News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 24th February 2016

The English Local Government Association has commissioned us to update its shared service map. On Monday, we emailed all the councils in England inviting them to update their data.

If you are responsible for a council led shared service (the other partners do not need to be councils) and you have not had an invitation from us to update, or enter, your services on the LGA Shared Services Map you can find the brief questionnaire (about 10mins per service) here http://www.sharedservicearchitects.co.uk/LGA-Map-2016

 

We have also released the spring dates for the Collaborative Transformation Practitioner programme in Cambridge, Reading, Manchester and Leicester.

 

Here is the collaboration news for the last 7 days…

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Health & Social Care

Innovative collaboration which integrates health and care services given £1.2m funding boost

An innovative collaboration between health boards, local authorities and a university has been given a £1.2m funding boost by the Welsh Government. Read more >>>

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Devolution

London boroughs push ahead with devolution plans

Boroughs in the east and north east in the capital are pressing ahead with plans to create a devolved region of London. Read more >>>

 

Councils set their initial terms on Government 'Three counties devolution plan'

Yesterday’s (Tuesday's) meeting of council representatives from across Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk was called at very short notice and South Cambridgeshire District Council was represented by its Leader, Councillor Ray Manning and Cambridge City Council by Councillor Kevin Price, Executive Councillor for Housing. Read more >>>

Furious row at Aberdeen Council over city deal debate

There were angry scenes when Aberdeen councillors met yesterday to debate how to “move the city forward” in the wake of the £250million City Region Deal announcement. Read more >>>

Glasgow City Deal funding for drainage plan to allow building of 22,000 new homes

An urban flooding project to tackle the deficiencies in Glasgow’s drainage system and allow the building of 22,000 new homes on previously unviable brownfield sites has received a funding boost. Read more >>>

Cardiff asks Whitehall for £580m as part of City Deal bid

Local authority leaders in Cardiff are calling on the UK Government to contribute £580m of funding as part of its City Deal bid. Read more >>>

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Local Government

Five councils raise shared service ambition

News feature: Outsourcing contract with Capita highlights the promise, and potential pitfalls, of bringing more councils under a single umbrella. Read more >>>

LGA highlights small scale of shared service savings

More than half of all council shared service initiatives are saving less than £100,000, the Local Government Association has noted. Read more >>>

 

Shropshire Council to close its trading company

Shropshire Council has decided to close its company ip&e Limited after it failed to make enough profit. The company was set up in 2012 by the council to provide services to other public and private organisations. Read more >>>

 

£8 million of cuts passed as Somerset County Council approves budget

Council tax up by five per cent, £950,000 cuts to mental health budgets, 90 jobs facing the axe and libraries money slashed are all set to go ahead after Somerset County Council passed its budget on Wednesday. Read more >>>

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Blue Light Services

Commissioner announces vision for police, paramedics and firefighters to share facilities in Essex

Emergency services in Essex could share stations and even cars when travelling to crashes in the future. Read more >>>

Hampshire police pay: 1,300 officers receive wrong amounts

A total of 1,300 Hampshire police officers were paid the wrong amount this month. Half were underpaid and half were overpaid through H3, a joint system between the county council, fire and police services. Read more >>>

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News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 17th February 2016

The questionnaire for the LGA Shared Services Map will be hitting the desk of council shared service project managers in the next few days. All Council Leaders and CEOs have been informed by Lord Porter, Chairman of the LGA that the refresh of the map is starting. SSA is collecting and collating the data.

If you are the shared service project manager for your council, and have not received an email from SSA in the last week about updating your council’s data, then please contact me to make sure you receive a 2016 questionnaire.

 

Here is the collaborative working news and jobs from the last seven days, including some evidence of rocky moments on the devolution journey…

 

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The new SSA Collaborative Communications Toolkit seminar is on 26^th February in London. This new toolkit and one-day seminar is for Communications and Programme Managers who are responsible for shared service/devolution multi-partner, multi-stakeholder communications, often with limited resources or specialist skills. Click here to see the contents and journey map.

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Health & Social Care

Success Regime - Case for Change

The CCG is one of the organisations in Northern, Eastern and Western (NEW) Devon which has been placed into the Success Regime, a programme which aims to transform services so they can meet local needs into the future, taking into account issues such as the ageing population and the rising tide of long-term conditions, including diabetes and obesity. Read more >>>

 

Awards recognise crucial work of health staff

Staff from the Southern Health and Social Care Trust have been recognised as among the best in Northern Ireland at the 2016 Advancing Healthcare Awards. Read more >>>

 

SURVEY: Help Shape Cornwall's Health Services

Cornwall is being urged to shape the future of our health services. A new survey is asking how we think officials can save money and provide better care. It is as the Deal for Cornwall gives us more powers. Read more >>>

Report calls for collaborative working to assist independent living

Physiotherapists and home improvement specialists have called for a range of measures to help people with disabilities live independently. Read more >>>

Communicating HSCN: Why the government must act now

Mark Hall, public sector director at Redcentric, looks ahead to the rollout of the Health and Social Care Network which is now expected in 2017. The proposed Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) will be the successor to the NHS' current N3 national healthcare network. Read more >>>

Unionist place apart mentality costing lives as NHS crumbles

Much soul-searching the other day about the example of Greater Manchester’s health and social care devolution. Read more >>>

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Devolution

Cambridge’s business leaders round on ‘very ill-founded’ devolution plan with Norfolk and Suffolk

Business leaders have rounded on a Government devolution plan that could see Cambridgeshire partnered with Norfolk and Suffolk. Read more >>>

 

Norfolk and Suffolk devolution meeting to go ahead after snub threat is headed off

A devolution deal for Norfolk and Suffolk will be discussed by council leaders today, but only after a threat to snub the meeting amid anger over who could attend. Read more >>>

How smart solutions can support City Deal plans

Smart Cambridge is bringing together City Deal Board and Joint Assembly members, cutting edge businesses, University researchers and council officers for a workshop to outline plans for smart transport technology to support the wider economic growth and prosperity of the Greater Cambridge City Deal area. Read more >>>

Hampshire bid for combined authority in jeopardy after councils veto ‘elected mayor’ plan

The bid by Hampshire’s councils to join up and secure greater powers has been thrown into jeopardy due to differences in how it can be achieved. Read more >>>

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Local Government

Raft of pressures on local authorities has increased diversity of ICT-enabled service transformation approaches

The raft of pressures on local authorities - social, economic, technological and political - has increased the diversity of approaches to ICT-enabled service transformation. This is opening up opportunities to do different things in different ways, according to Shifting sands: New structures and delivery models, a new Socitm report that sets out a series of case studies to illustrate its point. Read more >>>

 

Sutton and Kingston council set to establish £38m trading company

Sutton and Kingston councils are considering setting up a jointly owned company to manage £38m of shared services. Finance, customer service and town planning departments are set to merged by the two authorities, which already share IT, transports, legal and waste disposal staff. Read more >>>

Brent Council teams up with Harrow and Buckinghamshire in £8m ‘sharing scheme’

A shared service between Brent, Harrow and Buckinghamshire councils to provide a “Procurement Shared Service” (PPS) was agreed at a cabinet meeting on Monday. Read more >>>

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SSA's "Elephant In The Room" (EITR) sessions help you tackle the key issues around shared services and collaborative working.

Elephant In The Room 1: Successful shared service working requires skilled, united, project service teams, however this is often ignored by the leadership.

·         Building the effectiveness of Collaboration or Shared Service teams
One-day, facilitated in-house session: Fee £1,900+vat (including preparation days). This facilitated workshop draws on tools, templates and techniques to help you create and glue together effective cross-partner project teams. These teams could be working together for months, or even years, to come and must be built on solid foundations.

Elephant In The Room 2: Shared service projects that do not have dedicated marketing budgets or marketing strategies are more likely to fail to deliver.

·         Effective communications in Collaboration or Shared Service working
One-day, facilitated in-house session: Fee £1,900+vat (including preparation days)
This new collaborative communications toolkit and one-day workshop maps the communications strategy against the steps in the collaborative transformation journey. It will support the growing number of Communications and Project Managers who have limited resource and no formal training in multi-partner, multi-stakeholder communications. Why not bring a group of up to 10 local project managers and comms managers together to share the cost?

Elephant In The Room 3: Shared services that are set up without understanding the mistakes others have made are doomed to repeat those mistakes and lose money and velocity in delivery.

·         What could possibly go wrong in Collaboration or Shared Service Projects?
Half- or one-day, facilitated in-house session: Fee £1,900+vat (including preparation days)
SSA has unpacked seven NAO, Local Government and Health Sector reviews of failed collaboration projects, so that your leadership and project team can identify if you are on the same path to failure, or can you learn from them to avoid the same £multi-million mistakes? The session will help you shape the direction of your collaboration for 2016.

Elephant In The Room 4: Most collaborations fail because leaders focus on the deal on the table and not the relationships with each other.

·         75% relationships and only 25% the deal: Building the relationships between Devolution, Collaboration or Shared Service leaders
Half- or one-day, facilitated in-house session: Fee £1,900+vat (including preparation days)
These successful facilitated meeting sessions for Devolution, Collaboration or Shared Service boards work to build trust and balance the relationships that will make their collaborative leadership more effective. These can be tough, complex, adult sessions for all those involved, but the breakthroughs in relationship and trust can be the deal-changer for the partners.

Email me if you would like more details of any of these Elephant In The Room sessions: Dominic.Wallace@sharedservicearchitects.co.uk.

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