Friday 29 May 2015

News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 27th May 2015



If you are male, look away now!

In the second module of the Postgrad Certificate in Collaborative Transformation students conduct an academic review on a chosen area of collaborative working.

I recall marking the work of a student who drew on evidence that women are better at collaborative leadership than men. Maybe this overview adds to that evidence, but with a bit of a sting in the tail. Forward it on to colleagues and see what their reaction is…!

Do men and women lead differently?

...evidence suggests women may make better leaders than their male counterparts by naturally creating a trusting organizational climate where employees at all levels can flourish. However, a 2014 Gallup survey showed that most employees still prefer a male boss to a female boss. Read more >>>

On a different note, in Cornwall, there is a touch of Somerset’s SouthWest One experience in play as the Council/BT joint venture runs into problems. The evidence overall seems to suggest that collaborations predicated on the concept that other organisations will buy services from the partnership, may fail to deliver on that part of the business case…

BT contract to run council services fails to deliver on jobs

BT was contractually committed to deliver 111 jobs in the first two years and said it would try and deliver a further 240 jobs within the same period. Read more >>>

You can increase your learning by reading the full review of the project here https://democracy.cornwall.gov.uk/documents/s77905/Strategic%20Partnership%20Review.pdf

Here is the rest of this week’s news…

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Local Government Collaborative Working

Cardiff council raises doubts over cash for City Deal

A deal to provide hundreds of millions of pounds of funding for building and transport projects in Cardiff and the surrounding areas could be in doubt. Read more >>>

Worcestershire trio appoint Civica for shared service

Three local authorities in Worcestershire have signed up Civica to take over their shared service centre and run their customer services for the next eight and a half years. Read more >>>

Town hall chiefs offer up ‘bold’ alternative to devolution plans

Council leaders have published a fully-costed alternative to the government’s Cities Devolution Bill, saying ‘radical’ reforms could boost the economy by £80bn. Read more >>>

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Blue Light Transformation

European award for Northamptonshire and Cheshire police partnership scheme

A partnership scheme between police forces in Northamptonshire and Cheshire has picked up a prestigious international award. Read more >>>

Dundee firefighter control room move proposed

Fire chiefs are considering moving their Dundee command centre to the same building as police. In 2013, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) board agreed to close five of Scotland’s eight control rooms — with Dundee becoming the hub for emergency calls being made in the north of the country. Read more >>>

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Health Collaborative Working

NHS launches new collaboration to sustain and improve local hospitals

The NHS is calling for expressions of interest from hospitals across England interested in developing new ways of delivering and improving their local acute services. Read more >>>

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Union Views On Shared Services

Unions’ arguments over sharing services appear spurious

Plans by two Scottish councils to work together to save money will lead to confusion and harm vulnerable people, according to public sector Unison. Read more >>>



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Thursday 14 May 2015

News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 13th May 2015



Welcome to “Austerity 2”!

Let’s go back to the Conservative manifesto and see what it said about collaborative transformation in the public sector…

On p13: ‘We will devolve far-reaching powers over economic development, transport and social care to large cities which choose to have elected mayors. We will legislate to deliver the historic deal for Greater Manchester, which will devolve powers and budgets and lead to the creation of a directly elected Mayor for Greater Manchester….And we will deliver more bespoke Growth Deals with local councils, where locally supported, ....’

If you would like to revisit the background to combined authorities there is an explanation in the new edition of Collaborative Transformation Magazine which you can download by clicking here: http://www.sharedservicearchitects.co.uk/Download-A-Free-Copy-Of-Collaborative-Transformation-Magazine .

And on p53 of the manifesto: ‘We will encourage voluntary integration of services and administration between and within councils for example with the Troubled Families and Better Care Fund - to promote savings and improve local services.’

Helpfully, LGA released their updated national maps this week of what councils and other partners are doing in terms of shared services and collaborative working…

National map of shared services 2015 | Local Government Association

The LGA has re-launched the national shared services map for 2015 which now shows that there are 416 shared service arrangements occurring between councils across the country resulting in £462 million of efficiency savings. Read more >>>

So, in summary, for collaboration and shared services more of the same, but maybe faster if the changes are to be powered by Eric Pickles (and senior managers learn to be effective through the Shared Service Practitioner or Collaborative Leadership programmes..)

Pickles: Still ‘awful lot’ of money to be saved in councils

Eric Pickles has said there is still an ‘awful lot’ of money to be saved in local government that would not impact on frontline services. Read more >>>

Here is this week’s collaborative working and shared service news…

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Local Government

More transparency and scrutiny needed of Welsh voluntary council mergers

The Welsh government needs to be more transparent about the costs and benefits of voluntary council mergers, and how they will be scrutinised, according to a committee of Welsh Assembly members. Read more >>>

Local government restructure must be 'sustainable and enduring', says committee

Planned restructuring of local government in Wales must be 'sustainable and enduring', a committee of the Welsh Assembly has warned. Read more >>>

25 new jobs being created by business process outsourcing firm Arvato UK in Swansea

The shared services centre provides back office services for the Department for Transport (DfT) and its executive agencies, and forms part of a UK Government plan to help save over £400m in administration costs. Read more >>>

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Health

Vanguard integrated care sites denied all of the £200m transformation fund

Twenty-nine vanguard sites, which were selected to trial new models of care as set out in the Five Year Forward View, will not be entitled to the entire £200m transformation fund set aside for the project, it has emerged. Read more >>>

NHS and Leeds council strike multi-million pound deal for Merrion Centre health clinic

The owner of Leeds’ Merrion Centre, Town Centre Securities PLC (TCS), has completed a multi-million pound deal with NHS Trust in the city to provide a 7,000 sq ft health clinic. Read more >>>

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Police

History of collaboration between Bedfordshire Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Hertfordshire Constabulary

Working with other police forces can bring enormous benefits, such as increased resilience and economies of scale. Read more >>>



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Thursday 7 May 2015

News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 6th May 2015



Start honing your collaboration skills and knowledge. You are going to be a very valuable asset to your employer or public sector clients, over the next few years.

The main political party manifestos indicate that public sector collaborative transformation is not only here to stay in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England, but likely to be accelerated.

There are no mentions of reversing the integration of health and social care, nor stopping the 40 potential combined authorities and city regions. Or undoing the large tranche of blue light multi-million pound transformations under way, or putting the hundreds of local authority shared service projects on hold.

The evidence, from HEFCE, Audit Commission, NAO and others is that, without skilled and knowledgeable support (that means you and your SSA toolboxes!), between 50 to 70% of these accelerated collaborations could fail to deliver on the promise of their business case, and up to 33% could fail outright.

Enjoy the election (national and local) and I look forward to seeing you on the other side!

Here is this week’s news update and eight potential jobs…

Local Government

Surrey and East Sussex launched money-saving partnership

A partnership between two county councils will share services to make improvements and save millions. Read more >>>

Transform cities into powerhouses for ‘staggering’ national gain, says report

Devolving power to 26 of Britain's smaller cities could transform them into economic powerhouses and save the government £2.5bn a year, a think tank claims. Read more >>>

IT systems and Data protection

Cloud computing is either already in use or being piloted by almost 90% of local public service providers despite ‘underlying’ concerns about security, a new report from Socitm has revealed. Read more >>>

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Health

Partnership breakdown threatens telemedicine project in West Suffolk

A telemedicine project could suffer following the breakdown of a partnership between West Suffolk CCG and West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust. Read more >>>

Health courier services transferred from ambulance trust

The Welsh Government has announced that the responsibility for the planning and delivery of health courier transport services has been moved from the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust to a separate organisation as part of measures to modernise the service. Read more >>>

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FE/HE

UK universities save over £1.38bn but more must be done to remain competitive, claims new report

A new report on the potential of collaboration and shared services in UK higher education (HE) launches this week from Loughborough University and the Efficiency Exchange – the service operated by Universities UK (UUK) in partnership with Jisc, Leadership Foundation and HEFCE. Read more >>>

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Housing

Leicester Quaker HA amalgamates with NCHA

Leicester Quaker Housing Association (LQHA) has amalgamated with Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA). Read more >>>



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