BT has signed a £325m deal with Liverpool City Council to extend their joint venture, Liverpool Direct Ltd (LDL), for five more years. LDL was created in 2001 to modernise council services with new working practices and computer systems. The contract will now run until 2017. Said local government director, BT Government Services, Chris Sayers: ‘Agreeing this contract extension is an enormous milestone, paving the way for us to widen the scope of our partnership and deliver even greater benefits to the council and ultimately, the people of Liverpool. ‘Today's announcement underlines the importance of the public and private sectors working together to meet the challenges of the local government transformational agenda.' And Liverpool City Council's executive member for central services, Cllr Richard Marbrow, added: ‘This deal will allow us to continue investing in new technology and improving services for the foreseeable future.' Since 2001, LDL has improved business rate collection from 93% to 99% and cut the time it takes to process housing benefit claims from 143 days to just 28. It also answers two million telephone calls for the council a year .