Resources

Overview

The Resources department is a multi-disciplinary department that provides a wide range of services to the public, other parts of the council, other organisations and to councillors.

Our external services include the provision of the income management service, registration service, licensing service, customer contact centres and telephone call centre.  We also assess entitlement for a range of benefits including council tax benefit, housing benefit, free school meals and clothing grants in addition to assessing charges for residential and homecare.

Internally the resources Department supports all areas of the Council through the Human Resources, Business and Technology Solutions, Finance, Audit and Risk Management including Business Continuity, Legal and Democratic Services and the Property and Facilities Management functions.  It also takes the lead for developing policy and strategy on corporate issues such as equalities.

What we can do for you?

• Pay your council tax, business rates or other charges
• Make an enquiry about council tax
• Make an enquiry about business rates
• Apply for a council tax discount
• Apply for council tax and housing benefit
• Tell us about a change in your circumstances
• Apply for business rates relief
• Find out about and apply for free school meals and clothing grants
• Apply for a Blue Badge
• Report suspected benefit fraud
• Register a birth, death or marriage
• Apply for an alcohol, taxi or public entertainment licence
• Find information, papers and minutes for Council meetings
• Find and apply for a Council job
• Make a complaint

Facts and figures

The Resources Department has a net budget of approximately £18m and around 860 staff.

• Human Resources service for the Council supports a workforce of over 5600 staff
• provision of IT services to over 2500 computer users and 5000 school computers across approximately 136 Council offices and facilities
• provision of 13 customer contact centres and a telephone call centre which deal with 363,000 contacts each year.  Of these more than 90,000 are through the call centre, which supports 115 services, and 50,000 are face to face contacts.  The remainder of contact are through the switchboard.
• collecting Council tax from 55,000 households and collecting Business Rates from 6,000 businesses
• dealing with at any one time 5,000 Council tax payers who receive assistance with payment of their Council tax as well as handling housing benefit and tackling benefit fraud
• providing over 608,000 primary school meals every year in the Council's schools as well as running catering service for 9 high schools and Council staff
• administering the Council's local government pension fund (Scottish Borders Council Local Government Pension Scheme), with 15 associated employers and a scheme membership of over 8,800
• maintenance of over 1500 Council properties and facilities