Ground Breaking Work at Drummuie, Golspie
The creation of a new working environment and more efficient working practices within The Highland Council’s new East Sutherland office accommodation at Drummuie, Golspie, is estimated to achieve full year savings of £250,000.
And, according to Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of the Council’s Resources Committee, the Drummuie project is a success story that should be mirrored in future office rationalisation projects.
The Drummuie building is the base for 105 members of staff, who moved into the refurbished former technical college in May of this year from five offices at Brora, Dornoch and Golspie.
The Council’s Business Improvement Team were given a mandate to improve the working practices of the business support staff in all Services moving to Drummuie and have worked with local staff and managers to identify opportunities to reduce the amount of effort required to deliver support services.
As a result of the move, the number of business processes was reduced from 167 to 48. Physical storage requirements were dramatically reduced from 408 to 260 linear metres. 70 printers, 14 copiers and 7 fax machines were replaced with 6 multi-functional devices and two printers and new systems have already been introduced to manage some of the core tasks such as handling the mail and the contact point.
A central business support team, comprising five full time equivalent staff is to be established at Drummuie to operate all the core business support processes and ensure that the building continues to function efficiently. This will support the greatest part of the cost savings, estimated to increase to £224,000 in the second stage of the project.
Councillor Wilson said: “The work at Drummuie is ground breaking for the Council and as well as delivering benefits for Services in East Sutherland, it will deliver a model to support future property rationalisation projects, including the Wick office accommodation project.”
At Wick, the Council proposes to replace its office at Market Square with a new building on the same town centre site.