Collaborative Efficiency Programme
The Collaborative Efficiency Programme has been reviewed over the last few months by the Improvement and Efficiency Leadership Group led by Janet Callender, Chief Executive of Trafford Council.
Janet has secured the commitment from Chief Executives and Leaders to the delivery of a new collaborative improvement and efficiency programme and confirmation of their support. Given the unprecedented scale of efficiency savings AGMA authorities have to deliver over the next three years, the programme will be increasing the pace of delivery and change.
10 Priority Theme Areas have been identified through the review process as having the greatest potential for collaboration. Future efforts will focus on the 3 – 4 highest priority areas, which will provide the greatest returns for AGMA and Partners.
Discussions have centred on prioritising the 10 priority themes. These have been categorised into Tier 1 & 2 with Tier 1 themes being highest priority. Currently, the Tier 1 themes are:
- Adult Services
- Children’s Services
- Corporate / back office shared services
- Procurement and Commissioning
And the Tier 2 themes:
- ICT
- Vehicle PMM & Social Transport
- Property and Asset Management
- Workforce Development
- Income Generation and consistency of charging
- Customer Contact and channel migration
Business cases and delivery plans are currently being developed for collaborative opportunities across all priority areas ready for implementation on the 1st April 2011.
Highlights and achievements!
Social Transport – the Social Transport team has worked with GMPTE on a shared technology project which has already seen participating authorities saving almost £70K. On top of these savings, there have been other benefits, in
Transactional HR - the Switch project has already identified the potential for £1m savings through the joining together of HR and Payroll services and for the use of one system across three authorities.
Workforce Development – we are currently working on establishing a joint approach to e-learning across all 10 local authorities. If we shifted 10% of our learning and development courses, we currently have over 4000 courses, to e-learning we have the potential to save over £3m.
Adult Social Care – all AGMA authorities are signed up to working together to develop a more joined up approach to the provision of Community Equipment. The first stage of the project is to develop an AGMA wide catalogue of equipment, which will be completed early Jan 2011. The next stage will be a joint approach to procurement of equipment which would lead to savings of up to £600k if all authorities participated
ICT - One of the sub-groups is evaluating opportunities for AGMA to share hosting, licensing and a support mechanism for corporate IT applications. It has already identified a priority list of applications to consolidate into one AGMA-wide package and has pin-pointed the largest suppliers of applications across AGMA with a view to simplifying contract management, procurement and cost in 2011.
Customer Contact – The Customer Contact Group is reviewing the out-of-hours call handling across AGMA with the aim of identifying the efficiency opportunities to be gained by sharing resources and standardising and simplifying processes and policies. The services being looked at include adults and children’s duty teams, building control, highways and environmental health.
That’s all for now! But do look out for the latest developments in our New Year newsletter. In the mean time if you would like any further information or have any questions please contact Cynthia Thompson, AGMA Collaborative Efficiency Programme on 0161 912 4808 or cynthia.thompson@trafford.gov.uk
