News Summary of Collaboration and Shared Services from 27th January 2016

Blue light integration has hit the ground running this week; let’s start with these example news items:

Emergency services 'should share control rooms'

Mike Penning said it did not "make sense" to have different premises. It comes as new plans are published to get the services working more closely. Read more >>>

PCSOs to train as on-call retained firefighters

Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) from Herefordshire and Shropshire will soon undertake training to become on-call firefighters. Read more >>>

Welsh Ambulance Service and Wales’ fire and rescue services work together to save lives

The Welsh Ambulance Service has teamed up with Wales’ three fire and rescue services in a pilot designed to improve the quality of the services provided to Welsh communities. Read more >>>

Fire, police and council services now under one roof

Newhaven residents can now get assistance from East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, Sussex Police and Lewes District Council all from under one roof. Read more >>>

I suggest you definitely store this article in your practitioner bag as a story of what advanced collaboration and co-location could feel like. When you have a prescribing pharmacist in the 999 call handling centre, you know that radical collaborative transformation is taking place….

A revolution on the Isle of Wight? How island became health hub pioneer

Six winters ago, the Isle of Wight was buried in rare volumes of snow. Cars were abandoned and the island’s small stretch of dual carriageway blocked. Read more >>>

I am teaching the 3-day Collaborative Transformation Practitioner session this week with a group from a PCC, Police and FRS collaboration so that they can adopt a common way of working together.

We will certainly be talking through these examples. Back office shared services is very valuable, but frontline collaborative working is likely to yield the richest dividends. Here is the rest of the last 7 days’ news…

 

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Devolution

Cambridgeshire rules out a joint devolution deal with Suffolk

The county’s top brass have written to their neighbours telling them they will look at an informal partnership but they will not be part of a formal devolution bid to the government. Read more >>>

Northern Powerhouse: North East devolution by summer would be a 'miracle'

It would be a “miracle” if action was taken on the North East devolution deal before the summer, council leaders have said. Read more >>>

Three things that must happen for devolution to be a success

The leader of Birmingham city council this week argued for the creation of a “West Midlands sovereign wealth fund” – an idea that would see money raised from local government pension funds invested in housing and other local projects. Read more >>>

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Local Government

Councils less optimistic about coping with future cuts

A new report into the future of financial management has revealed that councils are less optimistic about coping with upcoming cuts than they were in dealing with past spending reductions. Read more >>>

Planning for shared cloud services in local government: How to make it work

Shared services across the public sector continue to grow. Councils in particular are choosing to partner with neighbours, to share capacity, costs, risk and best practice. Read more >>>

Councils ponder communications teams merger

Two South London town halls could merge their communications teams in a bid to save money. Lambeth and Lewisham are considering the move, which will be debated at a Lewisham council meeting. Read more >>>

A truly unified approach to procurement

In local government, there is a range of approaches to procurement, from single organisations setting up full procurements themselves to regional or national frameworks. Read more >>>

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Health & Social Care

Northants Neighbourhood Watch members to report health and social care concerns in new partnership

Neighbourhood Watch members are joining forces with the Care Quality Commission to improve health and social care in Northamptonshire. Read more >>>

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