Partnership working

In 2007, Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council took the decision to work in partnership.

The original goal was to create a single, senior officer structure and shared services across the two councils and to deliver savings and efficiencies for both councils. This innovative, groundbreaking project, the first of its kind nationally, was supported from the start by Improvement and Efficiency South East who, since then, have gone on to share this approach with many other councils regionally and nationally.

The single senior officer team was created in April 2008 and since then all services (except Adur Homes, Worthing Leisure and Worthing revenues and benefits) have become joint teams, providing joint services to the people of Adur and Worthing.

Significant savings and efficiencies have been found by the reduction in senior management posts and subsequent restructures as teams have been bought together. Some came about through voluntary redundancies and some from job evaluation as the new teams have been constructed.

Further more important savings and efficiencies have come from joint procurement initiatives, service reviews and service re-designs, etc.

This work is ongoing and bringing in new technology and telephony to enable a more flexible approach to work such as home, mobile and office based working styles and space saving initiatives through the use of corporate EDRMS (Electronic Document Record Management Systems), etc.

This also enabled the two councils to 'downsize' and re-locate office based staff in 2013 from three main administrative office sites in Shoreham-by-Sea and Worthing to just two sites (Worthing Town Hall and Portland House, both in Worthing).

Commerce Way in Lancing has been retained as the base for operational services (recycling and waste, etc).

A small customer access point and civic presence has been retained in Shoreham-by-Sea with the extension and upgrading of The Shoreham Centre in Pond Road.

For further information, background papers and committee reports, etc, please contact Democratic Services.