Public service delivery social enterprise 3SC has developed a bespoke web portal to enable its partner organisations to carry out needs-assessment reports for the Department for Work and Pensions.

3SC was formed to bid for large public sector contracts on behalf of smaller civil society organisations and the Access to Work programme in Wales is its prime contract. There are now eight charities with specialist knowledge which carry out needs-assessment reports for the DWP and submit them through the consortium's new online portal.

The portal is cloud-based and is designed to provide charities with a robust customer service platform and comprehensive IT suite so that they focus on service delivery. It also connects directly to the DWP and should speed up the overall process.

Operations director at 3SC, Eoin Heffernan, said: “3SC has devised the technology for a complete system that enables support for high quality delivery performance in this programme and takes the sector forward in a market where their specialist support skills will make a marked impact on successful outcomes.”

It cost about £25,000 to develop and 3SC estimates that it will save organisations up to 40 per cent per customer, as they will not have to provide their own platforms, and can focus on service delivery.

AbilityNet is one of the organisations using the platform and director of sales and marketing Dennis Dearden said the new portal meant that the charity will be able to "work with a greater efficiency than ever before in delivering this kind of support".