iESE TRANSFORM Issue 4

TRANSFORM ISSUE 4

Transforming back onto the world stage

Belfast’s journey to becoming one of the top destinations for UK city breaks

Innovation in Fire How Cheshire Fire & Rescue reduced injuries by 70%

Contents

Transform - Issue 4

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Editor’s letter

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Focus & Comment

iESE Chief Executive reviews local government as the core pacesetter within the public sector

Opinions on local government issues

Transforming back onto the world stage How Belfast has transformed into one of the leading destinations for UK city breaks

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Rising to the top

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Latest News

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utting innovations at the heart of fire P prevention

Learning Pool’s Rising E-Learning Star, Anton Nisbeth explains how his apprenticeship has helped boost his local government career

All the latest news and events from iESE

Cheshire Fire and Rescue explain how they are improving their service through innovative thinking

iESE Introduces…

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This month we introduce Ray Harding – Chief Executive, Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk

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Transform with us…

Discover the benefits and potential savings your council can make by working in conjunction with us

iESE Transform Issue 4

Editor’s letter

Editor’s Letter I t is a credit to everyone in local government, that we still remain the core pacesetter within the public sector to finding further efficiencies and meeting conflicting pressures whilst continually improving services.

Across the UK, iESE is working with councils with a track record of innovation and which are taking a proactive lead to be fit for the challenges that the next five years will bring. Utilising the many ground breaking opportunities available to them, they are ensuring those critical and much relied upon frontline services not only remain in place, but are further improved upon and cheaper to run.

As even more councils work together in partnership arrangements, we are seeing great successes in realising even more savings and avoiding costs.

In this issue of Transform, we learn how Belfast City Council is transforming services and investing in the area to boost its economy, create jobs and education opportunities. Now one of the top ten leading destinations for tourism in the UK, Chief Executive Peter McNaney explains how the council has embraced the many cultural opportunities available. With Northern Ireland’s local government structure being reformed from 26 councils to just 11, we watch with interest how the new structure will increase powers and spearhead more integrated services.

We also hear how Learning Pool’s Rising E-Learning Star, Anton Nisbeth’s apprenticeship with Ealing Council has benefitted his local government career and how Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service has managed to decrease the areas’s fire injuries by 70% over recent years.

The Service’s Head of Community Fire Safety, Evan Morris, explains how his team is working with the local community to educate them on fire safety and also how the service’s innovative high-tech Command Training Suite, believed to be one of the most advanced in Europe, allows firefighters to train within real life emergency scenarios.

All fantastic examples of the innovation that is taking place across the UK. Transform Magazine provides you with a platform to showcase your successes and we are always keen to hear more from you, If you would like to provide an article or learn more, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01883 732 957.

Enjoy!

Dr Andrew Larner Chief Executive, iESE

iESE Transform Issue 4

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Focus & Comment

Focus

Comment Innovation: the key to success Innovation in political and managerial leadership is key to sustained improvement. The priorities in local government and the models of leadership in the new public sector landscape are changing in this unparalleled era. There is a need for adaptive leadership, culture change, commercial focus, collaboration alliances and community enablement to drive the pace of transformation needed.

Pass it on iESE acts as a gateway to ensuring public bodies can learn from each other. Dedicated to continuously finding new innovative ways of working that benefit all, we are developing an annual programme of Innovation in Leadership Exchanges to share thinking on how public services, whilst facing such complex demands with significantly less funds, are transforming to be fit for the future.

Aimed at shaping, developing and testing ideas and practice for all to share, the events will center on high-level engagement from the public, private and not for profit organisations. There will be no fee as attendance will be by invitation only.

For further information on upcoming events and iESE services please call 01883 732 957.

Those councils with a track record of innovation are taking a proactive lead to be fit for the challenges that the next five years will bring. They are utilising the many ground breaking opportunities arising to ensure that those critical and much relied upon frontline services not only remain in place, but are further improved upon and cheaper to run.

At iESE, we are now seeing some leaders adopting a pragmatic approach to thinking way beyond immediate delivery to a cultural shift that the sector has not experienced before. Strategic plans based on local solutions are anything but new, however these are now being developed to contain more commercial operating approaches that not only deliver solid services but ones that bring in steady streams of income.

In order to respond to the significant scale of the challenges ahead, a variety of effective models are being developed, including in-house direct delivery, within partnerships, commissioning and procuring services, as well as the development of trading companies to achieve best value and to generate reinvestment.

Councils provide over 800 services so finding new ways of delivering many will take some time but there are ample opportunities out there.

Social Keep up to date with all the latest iESE news and events by following us on Twitter @iESELtd

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iESE Transform Issue 4

Innovating With our roots firmly in local government, we’re here to support the transformation of local public services.

By researching new ways of working, we’re developing tomorrow’s solutions with our customers. Our insight and fresh thinking, allied to our delivery experience, will give you a clearer future to today’s challenges.

To take the first step towards transforming your council’s performance, contact us at enquiries@iese.gov.uk or visit www.iese.gov.uk Transforming public services together.

iese

Your transformation social enterprise

iESE Transform Issue 4

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Feature

Transforming back onto the world stage Belfast has transformed into one of the leading destinations for UK city breaks. Peter McNaney, Chief Executive of Belfast City Council, explains how...

Almost 7,000 police officers and firemen from 67 countries across the world descended on Belfast in August this year.

They were in the city to participate in the World Police and Fire Games 2013, an event second only in size to the Olympics in terms of the number of competitors. It proved to be the busiest time in living memory for the city’s hotels, with rooms almost completely booked out for a 10-day period.

For many, the brave decision by Belfast City Council a year earlier in 1997 to build the Waterfront Hall concert and conference venue was crucial.

Successfully hosting such a major international event is itself a reason to be cheerful for any city, but for Belfast it was even more than that. While it is still susceptible to sporadic outbreaks of unrest, it was a sign of how far a city, perhaps best known for ‘The Troubles’ not so long ago, has travelled in recent years.

Today, Belfast is one of the leading destinations for city breaks in the UK and Ireland. TripAdvisor named it as one of the UK’s top 10 destinations, the national Friends of the Elderly organisation awarded it the friendliest city in the UK for older people while similarly renowned tour guides such as France’s Le Guide de Routard, Fodor’s and Lonely Planet have been fulsome in praise of the hotels, bars,

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restaurants, culture and friendliness of the people.

Its tourist figures continue to grow and buck the global trend of decreasing visitors. August broke all previous records for hotel room occupancy while the number of cruise ships calling in Belfast also set a new high this year with 58 ships bringing 110,000 visitors.

The city has also a young, highly educated population and has attracted the likes of the New York Stock Exchange and other major employers of international repute such as Citibank and IKEA – the latter locating their first store on the island of Ireland in the city.

Other global brands who have a presence in the city include Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Liberty Mutual and Cybersource.

So how has such a transformation come about in not much more than a decade? Clearly, the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 was a major milestone but there still needed to be a willingness to take risks and exploit the advantages that could be realised from the new order.

For many, the brave decision by Belfast City Council a year earlier in 1997 to build the Waterfront Hall concert and conference venue was crucial. While developing such a venue would be obvious for most cities, Belfast was still enduring bombings and civil unrest on the street and to build an architecturally pleasing iconic building, with a substantive glass frontage, was a brave decision at that time.

The new development was located on the bank of the city’s River Lagan, much of which was derelict

iESE Transform Issue 4

Feature

iESE Transform Issue 4

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Feature

and badly run down. And what followed was the regeneration of the entire area, led by the Laganside Corporation, and the city’s transformation was underway.

The Hilton Hotel Group and BT were amongst the major organisations to invest in new landmark buildings.

Last year, its political parties instigated a £150 million investment programme for the city The council then developed the old Gasworks site, just south of the city centre. Halifax Bank of Scotland and the Radisson Hotel moved in. More recently, the shopping experience of the city was transformed with the development of the upmarket Victoria Centre, one of the finest and most modern shopping complexes in Europe which has attracted many leading brand names.

Alongside these physical developments, the City Council played a leading role in developing

an events strategy. The city successfully bid to host the prestigious Tall Ships event in 2009 and that set in motion a new approach to securing major events that put the city in a new light.

The expected attendance of 400,000 people was doubled and with hotel rooms booked to capacity, restaurants, bars and shops all benefitting from the influx of visitors, the economic boost of around £10 million was there for all to see.

The city then successfully bid to host MTV’s European Music Awards in 2011, for many this was the event that put Belfast on the map internationally. It proved itself capable of hosting major events and with the likes of international superstars like Lady GaGa, Bruno Marks, Jessie J, Katie Perry and Justin Beiber all in town, the eyes of the world were on Belfast and liked what it saw.

The response of its people, its public and private sector and the amazing atmosphere surrounding the event led to MTV’s parent group, Viacom, saying it had been the most successful EMAs ever and commented on the ‘can do’ attitude they came across everywhere in the city.

Next up was the centenary of the launch and sinking of the Titanic in 2012.

The tragic fate of the ship meant there was an uneasy relationship between Belfast and the legend that was Titanic. For a large part of the 20th century, people didn’t talk about the fact that the ship had been built in the city, whether it was a sense of shame or respect for the dead – or both - it is hard to know.

Slowly but surely a little sentence coined from the famous Belfast sense of humour - ‘it was alright when it left here’ - actually became a meaningful statement. The fact that the Titanic was a remarkable engineering feat and had been developed through incredible human endeavours dawned on its citizens.

The City Council developed a memorial garden in the grounds of its impressive City Hall, the only place in the world that all 1,512 victims of the tragedy are individually named in commemoration. The council also contributed £10 million to the development of the new £100 million Titanic Belfast attraction, with the rest of the funding coming from central Government and the private sector.

There were initial concerns about the ability of the attraction to meet its break-even target of 300,000 visitors per annum, but in its first year it attracted 800,000 visitors and crossed the one million threshold after just 15 months.

Belfast is now rightly confident of its association with Titanic and can rightly claim to be the must visit location for enthusiasts – so-called ‘Titanoraks’ – the world over. They can visit the place where it was built and launched and trace the story through an interactive, leading edge visitor’s centre and visit the most complete memorial to those who perished.

Regeneration planning

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iESE Transform Issue 4

iESE

Among the key functions to transfer from central to local government will be planning applications, urban regeneration and local economic development.

This will all come into place on 1 April 2015 and will result in a lot of upheaval and change – and there is a lot of work to do between now and then, both legislatively and logistically.

Belfast is a transformed city and it will continue to change for the better during the next few years.

Across the water: The Titanic Belfast building The city’s progress in recent years was threatened like most cities across the world with the global economic recession. There has undoubtedly been negative impacts in terms of developments and investment, with major shops and businesses closing. But the city has managed to stave off the worst effects and is continuing to bounce back.

It is developing a world class reputation in creative industries, with local companies and students engaged in making animated computer games and television programmes for global markets.

The city, with its Titanic Film Studios, is fast becoming the location of choice for major TV and film companies, including HBO and its renowned Game of Thrones.

The City Council continues to lead the way. Last year, its political parties instigated a £150 million investment programme for the city to boost the economy through major and local physical developments and create job and education opportunities, with particular emphasis on young people and the long term unemployed.

Belfast City Council, which has played a leading role in the city’s transformation, is also facing a period of change. Local government is being reformed as part of the Northern Ireland Executive’s plan to make it stronger and more effective, with more integrated and targeted services. The current 26 councils will become 11 with increased powers as well as increased geographical areas.

It is one of 10 cities across the UK to receive funding from Westminster to ensure the city becomes ‘superconnected’ – meaning it will be at the leading edge of communications technology with high speed broadband and wi-fi available city wide by 2015.

iESE Transform Issue 4

At the turn of the century, Belfast was one of the world’s leading industrial cities, famous for shipbuilding and linen. It is now well placed to return to the world stage.

About the author...

Peter McNaney has been Chief Executive of Belfast City Council since January 2002. A Solicitor by profession, Peter has worked for the council in a range of different posts for the past 28 years.

Serving on many external boards, including the Council of the Law Society, Peter has also chaired the governing body of Belfast Metropolitan College, as well as a number of citywide partnerships including the Belfast Strategic Health Partnership, Belfast Resilience and the Community Safety Partnership.

Peter was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2013 for services to Local Government and the Community.

Belfast’s boundary will be enlarged to take in parts of two neighbouring councils, Castlereagh and Lisburn, resulting in a 20 per cent increase in population from 281,000 to 337,000.

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Rising to the top

Rising to the top Learning Pool’s Rising E-Learning Star, Anton Nisbeth explains how his apprenticeship has helped boost his local government career.

I began my apprenticeship back in January 2011 with Ealing Council, working as part of the Organisational Development Team where I provided support to ensure the learning and development needs of all employees across the authority. A large part of my role was also to work with Learning Pool to develop a new e-Learning platform.

I remember my first experience of a council meeting with fondness. It was with Ealing’s internal marketing team and Learning Pool’s account manager. We were there to discuss our concept of the new platform and bounce ideas around. The fact that I was new to the environment was irrelevant as I fed off of their enthusiasm and eagerly began working on our concept.

Within two weeks of the project going live, I left my administrative duties behind and was given a lead role in Ealing’s Dynamic Learning Environment

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Within two weeks of the project going live, I left my administrative duties behind and was given a lead role working with Ealing’s subject matter experts in its Dynamic Learning Environment, which meant extensive communication directly with Learning Pool.

Throughout the project, Learning Pool provided invaluable support, assistance and expertise, enabling us to widen the e-learning project even further than planned. Nine months later, our baby was born.

Named ‘eLearn’, it was launched with 25 modules covering health and safety, ICT as well as employee and management development. Already over 3,000 people were being given the chance to develop their necessary skills whilst on the job and not lose hours sitting in a classroom.

Within a few months we were identifying future benefits and decided to refresh and further develop our e-learning offering with more tools and resources.

Working with a People and Organisational Development Consultant, we soon developed our strategy, working closely and listening to users and with Learning Pool to explore new modules. Soon after, we were able to increase our offer by five modules that included the chance for users to take part in forums and also learn from video footage.

iESE Transform Issue 4

Anton Nisbeth is presented the Rising Star award by Learning Pool Directors Paul McElvaney and Mary McKenna At ‘Learning Pool Live 2012’ I was fortunate enough to receive the ‘Rising Star’ Award for my efforts over the previous two years. It was a most rewarding end to both the project and my apprenticeship.

Since then I’ve been working within the council’s Adult Learning Team, as a Learning Programme Officer. This post enables me to use the skills that I learned whilst with Learning Pool, as I am now coordinating and managing systems and a vast amount of courses available to Ealing’s residents. Whilst it is not specifically e-learning at the moment,it is a direction that my team is looking to move towards and one that I fully intend to be part of and share my knowledge.

Working with Learning Pool and Ealing Council has given me the opportunity to move quickly up the local government career ladder and I am truly grateful to them. Online

iESE Transform Issue 4

access is growing at a rapid pace and online learning is now widely used and recognised. Learning Pool have not only been able to grow with it but are also driving it forward as we all look to new ways of learning and saving stretched budgets.

Throughout the project, Learning Pool provided invaluable support, assistance and expertise, enabling us to widen the e-learning project even further than planned.

About Learning Pool Learning Pool has delivered tailored online learning solutions to over one million people in the UK. Customers have saved more than £50 million and include local authorities, Parliament, emergency services, housing associations as well as private sector organisations.

‘Learning Pool Live’ this year is taking place in three locations across the UK. Each event will provide inspiration and practical advice as well as help lay the foundations to forge ahead and build a career in local government.

For more information, visit www.learningpool.com

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News & Events

Latest news Cheshire East Council latest authority to join iESE Cheshire East Council has become the latest local authority to join iESE, putting it at the heart of championing sector led improvement.

Impressed with iESE’s solid track record of saving local government over £270m, Cheshire East Council has joined 15 other councils to help public bodies find new innovative ways of delivering improved services at reduced cost.

Currently, iESE is supporting change in eight to ten councils at any one time across a wide range of areas including corporate management and leadership; procurement, human resources, social care and waste management.

Working with council staff, it is ensuring services are being delivered in the most flexible way to suit both local authorities and service users.

As a premier practice of the Institute of Consulting, iESE offers a much cheaper option to ensuring council staff gain the skills to carry on their own transformation and thereafter are able to support iESE in transforming other councils.

Being a local government mutual means that iESE’s legal status also allows it to provide a neutral space where councils can share their services and grow partnerships over time without red tape and bureaucracy.

Nominations now open for iESE’s 5th Annual Improvement and Efficiency Awards 2014 As all of us in local government know, excelling in spite of severe financial pressure has now become a way of life. With our communities depending heavily on their much relied upon services, sometimes the teams of staff working behind the scenes to keep them going are taken for granted by residents.

Across the country, councils continue to excel in developing new ways of working and transforming local public service delivery. As local government’s first Improvement and Efficiency Social Enterprise, we are committed to supporting the sector

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in improving services, reducing costs and ensuring that knowledge is shared to strengthen sector-led improvement.

To honour the dedication of those who are improving people’s lives every single day and to celebrate the latest innovations and truly ground breaking models of working that are taking place, our fifth annual Improvement and Efficiency Awards Ceremony will take place on Tuesday 4 March 2014 at Church House, Westminster.

Nominations are now open until 24 December 2013 and it is hoped that public bodies will take the opportunity to nominate a team, or partner, for any of the awards listed below. Nomination criteria, together with our 2013 winners and other related information can be found at www.iese.gov.uk/event/awards2014.

A judging panel for each of the awards, led by elected members of the iESE Board, will select the shortlisted nominations who will be informed of their success by 31 January 2014. All shortlisted nominees will receive two complimentary tickets to the Awards ceremony.

Connecting People – open to public sector organisations or their voluntary sector partners, this award is for the organisation, department or project deemed to have done most in transforming the way local people access services.

Delivering through Efficiency - open to public sector organisations or their voluntary sector partners, this award will be presented to the organisation, department or project deemed to have done most in either reducing the costs of services whilst maintaining service equality, or increased income to make services more sustainable.

Working Together - open to public sector organisations or their voluntary sector partners, this award will be presented to the organisation, department or project that has instigated the most impressive programme of shared working with other organisations, local authorities, local businesses or national organisations.

Transforming local services - open to public sector organisations or their voluntary sector partners, this award will be presented to the organisation or department for a project deemed most innovate in transforming the way services are delivered.

Transformation in Health and Social Care - open to public sector organisations or their voluntary sector partners, this award will be presented for the project, department or partnership showing the most progress in developing markets and services in health and social care Transformation in Waste and Environment - open to public sector organisations or their voluntary sector partners, this award will be presented in developing waste management and environmental services.

Entrepreneur Award – open to private and third sector organisations, this award is for the organisation developing and/or bringing to market new innovative technologies and/ or services that can transform the delivery of a local public service.

Fire and Rescue Project of the Year - this award will be presented for the Fire Service or member of staff deemed to have delivered the most innovative project in transforming fire services.

Police Project of the Year – this award will be presented for the Police Service or member of staff deemed to have delivered the most innovative project in transforming Police Services.

Council of the Year – this award will be presented to the local authority deemed outstanding in terms of its improved performance and/or increased efficiency over the previous year.

Events Tuesday 4th March 2014

Innovation in Leadership Exchange London

Tuesday 4th Marrch 2014

Improvement & Efficiency Awards

London (nominations close 24/12) To find out more about any of these events, contact us at

01883 732 957

iESE Transform Issue 4

Putting innovation at the heart of fire prevention Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service (CFRS) has seen a 70% decrease in fire injuries over recent years. Interventions and prevention have been a major factor in that decrease. Head of Community Fire Safety, Evan Morris, explains how…

CFRS believes that prevention is better than cure and over a number of years we have pushed the boundaries working in partnership to improve outcomes. In March we were extremely proud to be awarded by iESE, winning their prestigious ‘Fire and Rescue Service of the Year’. The ceremony focused on innovation and efficiency and allowed us to showcase our groundbreaking work across the UK.

We are also working with the Deafness Support Network to ensure Cheshire’s 150,000 deaf people are educated and fitted with specialist smoke alarms and we sit on the MARAC (Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference) for domestic violence enabling the offer of advice and liaison with the appropriate agencies with concerns when visiting certain homes.

Over time, our strategy has been to develop a range of interventions designed to significantly reduce risk as well as the need for emergency intervention. So far we’ve managed to achieve a reduction of 70% in the number of injuries in fires and a 41% reduction in house fires. In the most recent Audit Commission report, we were judged as one of only five fire services in the country who were ‘performing strongly’ – a judgment that we work tirelessly to maintain.

And when the snow and ice hits, the ‘Snow Angel’ scheme ensures that the most vulnerable residents are still assisted with their health problems, get a hot dinner and have their prescriptions picked up.

With a budget of £1.4m and a dedicated team of 92 working on a range of community safety activity, we are constantly aiming to reduce deaths and injury and concentrate on investment in prevention. But we cannot do it alone. We have an excellent working relationship with our local police force, ambulance service and probation service as well as local charities and community groups.

Joining up our working practices mean we can achieve the results we need and it’s more cost effective as we’ve been able to shift funding from frontline emergency responses to early intervention.

Much of our firefighters’ time is now spent providing on-location advice and help such as giving Home Safety Assessments to the over over-65s. 370,000 assessments have already been carried out and thanks to a shared agreement with Age UK, they’re not only raising fire awareness but are able to assess their possible up and coming needs, for example mobility aids, meals on wheels, personal care and even the possibility of the onset of dementia. www.iESE.gov.uk

Our firefighters truly provide role model status for the county’s young people. Educating them about the dangers of arson and being able to communicate with the area’s ‘hardest to reach’ groups is a significant achievement.

‘Respect’ courses are run in local schools, providing a number of courses designed to work with younger people and there are 24 Prince’s Trust twelve week programmes facilitated each year. Additionally there are Fire Cadet Units at each of the 24 fire stations that not only provide young people with an insight into working within a uniformed service but also encourage young people to develop while promoting self discipline, team work and citizenship.

And when they aren’t putting out fires or educating the public, they are training in the high-tech Incident Command Training Suite. Believed to be one of the most advanced in Europe when it first opened in 2010, it incorporates a multiuser 3D simulation environment using virtual reality software that is capable of recreating any type of fire or major incident within a classroom environment. Its multi-screen display creates a 360 degree view of any incident and allows the training facilitators to observe proceedings via CCTV along with playback to educate firefighters on the results.

For more information, please visit www.cheshirefire.gov.uk

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Personal Profile

iESE Introduces…

Personal Profile: Ray Harding

Chief Executive, Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk

With a background that takes in working in the private and voluntary sectors prior to joining the public sector working, I recently completed a decade with the Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk.

Just ten years ago we’d complain bitterly if the increase in government grant failed to match the level of inflation. Here in West Norfolk we’d maintained a very traditional service delivery model of local government. Sure we had outsourced refuse collection but everything else was directly delivered by us. We had retained our housing stock and the structure and focus of the organisation was geared almost entirely towards delivery services to the public.

The 2003 election brought the first wind of change, a new Conservative administration with a relentless focus on cost reduction. Private sector downsizing consultants quickly arrived with a brief to reduce the Council’s headcount by at least 10% without adversely impacting on service delivery – very much a taste of things to come, and many useful insights secured.

Having slimmed down, the next area of focus was the Council’s housing stock. Decades of under investment had left the stock a long way short of the decent homes standard.

The only realistic option for the Council was to create a housing association with the capacity to bring stock up to the modern standards. Two years and many months of fraught negotiations with what is now Freebridge Community Housing ensued.

Today it’s nearing completion of its decent homes work with a final

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£30 million investment in its one major deck access estate, and is now a valued partner to the Council in much of our community work.

However, we had little time to digest this responsibility change before faced with the spectre of Local Government Reorganisation.

Triggered by a bid from Norwich City Council to seek unitary status, the County Council quickly got behind a counter proposal for a Unitary Norfolk. The new coalition government in 2011 finally abandoned the unitary proposals for Norfolk and Dereham.

In the meantime the credit crunch and long running economic downturn had very quickly impacted on the Council’s own finances. Firstly we had to drive out as much cost as possible as quickly as possible undertaking a set of root and branch service reviews across the organisation.

We needed to take out sufficient expenditure in 2010/11/12 to see us through to 2015/6. The second aspect was to maximise earned income and reduce dependency on government grant support.

Whilst some of this remains work in progress, we now manage off street car parking across two districts and on street car parking across four. We’re negotiating further expansion of this business with a local general hospital and FE college and our CCTV business supplies services another local authority, a hospital, private businesses and a housing association.

shared management posts with a neighbouring Council have contributed to a reduction in net cost by around 25% of our 2010/11 net expenditure. Council Tax has risen by just 3% over the past eight years and our car parking charges have been frozen for three years.

As we move towards the 2015/16 spending review we’re implementing a new Leisure Trust / Local Authority controlled company model to provide a more commercially focused and tax efficient model, alongside a number of new ventures as we face up to the ongoing austerity regime.

Outside of work, my greatest passion aside of my own family, is the work I’m able to do with a small educational charity in the Gambia. Sponsoring three children’s education for the past eight years and seeing them develop and learn is akin to having three extra grandchildren. Helping to raise funds to pay teachers and build new classrooms for the charity’s expanding school continues to provide a real point of interest each year when I visit.

Our fortnightly bin collections and weekly food collection service saves us over £1 million a year and our shared services and

iESE Transform Issue 4

Transform with us!

Be a part of…

Owned, led and governed by councils, we are a not-for-profit social enterprise, here to help public bodies throughout the UK deliver improved services at lower cost. Our highly skilled team can help you deliver groundbreaking money-saving solutions to almost any public service.

When iESE works with you to save your authority money and improve its services, it also transfers its skills to your authority’s staff. Not only does this mean that you can sustain your transformation, it also means that you can become a part of iESE and help other authorities transform.

With over 75% of UK councils now using our services and other public bodies requesting to work with us, our knowledge and expertise is being shared with thousands every single day.

By using our services you have the option of becoming an owner.

Whether you want to own a part of the business or if you want to have a leadership role for the mutual as a whole you will always be welcome.

Our members have the benefit of accessing our services without the

need for the usual procurement bureaucracy, reducing the cost of transformation to us and to our owners.

However you wish to get involved with iESE, you can be assured of an innovative, sustainable and forward-thinking way of working.

Our effective results already speak for themselves with us saving councils over £250M and for every £1 that is invested in iESE, at least £5 in efficiency savings is generated.

To help your organisation benefit from the wide range of services we offer, why not find out more about becoming part of iESE - contact us today on enquiries@iese.gov.uk or call on 01883 732 957

www.iESE.gov.uk

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Waste Management Services Framework aims to save councils

£85m

of savings

Care Funding Calculator has saved authorities

£63m

of councils registered to

www.socialcare. improvement efficiency.org.uk

£270m

Construction framework has made

£92m

% 31

In Figures

% 95

of local authorities registered on

www.win.org.uk

T. 01883 732 957 E. enquiries@iese.gov.uk www.iese.gov.uk

iESE has generated over £270 million worth of efficiency savings over the last 5 years…