Hammersmith & Fulham: branding London’s first major council joint venture

The client

Hammersmith & Fulham is a London borough local authority. From May 2004, the council ran an Incremental Strategic Partnership with Agilisys to modernise how it delivered services. That relationship matured into the h&f Bridge Partnership: formally approved in July 2006 as London's first major local government joint venture, a £120 million ten-year contract to transform IT and citizen services.

The brand most people will recognise in civic terms is Hammersmith & Fulham Council. Agilisys was the delivery partner. Jonathan Porter art directed the brand development and press advertising that introduced the partnership to residents and stakeholders in 2004, before the joint venture company went live.

The challenge

Public-private partnerships live or die on trust. Hammersmith & Fulham needed to explain why a council was linking arms with a technology supplier, what residents would gain, and how savings would flow back into services, without sounding like a faceless outsourcing deal. That needed a clear visual identity and press campaign, not just a contract announcement buried in committee papers.

What we did

Brand development and press advertising for the Hammersmith & Fulham / Agilisys partnership: the identity and campaign materials that carried the story to the borough's audience while the strategic partnership was bedding in.

Our approach

Treat the partnership as a named programme with its own brand, not a logo slapped on existing council stationery. Press advertising had to work for residents scanning a local paper, councillors defending the model, and other boroughs watching whether London's first major JV would stick.

Outcome

The creative work supported a partnership that the council's leader publicly endorsed as the natural next step after two years of delivery. By 2006 the h&f Bridge Partnership was setting up a Centre of Excellence in Hammersmith to share services across London's public sector, with a £13.5 million transformation programme behind three resident-facing brands: h&f Express (transactional services), h&f community services (social care, benefits, housing) and h&f Direct (contact centre). Roughly 140 council staff transferred into the joint venture company alongside Agilisys teams.

Context & coverage

This sits in the Gershon efficiency era, when UK local government was under pressure to cut cost without cutting service. Hammersmith & Fulham's model paralleled Agilisys's Impact Partnership in Rochdale: a centre of excellence that could eventually serve neighbouring authorities. The borough had visited other Agilisys public-sector clients before signing, a public endorsement of delivery quality that made the JV possible.

• Agilisys (Wikipedia): public-sector focus and London borough partnerships.
• Related portfolio: `smart-connections` (Harrow Council business portal, same agency era).