Glasgow City Council has agreed a £265.5m, ten-year outsourcing contract with services company Serco.

Through a strategic joint venture – the first of its kind in Scotland – Glasgow City Council and Serco will improve services for citizens through joined-up, efficient and higher quality property and information and communications technology (ICT) services. As a result, Glasgow City Council hopes to save more than £70 million over the ten years.

Services will be improved by driving innovation – modern, flexible ICT and property services, reducing city centre office capacity, improving employees’ skills and resources and providing a single point of contact for ICT and property services. To support delivery of the partnership, 280 council staff will be seconded or transferred to the joint venture.

The council is developing a broad range of transformational programmes as part of its strategy to increase efficiency and improve service quality and over time Serco will develop further proposals to support this strategy.

George Black, Chief Executive of Glasgow City Council said: “The partnership will bring real benefits to Glasgow’s citizens by allowing us to build our front line services around their needs. We will now move towards developing community hubs where staff will deliver the services people want as near as possible to the heart of their local area. As a council we want to find new and radical ways to deliver value for money services to our customers and this new company will do just that.”

Christopher Hyman, Serco chief executive, said: “We are totally committed to supporting Glasgow City Council in its ambitious programme to improve the efficiency and quality of its services. This partnership is a significant step forward for our Solutions business and we will work with the council to develop innovative ways to further transform their services.”