Stockport Council’s Revenues and Benefits Team won the ‘Quality of Service and Innovation Award’ by creating extra capacity for the department through working more efficiently. Instead of cutting jobs the spare capacity was offered to other Local Authorities and Benefit processing work taken on. This brought in extra income for Stockport Council and enabled jobs to be retained that would otherwise have been lost.

The success of this scheme meant that the Revenues and Benefits team were able to create Apprenticeship posts for 12 local young people to train as Benefit Assessment Officers. There are plans to further increase the work done for others to create more long term jobs in Stockport.

The judges were impressed by the innovative way the team used spare capacity to help other Local Authorities at the same time as boosting the local economy. Alongside this innovation, the quality of service for Stockport residents remains high. By retaining and expanding its Revenues and Benefits team, the Council has the expertise and capacity to cope with the impact of the economic downturn.