At South Gloucestershire Council we are proud of our high achieving status as a four star council. At the same time we recognise the need to continue improving the services we offer, in order to satisfy the changing needs of our customers and to use our council tax payers' money cost-efficiently.
To enable us to do this, we need to sharpen up our internal processes, become more cost-effective, and provide a better working environment for our council employees. This is why we have embarked upon a major project to transform how and where we work.
We are in the process of reducing the number of offices we occupy, moving away from expensive, leased accommodation and re-locating employees to three main council-owned offices. Two of these are existing offices at Kingswood and Thornbury, the third is a brand new, environmentally friendly building at Badminton Road in Yate - due to open in 2010.
This will enable us to achieve long term savings and keep council tax increases to a minimum. It will also allow us to bring departments together, avoid duplication of processes, and help us to improve our services to you.
An additional and significant service development is the creation of three new children's services locality hubs in Kingswood, Severnvale and Yate. These will enable the council to bring together multi-agency teams, including council and health professionals, who can work together in a single location that is easily accessible to families.