New ways of working to help improve customer experience and service provision at North Northamptonshire Council
Your council25 March 2024
A blueprint to shape future ways of office working at North Northamptonshire Council is being developed by the authority.
Changing how and where staff work will allow the Council to work more efficiently in delivering services to the residents of North Northamptonshire.
The move follows local government reorganisation, which brought together five legacy councils at a time when the nation was moving out of the Covid-19 pandemic and hybrid and remote working had become more frequent.
Known as Workspace Transformation, the strategy will bring service teams together across the North Northamptonshire area, while improving work efficiency.
It will also allow the Council to review the number of office buildings that are currently used – helping the authority to meet carbon reduction targets and bring some efficiency savings.
Reviewing how and where we work as council is absolutely the right thing for us to be doing now that we’ve come through the initial settling-in period of local government reorganisation.Jason Smithers, Leader of the Council
Bringing together five legacy organisations is a massive challenge as there’s so much to consider, especially as we need to continue to provide our business as usual services in tandem.
Rationalising and investing in our buildings will help us deliver better services - we need to be thinking more as ‘one council’ and this strategy will help us to do just that.
Under the proposals, North Northamptonshire Council office staff will locate in the following locations:
- Corby – Corby Cube, Deene House and Grosvenor House
- Kettering – Municipal Offices
- Thrapston – Cedar Drive
While an NNC presence will also be maintained for customers in Wellingborough, at a location to be confirmed.
Alternative uses will be found for council buildings located at:
- Corby – West Glebe Day Centre
- Kettering – Sheerness House, 94 Saunders Close, NNC occupied areas of Haylock House and the William Knibb Centre
- Wellingborough – Tithe Barn Offices, Swanspool House
Under the proposals, the workforce will be organised to bring services and directorates together, rather than operating at legacy locations.
Next steps include further developing plans including which buildings will be used and by which services with a full consultation to be carried out with staff in the coming weeks.
Reducing the number of offices where staff are located will mean that improvements can be made at the remaining sites both for residents accessing services directly and for staff.
The focus would also be on hybrid working with a mixture of home-working, where appropriate, with time spent at office locations.
Staff who are located at various depots across the Council area will not be affected by the changes and are outside the scope of this project.