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7 November 2005
The Prison Service has announced two local appointments to the senior management team of its new shared service centre in Newport.
Ireen Lock has been appointed as Head of Customer Contact Services. Ireen joins from Conduit Ltd, the directory enquiries and outsourcing agency where she had headed an award-winning team with day-to-day operational responsibility for 800 call centre staff in Cardiff and Swansea.
She was founding chairman of what is now the Welsh Contact Centre Forum, an organisation concerned with promoting best practice and raising the profile of the sector within South Wales. She is still an active board member
"I am delighted to be joining the Prison Service," said Ireen. "This is something very new for the Service and I was keen to be involved from the start. I particularly enjoy the buzz and enthusiasm of a contact centre environment where you are in the front line of customer service."
Also appointed is Russell Ward. Russell has been appointed Head of Procurement Service. He joins from Cardiff Council where he has been for five years as Head of Procurement.
In his new role with HMPS, Russell will have particular responsibility for the accounts payable function (for example, paying supplier invoices).
Speaking about his appointment, Russell said:"It is a great opportunity to be in at the start of what is a major change for HMPS. I hope that I can help to shape the operation using my experience from Cardiff Council where we moved from a largely paper-based procurement system to an electronic one."
HMPS announced earlier this year that it is to open a shared service centre in the city. The centre will undertake Human Resources and finance work for the whole of the organisation and will eventually employ up to 500 people.
There will be more recruitment in the New Year for the first group of customer service advisors, with further recruitment planned over time until the centre is fully up and running.
Notes to editors
- A shared service centre brings together staff performing the same functions, usually transactional work such as paying invoices or providing HR advice. It brings economies of scale and enables an organisation to develop centres of excellence.
- It is consistent with the recommendations of the Gershon review, which proposed greater efficiency in government, including reducing the amount that the public sector spends per employee on providing HR services. The decision to locate the shared service centre outside the South East is also in line with proposals made in the Lyons review to relocate around 27,000 civil service jobs outside London.
- For further information and photographs, please contact Ann Pilkington on 020 7217 5770
