Welcome to our Southwest One website where we aim to give you an overview of who we are, where we have come from, our journey forward and most importantly, how we are going to get there.
Who is Southwest One?
We are a company that aims to transform the face of public service in the South West of England. Southwest One is a joint venture between Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council, Avon and Somerset Police and IBM, a unique partnership that was formed in 2007. Indeed no other partnership of a similar nature exists across Europe so we are breaking new ground in bringing excellence to the citizens of the area.
Our vision
Southwest One is great news for our residents. The Southwest One vision is “To enable the social and economic transformation of Taunton, Somerset and the South West to deliver better value for money for council taxpayers and improve access to services for local residents*.”
In short, we believe the combination of excellent public sector organisations and a globally-renowned private sector company, will put our organisations in a “Category of One”. The overall aims for the partnership are to:
- Transform the overall workings of the partner organisations
- Modernise, reduce the cost of, and improve support services
- Improve access to, and delivery of customer facing services
- Invest in world class technologies
- Create an excellent working environment and sustainable employment
- Generate economic investment
- Promote sustainability and ethical business practices
We have celebrated our second anniversary - when Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council and IBM officially announced the partnership and the beginning of a challenging and exciting ten year business plan. We were joined in 2008 by Avon and Somerset Police who shared the vision and saw the benefits of becoming a partner. Two years on, we have taken a moment to reflect on milestones achieved, targets met and the successful start of a transformation journey that will benefit not only citizens of the area but also employees and secondees within our partnership.
As we move through these milestones, we are also in discussion with other public bodies both in the South West and nationally, with a view to working together in the future. These organisations may want to take advantage of the shared service centres of excellence that are evolving, may wish to talk about partnering with us or simply find out what we are doing. If you belong to such an organisation and would like to get in touch with us, please view the "Business growth" page.
We hope you agree this is an exciting time for the Somerset area and the South West region of the UK.
(* to be more specific, at this time, Southwest One assists with support to the councils (Somerset County Council and Taunton Deane Borough Council) and police (Avon and Somerset Police) in Somerset. Southwest One also supports Avon and Somerset Police and the residents they serve in the Avon area.)
