital services as well as delivering e-payments and integration with back office systems using the Jadu platform in the iterative, phased delivery of the new system.
About EK Services
The EK Services partnership was launched in February 2011 to bring together ICT, Customer Services and Revenues and Benefits from three councils (Canterbury, Dover and Thanet). The shared service is currently delivering 25% savings whilst maintaining the previous levels of service.
