Wednesday 26 November 2014

News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 26th November 2014



Good news! Almost 1,000 delegates, students, service directors, Members, CCG staff, HE leaders,  police, fire, council managers and others will have been through elements of the SSA Collaborative Leadership and Shared Service Practitioner sessions during 2014 making this a record year for our teaching programmes and student numbers since we were set up in 2008.

It’s not surprising really. In 2013/14, almost £200m has been poured into stimulating collaborative working by the DoH, Home Office, CLG, HEFCE and Cabinet Office. And there is more money to come in 2015-16. Leaders and project teams unskilled in collaborative working will waste a lot of this money bumbling about making the mistakes of the past, therefore skills development is seen as a key to success.

So thank you to the LGA, Welsh LGA, CIPFA, CFOA, University of Derby, Canterbury Christ Church University and other partners who have supported us in the development and delivery of collaborative working seminars and workshops, and also to our
many direct clients who have commissioned SSA sessions for their leadership and staff.

Let’s have a look at this week’s collaborative leadership and collaborative working news…

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Local Government

 

There is a lot of good learning for you in the news on merging councils in Wales and Northern Ireland. The new(ish) Public Services Minster Leighton Andrews is taking no prisoners in his drive to reduce the number of Welsh councils from 22 to 11 (or less)…

Welsh councils could be cut to six, Leighton Andrews warns

The number of Welsh councils could be cut to as few as six, the public services minister has warned, as he urges them to seek voluntary mergers. Read more >>>

 

However CIPFA have been commissioned by the Welsh LGA and others to examine the cost. Their report suggests very high upfront investment that will take a time to balance out…


The cost of slashing the number of Welsh councils could be as much as £268m, according to an accountants' report for the local authorities. Read more >>>

 

The Welsh councils may also be looking across the sea to Northern Ireland where the cost of merging two councils, with different rates of council tax, are attracting a special subsidy from NI government (CIPFA predict £58m will be needed for the Welsh mergers)…

 

Super-councils scheme to help keep rates bills down will cost £30m

A £30m scheme to keep rates bills down when large 'super-councils' are formed in April has been announced by Stormont's Finance Minister. Read more >>>

 

Another lesson from Wales, is that marrying the council next door may not be easy either – especially when you live in a terrace of councils and both of the potential partners, who live on either side are attractive, or unattractive, for different reasons. An issue captured in these brief articles…

 

Bridgend council votes to move forward with potential merger with the Vale

Bridgend council has voted overwhelmingly to move forward with plans for a proposed voluntary merger with the Vale of Glamorgan. Read more >>>

Rhondda and Merthyr councils merger 'might not save money'

A south Wales council has said it will not merge voluntarily with a neighbouring authority because it might not save money. Read more >>>

Here are a number of other articles that make good learning from media this week. I like the way that the Newham Council CIO interview captures some of the benefits in easy sentences. For example: “We are making a minimum of 20% of cost savings, based on 11% duplication and 9% in efficiency savings”…

CIO interview: Juggling politics for shared service success

Newham is one of the poorest boroughs in the UK, yet it is pushing forward a digital strategy with the aim of putting two-thirds of all council transactions online. Read more >>>

New company to provide school services in north west

Councils in the North West are joining forces to deliver services to schools in the region. Read more >>>

Richmond and Merton councils merge services

A new shared regulatory service, covering environmental health, trading standards and licensing across Richmond and Merton councils, has been launched. Read more >>>

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Alternative Service Delivery Models

Dialling 999 and asking for a solicitor may be taking things a bit too far, but here is news of a Fire Authority offering to sell its legal services to the public and voluntary sector…

Council first to launch own legal practice

Buckinghamshire County Council and the Buckinghamshire & Milton Keynes Fire Authority have launched a new company to provide cost-effective legal services for public and not-for-profit organisations. Read more >>>

If you are working on the potential for a mutual as a business model for your collaborative working then these two items could be helpful to you…

Could an NHS Trust become a Public Service Mutual?

Up until recently, that hasn't looked very likely at all but now nine NHS Trusts are to explore the potential for them to become employee-led organisations. Read more >>>

Conference on Public Sector Mutuals

This conference is free to attend and designed for new and existing businesses of all sizes, as well as public bodies, who want to find out more about employee ownership. Read more >>>

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Health

My colleague Manny Gatt has been teaching and coaching across CCGs and other health groupings this year, building the skills of effective systems-wide collaborative working. The following reports illustrate that the growing costs in the health and social care services will mostly be solved only through skilled collaborative working across the system and with the community…(extra marks for spotting the mixed message from latter two articles)…

Report urges improved integration in early years’ services

‘Fragmented and complex’ services for young children are leading to missed opportunities for families, according to a new report. Read more >>>

 

Home support key to slashing readmissions, says report

Older people that don’t receive the adequate level of support at home after leaving hospital are twice as likely to be readmitted within three months, according to a new study. Read more >>>

 

NHS plans to save billions by caring for elderly in community blasted as 'wishful thinking'

NHS plans to take the pressure off hospitals and save billions of pounds by providing better care for the elderly in the community are based on “wishful thinking”, a group of leading health experts have warned. Read more >>>

 




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Thursday 20 November 2014

News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 19th November 2014



How would you like to earn £90,000pa as the Director of a Local Government shared service?

That is the job advert that came out this week (see the jobs below) for the MD of CoSocius Ltd the shared service between Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester Councils. I understand that the previous director has been appointed to East Kent Services, the shared services between three districts.

The LGA confirmed earlier this year that there are at least 337 councils across the country engaged in 383 shared service arrangements resulting in £357 million of efficiency savings. As those collaborations consolidate, and begin to appoint “Directors Of Shared Services” the market for skilled and knowledgeable Shared Service Architects and Practitioners will accelerate.

With 60% of the cuts yet to come, and collaborative transformation in the public sector as a key way forward, if you have SSA™ or SS(PRAC)™ on your CV you will certainly be in a better position at interviews.

 

If you are an SSA or SS(PRAC) you will begin to get renewal reminders for 2015/16. Click here to find out how you can renew without paying a fee.

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Local Government


The Transformation and Innovation Fund money is beginning to kick in for the development of new collaborative working projects. Here are some examples from this week’s media:


Gloucester councils propose the sharing of senior staff

Local authorities in Gloucester are looking to form a new partnership between city and county councils through senior staff, having shared roles between the two. Read more >>>

Fresh plans to 'merge' council services revealed

Radical plans to merge council services in Malvern and Wychavon can today be revealed - starting with rubbish collections. Read more >>>

Shared rubbish collections on course to save Cheltenham, Cotswolds £5m in five years

Bill Clinton once said “we all do better when we work together” and the proof is for all to see in Cheltenham and the Cotswolds where a deal between councils has saved taxpayers millions. Read more >>>

In Wales the dominos are possibly beginning to fall in the transition from 22, to 11 councils. The motivation appears to be that those who move first get the transition funding. What makes interesting reading is how, as the result of the merger, they plan to manage the imbalance between the two levels of council tax…

First two Welsh councils move closer to voluntary merger

Conwy and Denbighshire are moving closer to becoming the first Welsh councils to merge as part of the Assembly’s plan of voluntary mergers, with the deadline for expressions of interest in the scheme approaching fast. Read more >>>

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Highway Code

Here are two snippets of news that you may want to add to your Highway Code of Shared Services folder in the ICT and EU Procurement Sections.

If you have attended the Highway Code session in the SS(PRAC) programme you will remember the discussion on the potential limitations of SharePoint for collaborative working. This comes to life in the article below which says “East Renfrewshire was already using Microsoft SharePoint for sharing internal data, but the product didn’t offer the security to share files outside the council. The other two councils had no internal or external sharing capabilities at all.”.

East Renfrewshire uses Huddle to connect with neighbouring councils

East Renfrewshire Council in Scotland is using Huddle’s cloud-based software to connect with two other Clyde Valley councils as part of its ICT collaboration programme. Read more >>>

Do you remember, back in 2010, billionaire Sir Philip Green (Chair of Arcadia) was asked to suggest ways in which the public sector could save money? A key recommendation was that all payments to suppliers be held back for up to 90 days? It was a logical billionaire’s idea, but it would have decimated most of the public sector SME suppliers in the UK, in the heart of a recession. Eric Pickles stepped in and capped it at 30 days and many councils moved to shorter times to support their local businesses. Well it’s worth noting that the 30 days will shortly be enshrined in EU law…

Late payment penalties could cost councils millions, warns MP

Local authorities have been warned they could face millions of pounds in fines unless they prepare for changes in procurement legislation. Read more >>>

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Health

Language is key to effective collaborative working. Councils say “shared services”, universities say “CAMS” (collaborations, mergers and acquisitions) and Health talks in terms of “partnerships” and “collaborative transformations”.

The number of partnerships and collaborative transformations in the health sector is growing rapidly. It is about the blurring of the traditional NHS boundaries to cope with the expensive, wicked, cross-cutting problems of elderliness, obesity, loneliness, alcohol, etc, that are causing the cancers, diabetes, heart attacks that are so expensive to treat. These two items came in on the newswires and are worth scanning…

£800m Cambridge and Peterborough CCG procurement contract signed

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust have formed a Limited Liability Partnership, UnitingCare Partnership to be the Lead Provider. Read more >>>

Without better finance partnership, we have no hope of meeting efficiency targets

It’s a familiar scene, the accountant waving pages of illegible numbers and complicated graphs at a largely bemused audience. Engaging disinterested operational staff with finance can be challenging in any organisation, but, with £20 billion worth of efficiency savings expected by 2015, the NHS finance profession has more incentive than most. Read more >>>

 



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