Money, Money, Money, it must be funny…
It has started to rain collaboration money again with the announcement that Fire & Rescue have been given £75m for mainly collaborative transformation programmes in the blue light sector…
Fire services improvement fund - public get a win-win: better local services and at lower cost
Fire Minister, Penny Mordaunt, today (17 October 2014) announced the winners of a £75 million fund which will improve frontline services and save taxpayers over £300 million. Read more >>>
Back in July, the Police Innovation Fund released £50m, of which the majority involved collaborative working across the blue light sector. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-office-rewards-police-innovation-with-50-million
Back in April, Eric Pickles announced the 2014-16 £400m
Transformation Challenge awards, much of which calls for blurring of
boundaries, joint management and collaborative working by councils to redesign
public services. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/410-million-for-council-services-that-put-people-first
Just how much of that money will be wasted?
As a result of this funding,
managers and project leads, with no formal training in collaborative working,
will stumble their way through the mistakes and down the blind alleys that are
already well catalogued and easily avoided. It will cost tax payers, and the
partnerships, millions in lost opportunity, cost of delay and partnership
disagreements.
Yet the skills and knowledge to be effective are available
to be learned through programmes such as CFOA’s
Shared Service Practitioner programme and CIPFA’s
equivalent programme. Both offer open sessions and in-house delivery.
If the leadership of these partnerships are unsure how to
approach them, then the Collaborative
Leadership Programme can accelerate joint working there too. Almost 200
leaders and senior managers have attended one or more of the three sessions,
since their launch in spring this year.
And for those who see their future as working in
collaborative transformation, and want to be taken seriously by employers,
there is the six month Postgraduate
Certificate in Shared Services at Canterbury Christ Church University. A
new cohort starts in London in February 2015 – email me if you would like to
know more.
One of
the senior council managers on the current cohort of the postgrad that started
two weeks ago, sighed at the end of the taught sessions saying, “I wish I’d
done this course a year ago – we have wasted so much time and effort, when the
tools and techniques to make this work are all here!”.
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Local Government
There are success stories of where collaborative working is having an impact. This is a useful report to add to your Highway Code folder. It comes from Zurich Municipal and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers …
Councils more innovative than at any time since WWII finds report
Councils don’t work in isolation and increasingly work with a range of public, private and community sector partners to achieve their aims. The variety that this brings is one of the key strengths of local government. Read more >>>
Trading standards and environmental health do have elements that will lend themselves to collaborative working. One of our past postgrad-students has been working on this shared service in Wales that is waiting to be voted through by Members…
Three councils could share services to help save £1.3m
A money-saving merger of three councils’ trading standards, environmental health and licensing services is set to move a step closer. Read more >>>
Finally, maybe you can correct me, but is this the 33rd shared CEO in local government...?
Wychavon top man set to be appointed to joint council chief executive post
The managing director of Wychavon District Council is set to be appointed next week to the newly-created joint chief executive post for Wychavon and Malvern Hills. Read more >>>
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