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…
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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