IN a bid to make access to council services easier, Worcestershire Partnership has been awarded £650,000.

The partnership between Worcestershire County Council and the six district councils in the county aims to improve services across council boundaries by sharing responsibility for giving advice and cutting the costs of facilities such as jointly buying computer software.

Trevor Norton, director of corporate services at Worcestershire County Council, said this would be achieved by the creation of "three access channels".

He said the first channel would involve opening up seven One-Stop-Shops in the county by 2005.

These centres will offer help and advice about all council services under one roof, rather than people having to go to different places to find information.

The second would be to link up the telephones of all the council services so the public can call one central number for enquiries. The third channel would be the creation of a website.

Delighted

"Obviously, we are delighted to get the money," said Mr Norton. "But we are disappointed that we did not get the same amount as other councils.

"It is hoped it will deal with 80 per cent of queries we have so it stops people from being mucked about with who they talk to."

The Government award is part of the £3m given to projects in the West Midlands and this is the second chunk of money received by the partnership.

Last year the organisation received £700,000.