Public: Partnership | Public

How to set up a mutual

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:15:42 GMT

As the coalition government pursues the 'Big Society' agenda, mutual organisations may well find that their time has come

Mutual organisations may have been misunderstood in the past, or suffered short-shrift in some quarters - but they could provide the answer on how to deliver public services more efficiently.

By offering the required blend of shared interest and responsibility community-led organisations are seen as one way of transferring power away from state institutions.

However, mutuals they have become a much misunderstood business format and today specialist law firm, TPP Law, launches a special report on how to set up a mutual organisation to deliver public services.

The firm says the report responds to a resurgence of interest in the use of mutuals to deliver public services ranging from education to health and social care, leisure and childcare services.

It examines the case for using a mutual and contains practical tips on creating the business plan, market analysis, choosing the right legal format, dealing with workforce issues and estates aspects.

Launching the report at the Local Government Information Unit's national conference on Rethinking Public Service Delivery in London, managing director Mark Johnson said: "Mutual models have the advantage of involving a wider range of stakeholders in their governance arrangements which can help to incentivise better performance, promote a sense of ownership and accountability and improve client satisfaction. We have received a large number of inquiries from our clients in local authority and health sectors about how to set up a mutual organisation and the issues involved. This guide responds to that demand."

The report can be obtained from TPP Law's website

The partnership principle

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:07:17 GMT

The new coalition government has focused attention on the type of partnerships needed to overcome tough challenges, so will there be a knock-on effect for public and private sector collaborations? Stephen Weigel, chief executive, Tandridge district council and Simon Downing, chief executive, Civica Group, voice their opinions

Public sector view: Stephen Weigel, Tandridge district council

Councils have a legal duty to provide their community with a full range of products or services

The similarities between public and private sector organisations may not be immediately apparent but they are certainly there. If anything, the downturn intensified the need for public and private collaborations, long before the coalition was established. The underlying aim remains the same: we need to understand how both sides can continue to learn from each other. I'm passionate about the private and public sectors working more closely together for mutual benefits and outcomes.

People are demanding greater choice in services. The processes underlying departmental items such as benefits administration are extensive and complicated. They cannot be delivered with the same flexibility as a private company. The public sector has a legal responsibility to deliver services to all citizens, while remaining fully accountable and ensuring its actions are transparent and an appropriate use of public money.

As a result, public sector organisations are being squeezed from both sides: they are deemed by government to have invested in new service delivery systems without delivering the required step change in service and cost of service. On the other hand, in age of instant access to commercial services online, and the continuing social consequences of recession, citizens are still demanding an increasing level of service from their local authority.

The key difference here is that the customers of any public sector body (ie residents and local businesses) often cannot select who supplies their services - just as local authorities cannot choose their customers or the services they provide. Councils have a legal duty to provide their community with a full range of products or services: this makes service delivery inherently more difficult. For a private organisation, while customers do have a choice of going elsewhere, if a product or service is no longer popular, it is possible to introduce a new one. This isn't as easy for a local authority, health trust or police force!

Where public bodies really do have different priorities is in achieving the fine balance between delivering services, taking responsibility for citizens, balancing budgets and achieving year-on-year efficiency savings. In common with the private sector, there is a real need for strong leadership and a commitment to see everything through allied to outstanding communication. There is scope to share services and co-delivery, much the same as UK mobile telephony operators are doing to cut costs and reduce overlap.

In the public sector, the impact of the recession has taken longer to crystallise but it's clear that the next few years will be even more focused on cost reduction. It's worth remembering that local government has the best track record of any public sector providers on efficiency savings over the past five or so years.

Private sector view: Simon Downing, chief executive, Civica Group

Transformation is less about foresight and more about the response

Public sector organisations are clearly under unprecedented pressure to reduce expenditure, possibly by as much as 25% or more, while meeting new service demands and higher overall expectations. Many private companies, with their customers facing pressures and uncertainty as the country has dealt with recession, have likewise had to take difficult decisions in order to manage their costs.

Public and private can learn from each other's strengths. A private organisation's biggest advantages are flexibility and responsiveness, whether through action, ability to invest or in driving internal efficiency. Driven by competition, successful companies respond swiftly to market change to protect the business or to capitalise on new opportunities. In addition, the private sector ultimately has the benefit of a very clear measure across the organisation and for stakeholders – profit.

This clear focus on top line growth and bottom line cost management represents a more programmatic approach to efficiency, whereas the public sector has traditionally taken a strategic longer term view, introducing transformation programmes that take effect over some years and often involving consultation. In the private sector, it could be said that transformation is less about foresight and more about the response.

Choice is also an interesting aspect. Companies choose which products and services they supply on an ongoing basis. People look to their local authority or public body to deliver a service out of necessity, not choice. Authorities have some freedoms over the way some services can be delivered and therefore create 'citizen choice', but face many constraints on the services provided and the community served.

Underlying this, reputation or 'brand' management, which for a long time been a clear priority in the private sector, matters equally to public and private bodies. For both a strong reputation, typically built on long-term customer satisfaction, is imperative and conversely a damaged or poorly perceived brand can become a barrier to future progress. The language may differ but just as a private sector company needs to build its brand, so a local authority is equally focused on reputation, credibility and local identity.

Reversing a poor reputation is a much more difficult challenge that involves rebuilding relationships. As a result, it's imperative for the authority to retain trust and respect with the public (including the assurance that private sector partners will protect and enhance its reputation for service delivery and value for money).

The key to delivering 'more with less', is the core asset (and major cost centre) for commercial and public bodies – their people. Best use of existing staff, including tools such as new technology, can instantly increase efficiency: Civica, for example, has been able to redeploy resources within the company in areas where increased efficiency is needed. This is not as easily done in the public sector, often due to the complexity of decision making, but it is at the core of organisational efficiency.

Local authorities may find themselves spread too thinly because of the breadth of services they provide. Public organisations, like their private counterparts, may need to consider their core competencies and enlist external providers to assist with other non-core requirements. By taking a programmatic approach to desired outcomes, through much the same approach as private sector organisations, and benchmarking the quality and value of those services delivered by external providers, it is possible to strike an effective balance of efficiency and service.

Such an approach has the lasting benefit of creating a blend of deep expertise between public and private sector partners. It also combines public service values with focus, flexibility and responsiveness. The dividends for citizens, public organisations and their partners are likely to be very significant.

Summary: better or just different?
The downturn has led local authorities and businesses to take a hard look at their organisations. It's likely that the advent of the first coalition government in 70 years will provide further evidence that successful partnerships depend on learning more about each other's ways of working and respective strengths, identifying mutual outcomes, and working realistically towards them.

Mergers: a simple process?

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:58:14 GMT

Departmental agencies and non-departmental public bodies look ripe for merging in a bid to save money by the next government. On paper it looks simple but how will it work in practice?

Merging organisations is never as simple as it appears on paper and the process of merging public bodies is no less complex than in the private sector. As the cost is bourn by taxpayers, failure is even less acceptable.

With the impending clampdown in government spending, one area that will certainly get the attention of the next government is that of the number of departmental agencies and non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs).

There is a belief that condensing or merging some of these bodies into single organisations will enhance efficiency and reduce public spending. The Scottish 'simplification programme' is ahead of the game here, with its aim to reduce the number of Scottish public bodies from 199 to 120, with savings of £36m between 2008 and 2013.

But in merging, it is important to remember that agencies and NDPBs, were originally created with specific remits. So combining two or more such bodies will require a careful aligning of these differing remits or re-crafting a new set for a new age. This in turn often demands a change in how the new body is organised.

However, mergers are not merely about structural integration. Last week's article by Xantus on public sector M&A highlights that in the design phase of any restructuring, technology has been a dominant factor over the past decade. Yet the hardest part, and the one that most often derails the process, is human integration.

Key issues during transition

Recently we worked directly with one Scottish public body to facilitate its integration into a new larger body. In this particular instance, the key issues during the transition were to ensure it continued to deliver existing strategic objectives while preparing for change, and in creating a new joint board that could develop the vision and values for the new organisation.

However, mergers are not merely about structural integration. The harder part, and the part that most often derails the process, is human integration.

Starting at the top, the abilities and experience in change management of the team leading the merger needs assessing, and any gaps filled with personal development, or 'bought-in' expertise.

Then there are the consequences of restructuring when job responsibilities and capabilities may change. Following its merger with the Meat Hygiene Service we worked with the Food Standards Agency.

The FSA has embarked on a substantial change programme that sets out to ensure improved delivery, culture and structure. This has included the assessment of different capabilities at management grade 6 & 7 across the agency due to these management grades having a wider and more important future role to ensure delivery through others.

In delivering change in cases such as the FSA, where the number of managerial posts was reduced, the selection process must be both transparent and demonstratively fair. It is also important that training and support is provided for those who re-apply for jobs with expanded responsibilities. Getting this right will ensure the new organisation has the best people in place, suitably motivated, to deliver to its broader remit.

Gary Ashton is a director at ER Consultants

Legal eagles help local authorities through the maze

Jo Adetunji — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:40:42 GMT

A pioneering partnership between local authorities and legal firms in the East Midlands is being extended for a further four years and assisting in-house teams

A pioneering partnership between local authorities and law firms in the East Midlands is being extended for a further four years.

The EM Lawshare consortium, the largest partnership in the UK and the first of its kind when it was set up in 2005, includes 50 local authories and five firms who provide legal services in addition to council in-house teams. Through the partnership, local authorities receive services such as training programmes in conveyancing, employment and procurement issues, phone help lines and an annual conference held in October.

The consortium, which originally had only 14 member councils, will see five firms - Anthony Collins, Browne Jacobson, DLA Piper, Freeth Cartwright and Weightmans - working jointly to deliver services to authorities including Nottinghamshire county and Derby city councils. It is also the only partnership to offer services to all public local authorities including county and district councils, unitary authorities, fire authorities and registered social housing providers.

Stuart Leslie, chief legal officer at Derby City Council, said: "The consortium, which has members from all three tiers of local government, not only provides authorities with the ability to secure quality legal advice at very competitive rates and short notice; it also delivers significant added value benefits such as an annual training programme solely for and tailored to our members' needs."

Jayne Francis-Ward, service director of legal and democratic services at Nottinghamshire County Council and leader of the partnership, said while other local authorities had since established similar arrangements, EM Lawshare was still "unique in both its size and strong partnership working ethos." Francis-Ward said: "This truly is a model of public and private sector partnership."

The consortium said the partnership offered cost benefits to local authority members. A shared training course that would normally cost around £300 from a non-partnership firm could be delivered at £80. They said that these courses would also be provided locally, cutting down on transport and accommodation costs. Other services include a 24/7 legal helpline to provide advice and share knowledge and pamphlets with practical legal guides for councils.

"John Riddell, partner in Weightmans' local government team said: "When the Gershon Efficiency Review recommended public authorities to make savings through shared services, the founders of EM LawShare took notice and did just that. The Total Place agenda is now looking to make savings across the public sector by sharing services and expertise – avoiding duplication. The ambitious plans for sharing information and training under the EM LawShare umbrella will echo that sentiment wholeheartedly."

Peter Taylor, a partner at one of the new member firms, DLA Piper, said the firms were "an extended part of the client's in-house team." He added: "From a personal development point of view, our lawyers also enjoy the sense of co-venturing that evolves through working and building long-term relationships."

Jo Adetunji

Challenge of charity partnership

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:27:24 GMT

Partnerships with large companies can make a big difference to charities. But should there be a better way of choosing which charity to support?

While having a charity of the year can be a very beneficial and worthwhile venture for both the company and the charity, so many smaller and less emotive charities lose out that it would surely make more sense to let individuals chose their own charity.

Being chosen as charity of the year by big companies means big rewards for the relevant charity but the vast majority of charities in the UK never become anyone's charity of the year. They are too small, too unfashionable, don't have enough regional branches or fail to match the corporate brief in some other way.

The competition to be chosen as a charity of the year, particularly by the major UK companies, is intense. There is a good reason for this as the rewards can be huge. Tesco's chosen charity for 2008 was Marie Curie Cancer Care and they raised £6.1m, which will allow far more people to end their life at home. The Tesco Charity Trust added £500,000 to existing monies raised. This year, Tesco has chosen the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign this year and hopes to raise £3m.

Even companies lacking the might of Tesco provide a a huge boost for charities. Santander has raised over £200,000 for Help the Hospices while CLIC Sargent's partnership with Chelsea FC over the past four years has raised over £2m.

But there are around 189,000 charities in the UK and most of them don't get a look in for charity of the year status.

Charity pitch

Charities involving children and cancer are the most popular choices for charity of the year. One very experienced member of staff from a health charity believes that if you get shortlisted, and staff vote, that vote is probably most influenced by the extent to which the charity pitch can make a person cry, followed closely by how wide the appeal of the charity is. Vulnerability seems to be a fairly consistent theme among winning charities.

Many charities are asked to put forward a proposal to become charity of the year but as one member of staff from a national charity said, 'It takes us a long time to prepare our proposal and there are no prizes for coming second."

Many large companies want tangible propositions like buying wheelchairs and find it more difficult to motivate staff to support causes which offer emotional support.

Rachel Kirby-Rider, director of fundraising and communications at Samaritans says: "Winning charity of the year is a real achievement for any charity and Samaritans will continue to apply for these partnerships.

"However, there is a lot of competition from other charities and there is a perception that it can be difficult to demonstrate how funding confidential helplines, like Samaritans, make a difference to individual people's lives. Another challenge is that mental health problems, depression and suicide are still widely stigmatised and misunderstood, making it hard for companies to align themselves to such issues; however there has never been a more relevant time to support charities in this field."

Another senior charity worker notes that being chosen as charity of the year is often driven by corporate criteria. The quality of the application and how recently a similar charity was supported are crucial factors and a charity is often asked to absorb a high proportion of volunteering, which they may be unable to do.

Joanna Woolcock from Crisis, the charity supporting the homeless, finds that when it comes to a vote for charity of the year, "our client group aren't often perceived as being most in need and homelessness is not an issue at the forefront of employee's minds when they vote. Despite being shortlisted by the company itself, at voting stage we lose to children's or cancer charities, hospices and those who are benefiting from high media profiles. Geographical spread also makes a massive difference, particularly with such strong emphasis on volunteering. We can't deliver a partnership with a high volunteering requirement and often our locations don't reflect those of the company."

Volunteering opportunities

A corporate fundraiser from a well known medical research charity is frustrated: "Our feeling is that we are not a very "sexy" charity and do not have a high brand profile for those companies wishing to be "seen" to be supporting a charity. The current vogue in many large companies is volunteering opportunities for their staff. It's pretty hard for us as a medical research charity to find a garden to makeover, a scout hut to paint or a patient to befriend but our work is still so vital! There are only so many volunteers you can squeeze into our charity shops or help at abseils and walks!"

There are causes which are small with a low profile, but fit in well with a particular company. Get Connected, although small, has had a great partnership with Carphone Warehouse for the past nine years because a helpline for young people and a mobile phone retailer have a natural synergy.
Not all companies have a staff vote by any means. Some charities of the year are just decided by directors and/or the corporate social responsibility department.

Although charity partnerships can be a very beneficial and worthwhile venture for both the company and the charity, because so many smaller and less emotive charities lose out, wouldn't it make more sense to let individuals chose their own charity?

I went into companies for over 12 years, talking to individual employees about giving to charity from pay. I was taken aback by the level of feeling within some organisations about how the charity of the year had been chosen. Mmany employees felt aggrieved that they hadn't been involved in that choice or that their chosen cause would never be elected as it wasn't a high profile charity. Individuals often shared their personal stories with me about why they wanted to help a particular charity and many of those stories have remained with me as they were very moving.

When I went into companies which matched or enhanced their Workplace Giving scheme, employees felt that their employer was backing their individual choice of charity and they often said how much difference it made to their view of the company.
Many employees want to give and give generously to charity. Companies interested in corporate and social responsibility should help them to do this.

Elena Joseph is head of charity liaison and new projects at Workplace Giving UK

Teamwork is the name of the game

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:05:00 GMT

John Carleton is the head of Local Partnerships, the newest body trying to help councils drive a better bargain with private companies. He brings a wealth of experience from public service, banking, consultancy ... and international rugby

Perhaps one of the lowest points in John Carleton's international rugby career, in which he garnered 32 caps for England and seven tries, came on the unsuccessful 1983 Lions' tour to New Zealand. Three months of rain had culminated in yet another defeat in the "horizontal snow" of Dunedin.

"I remember it distinctly," Carleton says, "because the World Cup cricket was on in the UK. I was lying in bed in New Zealand in a tracksuit, cold, and watching England and Pakistan from Old Trafford on the TV and it was 80-odd degrees and people had their shirts off."

He looks, fortunately, much happier now, newly installed as the first chief executive of Local Partnerships. The agency, formed out of the ashes of its predecessor, the 4ps, is now run as a joint venture between the Local Government Association and Partnerships UK, itself a public-private hybrid.

The agency's job, Carleton says, is to be at the "interface" between councils and their private and voluntary sector partners, trying to make those relationships run more smoothly. But, as he acknowledges, it is no easy task.

Carleton, 53, has the kind of solid, compact build you'd expect from a former international winger, and an accent that bears the traces of his native Lancashire. His career has spanned both public and private sectors, first as a banker specialising in real estate, then at the Housing Corporation, where he says he was "humbled" by the dedication of his fellow workers showed in their attempts to improve some of the worst housing in the UK.

At that time, the relationship between the sectors was tainted by "huge amounts of suspicion on both sides", he says."I used to work for a guy who described partnership as the suppression of mutual loathing to access somebody else's cash ... I think a lot of people could see that sort of approach."

Now, he says, both sides have come "an awful, awful long way", though he accepts the relationship is far from perfect.

He acknowledges, too, that some public-private partnerships and outsourcing deals have been failures. That, he says, comes down to councils not knowing what they want at the outset.

"I bet nearly every time you find a partnership agreement that isn't working, has flaws, has problems, those flaws can be rooted back to when the partnership was originally set up, and will be rooted back to potentially really poor choices, uninformed choices at [that] point."

The mission for Local Partnerships, as he sees it, is to help councils make those choices better. Taking politicians' promises of localism at face value, he insists that whichever party wins power in the general election next year, councils will be in control of more spending and policy.

"It's not our role to second-guess how local authorities will deliver services to their people"

But as part of that, they will have to make "informed decisions" about what services they provide directly and which ones they outsource.

This doesn't mean that the agency will be promoting privatisation, Carleton insists. Rather, it will be using its wealth of experience in hundreds of public-private schemes to help councils, especially small ones that struggle with complex, private sector-based projects, to strike better deals.

"It's not our role to second-guess how local authorities will deliver services to their people," he says. "It's our job to help them find the best way of delivery, whether that be direct [public services], or whether that be working with partners.

"Our job ... will be to help them find those partners, to help them structure the partnership arrangement right, to help them with the governance around that – and maybe even identify how they can fund that."

One criticism levelled at the predecessor to Local Partnerships, the 4ps, was its lack of profile amongst senior council directors.

Carleton won't comment on that, but says: "If that's been the perception in the past, it certainly won't be the reality in the future."

He hopes to get out of his London office "at least" one day a week and go round the country talking to local councils. As he does, he will be "particularly interested" to hear from councils who feel their relationship with the 4ps "has not been that great. My offer, my promise, my commitment is, talk to me and let's see how we can repair that."

Another part of his mission is to get councils working together better. He admits it's "not easy", but insists good examples do exist, and that he will be pushing that message vigorously. He will also be pointing out that demands for services – notably in housing - Increasingly overspill local authority boundaries.

And he may be able to offer councils the incentive of start-up funding. In situations where a potentially cost-cutting project is being stymied by lack of upfront cash to invest, Local Partnerships could, he thinks, step in with some of its own money.

One problem he faces, however, is the need to charge councils for the agency's services. Around a quarter of the Local Partnerships budget comes direct from government, but funding squeezes means the agency will increasingly look to the council fees that already currently make up the rest of its budget.

Will councils cough up more, given the enormous strain on budgets?

Carleton insists they will – as long as the agency can prove that its experience of working with private companies can help them drive a good bargain, and thus save money.

"If we can demonstrate to local public bodies that ... we can help them deliver more for less – then, yes, they will pay for that."

He takes the same line when asked whether the Conservatives, having made clear their dislike for quangos, might scrap Local Partnerships if they won power.

"Whichever government is in power, the services that they [councils] are empowered to deliver will increase," he says. "So consequently if we are making them more efficient, more effective ... I feel fairly comfortable that Local Partnerships has got a future, no matter who's in government."

Prevention is better than cure

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:41:35 GMT

Working together to prevent social harm is a good thing but it's more difficult to justify spending in areas where policy evidence is weak

An inspirational project aimed at stripping away the bureaucracy preventing collaboration between public bodies and designed to prevent social harm rather than dealing with its aftermath was outlined in a speech given by Jason Lowther, director of policy and delivery at Birmingham city council, to the Society of Information Technology Management's annual conference in Edinburgh.

Like most other areas, Birmingham has had a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) for some time, Lowther said, but also like most areas, "it used to be talking shop, which existed because it had to, to access Neighbourhood Renewal funding."

Accordingly, the policy behind the LSP had been all but meaningless. "With our first LSP strategy, a consultant wrote it, so it was a lovely strategy, but it just sat on a shelf. The next time we thought: let's take it more seriously, draw up a local area agreement and consult people on what we are aiming for together as partners in Birmingham."

What emerged was a strong commitment to collaboration among all local partners, who finally saw the value of working together, including working towards joint commissioning of services and joint appointments, Lowther said. "We were late to it, but we are catching up."

Together the partners sketched out a series of principles "to get more for less", which included 'co-production' – helping communities to help themselves; personalisation of services, as far as possible; and prevention – "shifting the model away from where most money is spend on problems once they have happened to solving problems, thus preventing much larger expenditure in months to come."

The initiative has led to Birmingham being selected for the new 'Total Place' experiment which is piloting both a collaborative and preventative approach between public agencies in 13 locations in England.

In Birmingham, project themes include early intervention for children with behavioural difficulties; learning disabilities; mental health; reducing impact of drug and alcohol misuse; and combating gangs.

For each theme, the team will visit sites that are known to be innovating by collaborative working across agencies. They will also look at savings, since the project as a whole is "unashamedly about saving money, as well as improving services."

The key will be to put the citizen at the centre, Lowther said. "At the moment, if you are vulnerable young person, you will have masses of reviews by housing, social services, mental health etc, none of them talking to each other."

He illustrated the human failings of such a system with the poignant tale of a young man known to his family, 'Matt' (not his real name), who after a traumatic childhood had been adopted and had had behavioural problems at home and at school which had led to his exclusion; return to foster care; and drift into petty crime.

A huge amount of money had been spend by many public agencies on Matt, said Lowther, but at no time had any of them spoken to each other and worked out how to prevent further harm together, saving a fortune in the process.

"It doesn't have to be like that – we could do common reviews."

As part of Total Place, Birmingham had carried out an exercise mapping total public expenditure on the area, he said, and where it was spent, and it had come out as £7.2 billion a year, excluding pensions. "My first thought was, Gosh, that's a lot of money," Lowther said. "My second was, are we confident that this is being spent in the best possible way? I am pretty sure it is not."

Very little of that money is currently spent on prevention, for example, he said. "In the health service, less than 2% is spent on preventing ill-health. And far more is spent on employment benefits than on regeneration and job creation."

There may be some good reasons for this, Lowther admitted. Often, there was a lack of evidence as to which preventative measures actually work, for example: "policy evidence is strong in health, but weak in social care."

There are also problems with a mismatch of where savings accrue, he said. "For example, parenting classes have been shown to work, and for every £1 spent by council, £4 comes back to public sector. But only £1 of this comes back to the council itself, so we spend £1 to save £1 – that's OK, but not exciting. And the other partners get £3 back, for no action. So we are starting to have conversations about how we can get more payback."

Furthermore some major barriers to progress can only be addressed nationally, by ministers, Lowther said. One big stumbling block is the existence of short-term financial horizons, which make expenditure now impossible if savings are only accrued in several years' time. "So we need to talk to the Treasury about looking longer – can we look over a 3 or 5 year period, or 10 or 15 year periods?"

Conflicting performance management and regulatory or audit expectations on different public sector partners was another barrier at national level, he said. "Unless we have a single performance management structure for public services, it will not work: we will not be thinking about collaboration, we will be thinking about whether we will be sacked or not."

This is an edited version of a speech by Jason Lowther given at the Society of Information Technology Management's annual conference in Edinburgh. Dan Jellinek is editor of e-government bulletin

It's simpler to share than reinvent the wheel

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Many forget that a fundamental part of Total Place is the recognition and encouragement of similar programmes being run elsewhere

Much of the attention and coverage given to Total Place thus far has focused on the official 13 pilots chosen to lead on the project, which is understandable.

But the pilots do not, by any means, represent the only places where councils are working in partnership with local partner agencies to drive efficiencies and improve services.

A fundamental part of Total Place is both the recognition and encouragement of this sort of work elsewhere.

It was work done in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cumbria respectively – the 'pre-pilots' – that preceded the Total Place project, and work continues in all three areas. Although Total Place is ostensibly a project running until the Budget, the fundamental changes in service redesign that it is trying to bring about are very much for the long-term.

The number of these areas – now known as "parallel places" – continues to rise, as more and more local authorities tell us about the work they have done, are doing, or plan to do around the Total Place agenda. To name but a few examples: The 'Making Cambridgeshire Count' initiative designed to transform partnership working and public services; council and NHS partnership work in Herefordshire; Tower Hamlets piloting strategic commissioning; and there are many more.

The Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships (RIEPs) have given strong backing to the parallel places, helping to link them with pilots in their area, and some have provided funding to undertake similar work. Both the South West RIEP and Improvement East have funded almost all of their councils to do so. Local authorities have been building effective partnership working for some time as a response to the economic downturn and other pressures they face and have grabbed this agenda with both hands.

Parallel places have the arguable advantage of not having to report back to Whitehall with findings from their work, as the pilots had to do within quite a tight timescale – although evidence from parallel places was used alongside that of the pilots for the submission to Whitehall to inform the pre-Budget report.

It is also up to the parallel places to decide on the scale of the work going on, the themes they want to look at in more depth, and the way they go about it. In Suffolk, for example, work began by concentrating on building trust between the leaders of local agencies, rather than with the counting of local public spend as in the pilots.

The result is that an increasingly rich and varied tapestry of work is developing and the IDeA, alongside the rest of the LGA Group, is working hard to try to link up the diverse work going on all over the country.

By informing places which other areas are covering a similar theme, offering thematic support from our national advisors on issues such as adult social care, children and young people, and community safety, we aim to spread the learning and stop others reinventing the wheel. The first of a series of thematic seminars specifically aimed at parallel places will be held soon, offering opportunities for people from areas working on similar themes to meet and share learning.

Local authorities do not have to "apply" to become parallel places – if they are doing this sort of work, they already come under that definition. If there are places which would like to explore the idea, we are happy to provide any support we can.

People are welcome to join the conversation around the work at the dedicated Total Place Community of Practice, which provides a private forum for people to learn and share information.

To join the CoP and for further information and case studies, visit Total Place or the the IDeA or contact and www.idea.gov.uk, or contact Rachel.litherland@idea.gov.uk

Rachel Litherland is the national advisor on partnerships at the (IDeA)

Home office agrees fingerprint deal with Canada and Australia

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:20:34 GMT

More countries are expected to join ground-breaking scheme to help immigration officers spot bogus asylum seekers and foreign criminals

The home office has announced a new fingerprint sharing deal with Canada and Australia to help with the fight against international identity fraud.

Under the new data sharing agreement, the UK will be able to swap fingerprint information of foreign criminals and asylum seekers with the two Commonwealth countries.

Officials believe it will make the task of flagging up those migrants who try to hide their past from authorities easier, while ensuring personal information continues to be protected.

This ground-breaking agreement has been developed by the members of the Five Country Conference, which is a forum for cooperation on measures to improve immigration controls and border security. The United States will be joining shortly and New Zealand is considering legislation to join in the near future.

Each country will have the same ability to check fingerprints and for the first year of the agreement each country will be able to share 3,000 sets of fingerprints with partner countries - this figure will rise as the deal rolls out.

The collaboration will make it easier to detect those people with previous criminal histories in other countries, as well as speed up removals, and establish previously unknown identities.

The UK's Border Agency deputy chief executive, Jonathan Sedgwick, said: "We already have one of the toughest borders in the world and we are determined to ensure it stays that way.

"We are continuing to expand our watch-lists, work more closely with foreign governments to share information, and speed up the re-documentation of those being removed. This new agreement will help us identify and remove individuals whose identities were previously unknown but also improve public safety through better detection of lawbreakers and those coming to the UK for no good."

The protection of personal information is important to all the countries involved in this project and the specific measures that are being employed to protect privacy include:
* ensuring that all fingerprints remain anonymous and cannot be linked to an individual unless a match is detected between countries
* destroying fingerprints once a match has been completed with no fingerprint database being compiled; and
* using encryption and other security tools to protect files that are shared.

Location, location, location . . . and how to use it and share it

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:00:00 GMT

From flu pandemics, natural disasters and terrorism threats, it's no longer a case of 'need to know' but 'need to share; our expert panel heard during a recent roundtable on how geographic information might be better used

The need to respond to civil contingencies – from floods or 'flu pandemics to terrorism – is prompting public organisations to look again at how they gather and share data.

Geographic information is being used extensively by those planning security for the London 2012 Olympics, for example. But geographic information is also at its most effective when it supports, rather than supplants, the insights and experience of those on the ground.

During the 2007 floods, communities lost fresh water supplies because the electricity supply to water treatment plants was disrupted. But geographic information alone would not have linked a substation failure to the treatment plant, the need is for geographic intelligence which amongst other factors requires local insights.

We recently gathered a panel of experts to discuss the challenges faced by the public sector when it comes to gathering, and handling, location
information.

As last November's report by the Geographic Information Panel pointed out, too little government information (which it quoted 85 percent) is location based and is not being either connected or shared.

Improved risk management

The Place Matters report sets out a framework for using geographic information in the UK public sector, which it says will lead to better planning, improved risk management and better use of public sector resources. At the moment, though, such information is difficult to assemble or analyse reliably and there is too much duplication and too little re-use of the data.

One reason is that public sector organisations and departments tend to collect information solely for their own needs, without considering whether it can, or should, be shared. Too often, our panel suggested, the presumption is against sharing or linking data. There is a need for a paradigm change from "need to know" to "need to share".

The result, the experts suggest, is that decisions related to place might not be as well informed, or as effective, as they could be.

Given the state of the public finances, pressure can only grow to ensure that both the planning and execution of services are both efficient and effective. But unless public sector bodies consider location and know where to target their efforts, there is a real risk that spending will go to waste and not be fully optimised.

The experts and especially the geographers amongst them also believe that location information can be used to provide a much-needed boost to the economy, and promote "real efficiency gains" in public spending. This is especially the case in areas such as transport, where service improvements provide a significant economic multiplier effect.

Geographical information is also of enormous value to the private sector: property developers, retailers and farmers, need geographical information with to predict demand and fine-tune their offerings. The UK is a leading provider of geographical information systems (GIS) technologies and services, with location awareness a key part of our digital economy. But the public sector lags behind.

Sheer complexity of the situation

Central and local government holds spatial and location information for applications such as urban planning, providing services and for contingency and disaster planning. In addition, a vast amount of geographical information is collected every year by organisations such as the Ordnance Survey, the Met Office, the Environment Agency and even, through VAT returns and valuations, bodies such as the Treasury. However, for organisations that do share data it is the sheer complexity of the situation that often frustrates users: chargeable data is often well promoted but prohibitively expensive while free data is often hidden away and difficult to access. Our panel heard that from both a provider and consumer point of view it is difficult to ascertain what should be free of price and free to access.

However, such information is rarely shared, let alone connected. As a result organisations either have to assemble – and pay for – data that already exist elsewhere in the public sector, or plan services with less than full information.

"Part of the message of the location strategy is about developing good behaviour. It should not be 'not need to know' with data but 'need to share'," said one participant. There should be a culture of data sharing, albeit with the appropriate security and privacy safeguards.

Achieving this cultural shift, however, will take both time and resources. One reason is that collecting location data is expensive, and departments might not receive incentives for sharing – or even lose revenues by doing so.

Another, significant expense lies in maintaining data sets; a third comes in correlating information or putting it into a standardised format that other organisations can interpret. The Location Strategy report found that users of geographic information spend 80 percent of their time on collating and managing data and just 20 percent on analysis.

Or, as another expert puts it: "It is not just about location but about understanding what's happening – the who, what where and when. It is more sophisticated than just where events happen within a geo-location polygon."

This roundtable was sponsored by ESRI

New buying strategy for fire and rescue authorities

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Better value for money and millions of pounds of savings could be achieved by FRAs joining up to buy goods and services, says a new procurement strategy published by the department for communities and local government

Fire and rescue authorities (FRAs) are being encouraged to co-ordinate their buying in order to make significant savings - and also to consider their choice of suppliers.

The national procurement strategy for the Fire and rescue service in England, published by the department for communities and local government, is advising authorities to work together to achieve their joint needs while achieving best value through bulk buying.

By co-ordinating their buying, FRAs could save at least £3.5million a year from the £100million they spend on goods and services such as vehicles, ladders and breathing apparatus.

FRAs are also being encouraged to consider how their choice of suppliers can help increase career and training opportunities for local people to benefit the economy.

As part of the new strategy, communities secretary John Denham is encouraging FRAs to explore the potential for skills development, apprenticeships and innovation when joint-purchasing from suppliers.

"The new procurement strategy for the fire and rescue service will help authorities achieve value for money especially if they join up to buy a product they all need. More efficient purchasing by FRAs should enable them to save millions of pounds to make the taxpayers' pound go further," said Denham.

"But it is not just about what money is spent on, but how it is spent. If FRAs look at a wider range of suppliers, including smaller companies, they have the opportunity to find the best products to purchase, foster innovation, help to create jobs and support local business."

By widening the range of companies invited to tender, and including smaller and medium sized enterprises, increased demand for products may enable more jobs to be created. The strategy also recommends making it easier and less costly for smaller companies to apply by simplifying and standardising paperwork.

The strategy also recommends that FRAs using professional buying organisations - such as Buying Solutions, Central Buying Consortium, the National Policing Improvement Agency and Firebuy – will gain the most favourable contract terms and value for money for the taxpayer.
This strategy is just one part of wider government initiatives that aim to get better value for tax payers' money and support economic development.

The department for business innovation and skills announced recently that every small business will now have access free of charge to the government's website www.supply2government.gov.uk which is the official government portal for the advertisement of lower-value (typically below £100,000) contract opportunities.

What can the public sector learn from retailers?

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:14:00 GMT

While examples of good practices in public services are increasing, there is still an inordinate amount of organisational inertia, so what can we learn from the private sector where companies such as Tesco are masters of not only identifying but pre-empting their customers' needs

David Cameron believes the public sector has much to learn from Tesco. In a bid to increase customer satisfaction while facing savage budget cuts - more for less, according to George Osborne - public sector organisations might observe the way supermarkets have cut costs while sustaining, and even improving, customer service levels.

He may have a tendency to go for the headline-grabbing sound bite, but Cameron has hit the nail on the head. Experts have been expounding for years that the public sector should take inspiration from the private. But little progress has been made on effecting serious change in the complex public services arena.

While examples of good practice in public services are on the rise, too often public sector organisations suffer from lack of awareness of customer needs, cautious management and a widespread resistance to change. New initiatives are announced but allowed to stall, falling victim to organisational inertia. Critically, there is limited consequence for failure to implement these projects.

The same criticisms could hardly be levied at many quarters of the private sector, particularly the retail segment. Many retailers focus on identifying and pre-empting customer needs, adapting their practices to meet them.

Customer satisfaction is delivered while maximising efficiencies.

Supermarkets especially excel at squeezing more out of their organisations while leaving extra pounds in their and the customers' purse. Tesco has driven through continual customer improvements while scoring a significant increase to its bottom line, and Morrisons has achieved a remarkable turnaround in its fortunes. These organisations focus ruthlessly on implementing continuous improvements.

Tesco's strategy is dedicated to listening and responding to the consumer. It collects extensive data about customer preferences, which guides managers in making decisions on stock, display and pricing. It allows shoppers to feedback on their shopping experience by text, phone or email, with personalised responses forthcoming almost immediately.

Indeed, such an approach has its echo in the public sector. The NHS runs "national patient surveys" and local initiatives where patients may give instant feedback on their experiences and provide suggestions for improvement.

Tesco's senior managers may spend a week working in stores, but we recently met an NHS Mental Health Trust human resources director who had just finished working an early shift on one of the wards, seeing first hand the challenges facing frontline staff.

But these are two of the few examples of deep engagement with the customer experience in the public sector, which often struggles to progress innovations similar to its private counterparts.

There may be no shortage of teams and individuals gunning for and designing operational change. But, institutionally, there are barriers to that change, with the consequence that its execution is poor.

At Alvarez & Marsal, working with the corporate and public sectors, we see change programmes that would take weeks or months to implement in the corporate world take months or years in the public arena.

Faced with imminent and far-reaching budget cuts, the public sector must change its way of changing. Organisations need leaders who will dismantle the numerous institutional and cultural barriers that stand in the way of change. Small steps will transform their organisations into responsive institutions focused on efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Anticipating tougher financial conditions is critical. This year, many retailers have cut costs by a pessimistic 10 percent.

Monitor, the regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts, says that Trusts expect real increases of 3 to 4 percent a year, when the reality is more likely to be near zero.

The public sector needs to be realistic about the revenue picture.

Public service providers should learn from retailers that monitoring habits and interaction with its services will help identify the most effective methods for meeting the public's needs. All of this needs to be underpinned by measurement. While the public sector is increasingly evaluated from top to bottom, there is less focus on measurement and amendment of everyday activities.

The challenge is great. But, by scrutinising their private sector cousins' successful operational practices, public sector organisations could improve service levels while operating at lower cost.

Malcolm McKenzie is a managing director and David McCartney a senior director in the Performance Improvement practice of Alvarez & Marsal

MPs slam gulf in social work training

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:39:25 GMT

Social workers have too much work and too little coordinated training, say MPs

A "gulf" in understanding between educators and employers is dogging attempts to get social workers trained more effectively, according to today's report from the Commons' children, schools and families committee.

The MPs say employers and training bodies must work together "in tandem to produce effective training programmes" and want all training to be delivered through formal partnership of employers and higher education institutions. They also call for stronger national leadership for social work as a profession. National sector bodies need to be rationalised and their roles clarified, says the report, with a single body responsible for funding and commisioning social work degree courses and workforce planning, similar to the approach taken for teachers.

The report also expresses concern that too many "disparate initiatives" have been launched before the social work task force has had an opportunity to report.

But the MPs emphasise that the single biggest factor jeopardising better training for social workers is the huge workload that social workers face, which means managers cannot spare the time staff need to participate in training. Only a "substantial injection" of resources into frontline social work capacity will enable changes in training and professional development to take place, they say.

Private treatment centres' future in doubt

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:13:15 GMT

The future of independent treatment centres looks uncertain as NHS faces large bill to keep them open

Independent sector treatment centres, which have provided controversial private treatment for NHS patients, face an uncertain future as the NHS weighs up whether it can afford to continue paying for them.

The privately-run centres have provided more than 1.7m operations and other procedures since 2005. But they have been criticised; the first wave of five-year deals, due to end next year, gave private providers guaranteed volumes of patients and higher prices than those in the NHS.

Earlier this year, Professor Allyson Pollock, of the University of Edinburgh, who has been fiercely critical of the centres, published an article in the British Medical Journal saying no contracts should be renewed, and no new contracts should be signed until a proper independent evaluation was carried out of "actual treatments carried out, and payments made for work done along with value for money analysis".

Today, the government announced changes to the way contracts for the centres are awarded. New services will be commissioned by local primary care trusts and existing contracts wil be reviewed "on a case-by-case" bases. The centres will also be paid under the same pricing arrangements as NHS providers and services will be delivered under the same terms as those used by NHS providers.

Health minister Mike O'Brien said greater local control would enable the services offered by the centres to be integrated into local NHS plans. The changes will take effect in the next batch of contracts, due to be advertising from next month.

But he also revealed, in a newspaper interview, that as existing contracts expire, the NHS is likely to have to pay about £200m for operations that it agreed to buy but has not used, and another £200m to buy back premises built by the private sector operators.

Liverpool Direct boss extols shared platform

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:50:00 GMT

The chief executive of Liverpool's joint venture with BT extols the virtue of a shared platform

Advocates of shared services have had cause for frustration. Sir Peter Gershon provided a major boost for the cause in his 2004 efficiency review, but progress has been limited: most central government departments have been in no hurry to share systems or processes with others, and while there have been initiatives in local government these are matched by the caution shown by many authorities.

But as public finances tighten the pressure to find efficiencies will intensify, and authorities will have to think seriously about how to cut operating costs.

David McElhinney, chief executive officer of Liverpool Direct, believes the model he describes as a "shared platform" could offer a viable option for many bodies. Setting up a shared service is a collaborative process that can take a lot of time to get right, and be hindered by sensitivities over surrendering control to another public body. But a shared platform is already in place and available for a client organisation to begin using the service.

McElhinney acknowledges the similarities to an outsourced service but says a shared platform is different, in having been built specifically to provide economies of scale to public sector bodies. He talks in terms of high quality technology and tools that can help organisations extract more value from their business - claims most businesses would make for a similar service - but draws extra credibility from the fact that Liverpool Direct is a joint venture between BT and Liverpool city council.

Liverpool Direct has been around since 2001, initially to provide front and back office services for Liverpool city council. It began marketing itself to other authorities soon after, but has taken some time to find takers for the service. It is only over the past couple of years that it has found momentum. "We've been seeing more activity in the past two years than in the previous six with the shared platform," McEllhinney says.

Liverpool Direct now has contracts with four other councils, two central government departments, over 10 third sector bodies and quasi non-governmental organisations, a police service and 300 schools. Liverpool remains its biggest customer; its business includes the second largest revenues and benefits operation in the UK, taking in about £300m per year of the former and paying out £350m of the latter.

Another large customer is the Security Industry Authority, for which Liverpool Direct handles all the processes for licensing security staff, including the production and dispatch of identity cards and running the organisation's contact centre. It has also made inroads into the Building Schools for the Future programme, providing the technology in eight new schools in Liverpool, and has begun to provide services for registered social landlords, with recent deals with London Quadrant and Helena Partnerships.

McElhinney says Liverpool has claimed benefits on two fronts from the venture. BT provided the original investment; the operational savings have accrued to the point where in 2007-08 the city received £19.5m in cash benefits, through areas such as increased debt collection and reducing overpayment of benefits.

The city also has a 20% stake in Liverpool Direct, and while McElhinney says the details are commercially confidential, he confirms that Liverpool gets a return. He also expects the business to increase over the next couple of years as we move towards the end of the current comprehensive spending review period. "We are seeing more activity in the marketplace," he says. "People are seriously concerned about the future financial landscape and want to build more value as they move towards 2011."

This article is also on the Kable website