News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 10th September 2014

 

The emerging citizen-centric collaborative transformation continues to gather pace. The LGA’s Ernst & Young Report last year confirmed that maximum savings from shared services is about £500m, but from collaborative transformation it could be up to £20bn.

 

Yet collaborative transformation, if not done skilfully, is the most disruptive and most difficult change programme that exists in the public sector. It blurs – or even smashes - the boundaries between health, social care, council and housing structures with immense people, power and politics issues. We hope you will contribute your collaboration skills into that space to help it be successful – including empowering the communities to engage in the change.

 

The following three news pieces begin to emphasise the role of partnerships and community participation to deliver transformation – the subject of our Collaborative Leadership Across Communities workshops…

 

15 regions share £82m to tackle social isolation

Money from the Big Lottery Fund will help local partnerships of voluntary, statutory and private sector organisations to tackle social isolation and test whether services are effectively planned, co-ordinated and delivered. Read more >>>

Think Local - Act Personal

This sets out a vision for the Integrated Personal Commissioning (IPC) programme, starting from April 2015, which will bring together health and social care funding around individuals, enabling them to direct how it is used for the first time. Read more >>>

Open door to volunteers and reap the benefits, councils urged

Volunteers provide support to public services worth £34bn a year, but could do even more if councils gave them the chance – a report says. Read more >>>

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Welsh Local Government

 

In Wales the local government sector is still grappling with the squeeze by the Welsh Assembly to reduce them from 22 to a smaller number. Maybe they could learn from local government in England and by-pass the usual shared services debate and move directly to the collaborative transformation debate – it will save more money and probably less arguments…

 

Leaders demand debate over cuts that are ‘dismantling’ public services
Leaders of all 22 Welsh councils have urged politicians to recognise the impact of continuing austerity on public services. Read more >>>

Council merger would be ‘a step backwards’, argues town hall

A council in South Wales has insisted it can ‘stand alone’ amid proposals to merge it with two other local authorities. Read more >>>

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Blue Light Collaborations

Was there a sharp intake of breath, as Police Superintendents' Association President Irene Curtis said there were "too many chief constables and too many police and crime commissioners"? From our current experience working across the blue light sector there was more likely to be just a knowing  shrug.  Most police forces are collaborating with another force, Fire & Rescue, or both already.

Police force numbers should be cut, superintendents' leader says

The number of constabularies in England and Wales should be cut to save money, a senior police leader has said. Read more >>>

The question that is not being addressed is: Do the Blue Light organisations in a locality transform to create a “first responder” organisation for their citizens, or do they continue to merge with the mirror organisation next door? Hampshire, Northants and the Welsh services are pioneering locality transformation work and we will be tracking their progress for you.

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News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 3rd September 2014

September 2014 eh?  Still technically summer with plenty of sunshine and yet my local Debenhams is selling Christmas cards and wrapping paper!

Talking of which, Debenhams is a good example of a shared service (co-location) that maybe the public sector could learn from. They provide an environment in which individual organisations can share the cost of a presence to reach the people they need to reach. This was very common in the 1960 new towns where they built “public sector campuses”. For example in Crawley (near Gatwick) the Council, Police, FE College and Courts were created on the same campus.

If you are not aware of the 2014/15 work being done on shared public estates have a look back at this article we drew attention to in August. There is money on the table to encourage shared estates.

 

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Highway Code Of Shared Services

Do you remember the case of the bus drivers in London who were TUPEd across to a new employer an hour away and went to tribunal to complain of constructive dismissal? In public sector collaborative working, employees could be re-located to one of the partner’s offices to work, so following the outcome of this case is important – and here it is… (you may want to add this to your Highway Code Folder )

Additional travel time for transferred workers was not "substantial change" to their "material detriment"

A change in the working location of somebody who has changed employer through TUPE will only be grounds for a constructive dismissal claim if that change is "substantial" and causes "material detriment" to the worker. Read more >>>

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Local Government

It is a reality that shared service working is about duplication of effort. The public sector is powered by employing people and therefore it is the reduction of employed people that usually happens. However, sometimes a bit of innovation and lateral thinking can minimise the people losses and still save money…

Council’s shared service scheme saves cash but one person loses their job

A scheme to share officer time and services with other local councils will save Fenland District Council around £660,000 over five years. Read more >>>

This is interesting news from Manchester about how they are approaching the wicked “night-time economy” problem across their region. There could be some good collaborative working being developed here that you could flag up to colleagues in councils, police, town centre management, ambulance, voluntary sector and other players….

Greater Manchester ready to debate historic alcohol strategy

Council leaders in Greater Manchester are poised to approve a landmark cross-region alcohol strategy as part of efforts to improve local health. Read more >>>

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Health

Case studies of where collaborative working has been successful are often the evidence that can tip the argument for, or against, a project. Here are five in-depth case studies from the NHS on service integration you may be able to draw on...

Better Care Fund: 5 case studies to inspire service integration

The road to health services integration can be a bumpy journey – but a vital one that delivers clear results. NICE have published five case study projects to inspire you to join-up care. Read more >>>

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Blue Light Collaboration

Derby FRS recently put a team of their project leads through our Harnessing Collaborative Leadership programme. Part of that focused on new ways of collaborative working when they move into their new HQ shared with the police. News came of a similar move in Hants this week…

Hampshire's police and fire services will share HQ in Eastleigh

Hampshire’s police and fire services are expected to save £600,000 each a year by sharing headquarters in the first deal of its type in the UK. Read more >>>

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International

For members of our Northern Ireland community, you may be interested in what your Shared Service Agency is doing internationally…

Estonia and Northern Ireland concluded agreement on developing e-services

The agreement was signed on Wednesday by Jaan Priisalu, the Director General of the Estonian Information System’s Authority and by Paul Wickens, the Head of Northern Ireland’s Enterprise Shared Services Agency. Read more >>>

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News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 20th August 2014

It’s been a busy time over August for collaborations and shared service projects.  There are 17 new jobs at the end of this news update, if you are looking for a new role.

 

But, before we get to that, I am still laughing at the Edinburgh Fringe joke of the year from Tim Vine:  "I decided to sell my Hoover... well it was just collecting dust."  If you haven’t seen the top 10 jokes then click here.  There are some crackers!

 

Back to your update on the collaboration and shared service news…

 

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Blue Light

 

If you have been away, then one of the key pieces of news in the last couple of weeks was the announcement of successful bidders to the £50m 2014/15 Police Innovation Fund. There is a balance of collaborative projects and some in-house. The list of winning bids is here…

 

Home Office rewards police innovation with £50m
Every police force in England and Wales will receive a share of a £50 million Home Office fund for projects aimed at transforming policing through innovation and collaboration.

 

Here is one example of how the innovation fund is to be used in a collaborative context…

 

Rural crime focus for police funding

Police in Gwent and South Wales are set to develop an app to help officers in remote locations. The Gwent force will receive a portion of £2.2 million towards projects which aim to transform policing from the Home Office’s Police Innovation Fund. Read more >>>

 

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Local Government

It feels like another wave of shared services is on the way in local government. Part of that measure is that we have just been asked to deliver Shared Service Practitioner - SS(PRAC) - sessions into a three-council programme and we have been funded by the LGA to work with another 4 partner grouping. Also, CIPFA and CFOA feel there is sufficient new market demand to offer the SS(PRAC) programme to their members.

The following two stories are enlightening in that they give transparency to the personal and financial cost of shared service redundancies…

West Suffolk: Eight more staff at St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath handed £60,000-plus payoffs - taking authorities’ total spend to almost £5million

Eight more council high-earners in west Suffolk have walked away with payoffs of more than £60,000 - taking the authorities’ total spending over four years to almost £5million. Read more >>>

Legal chief departs council in wake of shared services deal

The London Borough of Sutton is parting company with its chief counsel after forming a shared services partnership with three other south London boroughs. Read more >>>

If you are an SSA or SS(PRAC) here is a story for your Highway Code of Shared Services  folder if you have not encountered the legal structures of an ABS (alternative business structure) yet. It can go in the “legal vehicles” section…

‘The overall benefits are potentially enormous’: Bucks County Council granted ABS licence with emergency services group

In a move that has been welcomed by the Legal Services Board, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has granted an alternative business structure (ABS) licence to local authorities for the first time, as Buckinghamshire County Council enters into a joint venture with Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority. Read more >>>

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Housing

I have been asked to speak on shared services at a housing conference in September and am still not convinced that is necessarily where the sector should go. Housing would do well to learn from local government shared services that they must sort out their internal collaborative working first before talking to possible partners. What is evident in housing is the growing numbers of direct mergers in the sector (maybe district councils could be learning from this!). For example this is the third announced this year…

North West housing association merger announced

Eastlands Homes and City South Manchester Housing Trust intend to merge to create a new 12,400-home landlord. The two organisations will now begin formal discussions ahead of a six-week consultation with tenants. Read more >>>

Here is an example of learning from local government group energy schemes, on how Housing can lead on building collaborations that provide innovative services into their neighbourhoods…

Landlord alliance to sell energy to tenants

Landlords with 357,000 homes to form company to sell energy at cost price. A nationwide consortium of housing associations plans to set up an energy company to help tenants cut spiralling household fuel bills. Read more >>>

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Central Government

The Commissioning Academy is seeking senior leaders to join its programmes. It would look good on your CV if you have completed its excellent sessions…

 

The Commissioning Academy

The Cabinet Office and its partners developed the Commissioning Academy as a development programme for senior leaders from all parts of the public sector. It is designed to equip a cadre of professionals to deal with the challenges facing public services, take up new opportunities and commission the right outcomes for their communities. Read more >>>

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Health

In our Collaborative Leadership programme there is a whole toolkit on engaging communities in development and delivery of transformational services. A gateway to that is often through the local voluntary agencies working in the locality and this is emphasised in this paper…

Comparing apples with oranges? How to make better use of evidence from the voluntary and community sector to improve health outcomes - NHS Confederation

This briefing gives an overview of the knowledge, expertise and insight that voluntary and community sector organisations hold about their local communities and diverse groups of people within these, as well as the different ways this knowledge can be used to enhance Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) and commissioning. Read more >>>

My colleagues have been working recently with Heath Education East Midlands on joint working across services and CCGs. Some of this is about reassembling working relationships that were dissolved when CCGs were created. This also seems to be happening in this approach in Kent to join up the CCG health and care teams…

5-year plan to transform healthcare in Kent

A Kent-based CCG has released a five-year plan to transform healthcare to better cater for the needs of the region. NHS Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has released plans to join up health and care teams in GP practices and the community to improve care and relieve the pressure on primary services. Read more >>>

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