Case Study: South Worcestershire Partnership achieves £2.4m savings, improved services and local job protection with Civica

Service improvements and cost savings at the South Worcestershire Partnership

South Worcestershire Partnership (SWP), a shared services collaboration for Worcester City, Malvern Hills and Wychavon District Councils, needed to generate new income, deliver further savings and protect local jobs while scaling service delivery. To achieve this it partnered with Civica and adopted an OJEU procurement framework and the OnDemand/Orchard Centre model to trade services more widely and modernise customer channels.

Civica helped set up the Orchard Centre to consolidate operations, move staff rapidly, and shift enquiries to online self‑service; the partnership cut call‑centre volumes by 40%, maintained or improved service levels with roughly 25% fewer staff, and redeployed 30% of employees with no compulsory redundancies. Outcomes include guaranteed savings from Civica (£600k), overall savings approaching £2.4m, handling 230,000 annual enquiries, collecting £161m in council tax and £96.5m in business rates, creation of new local jobs and extension of the contract to 10 years with further annual savings.

South Worcestershire Partnership

Jack Hegarty

Joint Chief Executive/Managing Director