Slough Borough Council have announced changes to how the public services provided by Arvato are delivered.

The contract, which began seven years ago, is for business rates and council tax collection, the customer service centre and transactional services such as IT support and benefits. The service under the contract will be coming back in-house from 1 November 2019.

Chief executive, Josie Wragg, said: “Over the past seven years the partnership between Slough Borough Council (SBC) and Arvato has had success in delivering a wide range of services for staff and residents.

“With the contract due to end in three years’ time (31 March 2022), we have been considering a future delivery model for the services currently provided by Arvato. We are changing rapidly, transforming our ways of working to improve services; putting customer needs at the heart of everything we do.

“To do this, we have agreed to bring our contract to a close early, bringing Arvato staff who are dedicated to the council services back to us from November 1 2019, giving us greater control over these services in the future and the freedom to think wider and more creatively than a written contract.

“We have set up a project team to work on the transfer back to the council and residents should not experience any loss of services as we focus on a smooth transition.”

Debra Maxwell, Chief Executive of Arvato CRM Solutions UK, said: “We are proud of the service improvements that our partnership has delivered over the last seven years and we are now focused on delivering a smooth transition for both parties, our employees and local people.”