When you are jilted at the altar of
collaborative working, what do you do with the wedding presents?
During 2014, over £200m was injected into collaborative working across the public sector by CLG, Home Office and Health. It will be very helpful to lubricate the wheels of transformation for many partnering organisations. But what do you do with the money if your partnership breaks up?
Richmond and Kingston Councils announced with great fanfare that they were to work collaboratively and received CLG funding to support their work . This was in the context (according to The Lawyer) of The South London Partnership – comprising Merton, Richmond, Kingston and Sutton councils – which received £3m to “build on the successes of joint working…including the four-borough legal service and Richmond and Kingston’s jointly-owned Community Interest Company, and Achieving for Children”.
However, Richmond has chosen a new partner in Wandsworth Council. You have to admire Richmond. If Kingston wasn’t right for Richmond then being honest is the best policy. However, it does get you thinking about how to divide up the wedding presents if partners change their mind at the altar. Or do you give it back to CLG, Home Office or Health...?
Councils agree staff merger, sparking job loss fears
A union has warned that plans for two London
councils to ‘merge’ could lead to ‘massive job losses’. Read more
>>>
What a delight the high level
working group are in Cambridge, South Cambs and Huntingdonshire Councils. My
colleague Terry Huggins and I have been helping them apply the learning through
an in-house, three-day Shared Service
Practitioner programme, to their particular projects. The work was very
focused and professional, but the amount of “LOL” (as in laughing out loud)
evidenced the growth of the trust and shared vision in these early days.
Planning is one of their first projects…
One planning team could oversee Cambridge, South Cambs and Huntingdon
One team of planners could oversee much of
Cambridgeshire in the latest shared service proposals from the county’s local
authorities. Read more
>>>
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Welsh Reorganisation of Local Government
Welsh Reorganisation of Local Government
The Welsh Councils and Welsh Government are
currently staking out their positions on the merger of the 22 councils into
either eleven (or maybe six) super-councils.
Minister Leighton Andrews seems
to be raising the stakes and looking for more than just bigger silos of council
services, within eleven bigger councils. He gave a speech last week in which he
began to unpack his transformation plans set out in the white paper “Reforming Local Government: Power to Local People” to be
published on 3 February.
Here is a key statement: “I think that leadership of some public service
institutions in Wales including some other local authorities have been too
inward looking…“I think in many cases it has been too parochial. I think what
we are looking for is a new generation of public service leaders who can look
beyond their boundaries, who can understand the impacts that we can bring to
bear collectively.” Thank you Minister, it’s called Collaborative Leadership and over 400 people have been through elements of the
taught programme during 2014…
Welsh Government is 'months away' from revealing council shake-up plans according to the man overseeing the task
Leighton Andrews, the man charged with
overseeing a radical shake-up of local councils in Wales says it could take
months to map the country’s future local government structure. Read more
>>>
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Outsourcing
Public sector organisations
need to be agile as the world changes on them. Blackburn and Darwen Councils
outsourced services in 2001 to CAPITA. The next article tracks some of that
journey, reporting that: “In June
2001 when the contract was signed hundreds of staff were transferred from the
borough to Capita’s offices in Blackburn and Darwen, with the private firm
being paid £12 million a year. In July 2012, changes to the deal saw payroll
and personnel services taken back into the town hall. It saw salary payment and
human resources functions for its 2,800 staff brought in-house and the annual
payment reduced to £9 million.” Maybe you should add in-sourcing to the SSA
Efficiency Matrix in your work…
£10 million-a-year Blackburn with Darwen outsourcing deal set for re-negotiation
The ground-breaking £10 million-a-year outsourcing
deal between Blackburn with Darwen borough and private firm Capita is to be
reviewed and re-negotiated, senior councillors will be told tonight. Read more
>>>
In the following article, you
can see how Northants County Council is attempting to be agile by going in the
opposite direction to Blackburn & Darwen Councils and outsourcing (not
necessarily just to the private sector) large chunks of their service
provision…
Northamptonshire County Council's 'horrifying' outsourcing plans are slammed by leader of Labour group
Northamptonshire County Council's plans to
outsource its front-line services in a bid to save £147 million over the next
five years has been criticised by the Labour group. Read more
>>>
These are complex times,
demanding complex decisions by key leaders. There is no single solution for all
of the public sector. What we do know is that you can learn from tracking
the experience of others and avoid the problems they have encountered through
their choices.
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Learning From The Private Sector
You may be interested in this webinar
at 4pm on 18 February from Chazey & Partners. It will be US orientated,
private sector and process focused, but worth spending the initial five minutes
joining in to see if it has value for your service working. One nugget of good
learning is better than six months of doing things in the wrong way…
Whether you are about to set off on your
Shared Services journey, or you are well along the road but need to confirm
where you actually are, you need a roadmap to help make your journey a success.
Read more
>>>
