UPDATE TO JOINT PARTNERSHIP BOARD

16th May 2012

Bev Herring

Introduction

• First meeting of the New Joint Partnership Board

• Re-affirm principles of Statement of Partnership Intent

• Round up of achievements to date (summary)

• High level view of savings to date

• Discussion – transformation – changing the way we work

• Future items for JPB attention and regular update reporting.

Statement of Partnership Intent - Expected benefits / key outcomes

Sharing resources to deliver District Council services in East Suffolk more effectively and efficiently

• Financial savings (value for money)

• Efficiency gains

• Increased capacity & resilience

• Sharing skills and best practice

• Whilst protecting priority front line services

For our identified stakeholder groups

Shared Services Partnership Programme

Back office services – Perf, HR, Procurement, ICT, Property info etc.

Nov 2010 + 6 months (April 2011)

+ 12 months (October 2011)

+ 18 months (April 2012)

+ 24 months (October 2012)

Revenues & Benefits - Merge, Restructure, Systems etc.

Planning, DC & BC - Merge, Restructure, Systems etc; then Planning Policy

Environmental - Merge, Restructure, Systems etc.

Licensing, Legal & Democratic Service / Finance Service - review and merge

Housing - Merge, Restructure, Systems etc.

ICT joint infrastructure in progress and continuing 60% complete

Back office support required to support programme work from : ICT, HR, Finance, Legal, Performance Improvement Team – heavy involvement for until +18 months and then expected to taper off. Situation to be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

Regen areas (including Tourism & Sport) Merge, Restructure, Systems etc.

Service reviews include BPR activity (internally provided by BIT), moving customer access to front line etc.

Ongoing Customer Access Review – moving service to front line, method of delivery, locations of service etc.Ongoing Flexible Working Review – using technology to improve service delivery, including home working

Accommodation Review

Programme Progress – May 2012

Various team restructures to support changed ways of working, emerging situations, external influences etc.

Review Management Structure

ICT - Review now that infrastructure implemented

BAH : V5 : 15/05/2012

Continued reviews of business processes, systems and setup - all front line services

Alignment SCS & W-Norse – linked to ongoing work within internal services

Shared Services Programme – ongoing governance; delivery models; benefits realisation; best practice sharing; corporate projects; information & communication

Progress to date – support services

• Joint management structure & PA support and management structure reviewed twice since Oct ‘10

• Back office services : teams joined and working across Councils

• Back office services : most policies, processes and procedures reviewed and aligned

• Licensing service : joint team, now reviewing processes

• Democratic service : joint team, now reviewing processes

• Finance service : joint team, now reviewing processes

• Legal service : no change – discussions across Suffolk

• Q4 performance : level of staff sickness below comparators; staff survey undertaken and work in progress to address matters arising.

Progress to date – revenues & benefits

• Joint management team in place

• Processes and procedures reviewed

• Alignment of DIP & workflow completed

• On line forms implementation (faster service)

• Procurement of joint ICT application agreed via Anglia Revenues Partnership

• Implementation of joint ICT application in progress

• Further work ongoing to align bulk mailing and printing processes (across multiple authorities)

• Q4 performance reports : SCDC below target for new claims, WDC coming back into target for new claims

Progress to date – planning service• Joint Coastal Protection team in place (& reviewed)

• Ongoing programme of activity – benefits to localities

• Joint management team for development management & building control in place

• Development management and building control restructured to 3 area teams

• Procurement of joint ICT application in progress

• Processes and policies being reviewed / aligned

• Joint management for Planning Policy in place

• Further activity to be undertaken to streamline activities – in planning stages

• Q4 performance – no issues emerging

Progress to date – environmental service• Joint management team in place across whole service

• Joint coverage on H&S matters (with Gt Yarmouth BC) and policies & procedures aligned

• Environmental Protection and Food Safety Teams working closely together (full restructure in progress)

• Premises inspections (food) aligned

• Processes being reviewed and aligned

• Incoming calls for Environmental Protection taken at Lowestoft call centre

• Work in progress for electronic document processing

• Q4 performance – no emerging issues

Progress to date – housing

• Joint management team in place for Private Sector Housing

• Processes and procedures being aligned

• Restructure in progress across teams (Private Sector Housing / Homelessness)

• Shared experience and expertise where possible

• Mindful of potential future issues with introduction of Universal Credit

• Q4 performance – no emerging issues

Progress to date – community & economic (CES)

• A complex area with impacts to / from many other council services and externally

• Priorities for future service provision agreed

• Restructure of CES management team in planning stage

• Total restructure of CES for completion by end 2012

• Joint holiday guide produced for 2012

• Teams working together of various initiatives / projects

• Team members covering for each other at various meetings / seminars

• Enterprise Zone activity in progress; recruitment for AAP posts complete

Progress to date – joint ICT infrastructure

• Initial estimates for completion of infrastructure work revised as work has progressed

• Work to join & improve infrastructures now 60% complete

• Large amount of activity in progress

• Team structure bedding in – transfer of responsibilities underway

• Improvement of “customer focus” in progress

• Emerging technologies – pilots – tests – case studies

Progress to date – the financial benefits

• Cost & benefit apportionment models in place

• Update to benefits picture recently completed

• “Savings” for 2012/13 now £1.5m (was £900k)

• “Savings” overall now total £6.4m (was £4.2m)

• This is a benefits model which includes “cashable and non cashable” elements

• Amounts roughly 50:50 split

Progress to date – the reality

• We have taken vast steps forward on our shared journey

• It has been fraught at times, but rewards are clearly demonstrated

• There are issues to be resolved in some areas

• There have been constant “take over” concerns

• We have learned lessons every step of the way

• We have applied those lessons to the next steps we take

• We are already developing stage two

• Reminder – not impacting priority front line services

• And – apart from PPM role, all within existing resources

Stage Two

• Continuation of ongoing work

• Consolidation of changes (but not standing still)

• Ongoing business process re-engineering (whatever we call it)

• Working with other partners

• Review the delivery & governance models in place

• From change to transformation .........

Transformation

MONEY

EXPECTATIONSTECHNICAL PROGRESS

Transformation• Money:

• We need to be using technology to help us save

• The targets we need to achieve over the next 2 to 3 years are considerable.

• Technical solutions will also help our customers (save, do business better etc.)

• We can take advantage of scale (cheaper, more resilient via partnership)

• Expectations:

• Customer expectations are constantly changing

• Central government expects more from us (and for us to follow their lead – DVLA for example)

• Other (commercial) organisations deliver technical solutions that we’re measured against

• We can help to change expectations – deliver faster, cheaper, make things easier

• We, individually, can be helping to change expectations and getting our customers and teams to think more about technical solutions

Transformation

Technical progress

• Is increasingly rapid – a very high percentage of adults now have a mobile phone and could use these to access service• Approach to delivery is different – incremental, improves in stages rather than wait

until all complete• Emerging areas such as social media – need to use it to advantage rather than being driven by it• Suffolk Coastal and Waveney seen as leading the field of shared service - why can’t we be leading the technical field too?

Transformation – projects underway

• Accommodation projects

• Single public sector estate

• Document management (and use)

• Printing (distributed / central / equipment / reduction)

• Intranet (one of)

• Internets (two of)

• Mindful of security, confidentiality etc.

• Flexible workforce supported by the right service based technology & tools

• Cultural change too

Information On Line

External

Staff

Members

Other Organisations

Partners

Strategy / Policy : Security; ICT; Communications; Customer Access; Accommodation; others ......

INFORMATION / COMMUNICATION / ADMINISTRATION / TRANSACTIONS / CONSULTATION

Coastline / In TouchTourism Payments / Book it / Report it / Press releases

Intranet surveyPromote more use Information repositoryDocument accessUseful directoryDaily / Weekly / MonthlyPerformance Reporting & managementPayroll / Expenses / etcIDEAS (re-vamped)

All of the staff stuff plusWard information

Information to enable transactions on our behalf (and vice versa)Information to enable communications (right person, right time , right place)

Outward performance reporting?Discuss other applications

Internets (2 of, but 1 engine)Intranet (1 of)Phones / SMS / Social MediaAppsAnd ........

Always two way (at least) : IN and OUT TO and FROMPUSH and PULL

Finally

• Future topics for discussion?

• Regular reporting requirements?