Council and democracy

The Way We Work. Project synopsis

During a three year programme, Hertfordshire County Council will reduce its office accommodation to three main bases. The first is in Apsley, Hemel Hempstead, the second in Stevenage and the third will be at County Hall in Hertford.

This programme is a major opportunity to change the way we work for the better. It is called The Way We Work – because it’s not about offices but the way we work. The way we work with each other, our partners and ultimately the public.

Each of the new bases is geared towards a more efficient way of working, allowing us to promote flexible working practices for all staff and achieve greater knowledge and information sharing.

The Way We Work aims to ensure that the property we currently own best serves the needs of our services, and by extension, the people of Hertfordshire.

We are moving from over 50 traditional offices – more often than not old, cramped and expensive to maintain – to three main bases with modern, accessible, easily maintained accommodation.

The Way We Work will provide a higher standard of accommodation for staff and allow more money to be spent on front-line services. It is taking place over a three-year period and will directly affect 4,500 Hertfordshire County Council staff.

It is essential that we act now so that we are able to recruit and retain the best staff to deliver excellent services to the people of Hertfordshire, and to minimise the costs of maintaining the ageing stock of buildings.

The 50+ offices are and have been occupied by a range of staff - from education support staff to finance officers, ICT technicians to emergency planning officers.

This programme will not affect local service access points such as libraries, fire stations or highway depots.

We are taking every opportunity to work alongside our partners in the NHS, district councils and the police to ensure a flexible network of local service access points.

We are continuing to work closely with Unison to ensure that they are kept up to speed with developments throughout the programme.

We will keep disruption to service delivery down to a minimum throughout the programme. We will advise staff, building users, our partners and the local community as soon as possible of what is going to happen and how they might be affected.

We will take on board the lessons learnt from other major accommodation changes.