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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