CALLS and emails to Worcester City Council will be dealt with in-house after the council pulled out of a contract it has with an external IT company.

The council pulled out of the contract it had with Civica early after the number of calls it receives went down by more than 50 per cent.

Currently, all switchboard and customer services by Worcester City Council are handled by Civica, an IT and communications outsourcing company based in London, and dealt with at the Worcestershire Hub.

But Worcester City Council will handle customer services themselves from the next financial year after giving Civica its one-year’s notice of intention to pull out of the contract.

Councillors approved a new model for delivering the services which will see city council take on responsibility for delivery of email, phone and similar services in-house at the Policy and Resources Committee on March 19.

In the report presented to the council, it was shown that the number of phone calls received by the customer service line had reduced by 52 per cent since 2014 and face to face enquiries have fallen by 46 per cent over the same period.

Councillors agreed that this reduction of calls meant the contract was no longer as financially justifiable as it was when the contract was signed in 2015.

Prior to Worcester City Council deciding to pull out, Malvern Hills District Council did the same in 2018, saying that decreasing numbers of calls meant the contract was no longer worth the cost. The current contractual price for the service is £366,000 with provision for this to decrease to around £335,000 subject to further reduction in calls.

The Council also pays an additional fee of £65,000 per year to the Hive for 50 per cent of the accommodation for the face-to-face customer service centre.

According to the report, the projected costs of delivering customer contact services in-house is approximately £230,000 in year one (2020-21), with potential for this to reduce in future years subject to demand.

Even though the Worcester City and Malvern Hills District councils have pulled out, Worcestershire County Council will still be using Civica for the immediate future, so the Worcestershire Hub will still be the point of contact for county council enquiries after April 2020.