Hammersmith's pain is Rochdale's gain!

Agilisys, the council's IT services contractor under the auspices of The Impact Partnership, is to move its council help centre moves 160 miles north from Hammersmith to Rochdale.

Council call centre workers in Hammersmith have been told they will have to move to Manchester if they want to keep their jobs.

The Impact Partnership already has a business centre in Rochdale, and under the plans the company will also run the contact centre here from January next year.

Hammersmith councillors surprisingly support the move, Councillor Paul Bristow is quoted on the Fulham & Hammersmith Council website as saying: "Residents expect us to deliver top quality value for money services and the reality is that contact centres can be run from any location. By moving to a larger contact centre in Rochdale we will gain some significant economic and technical advantages. This will improve the quality of our service to residents through our ability to deal more efficiently with peaks in demand, as well as saving taxpayers £150,000 a year in operating costs."