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North West Centre of
Excellence WEEKLY NEWS
week ending
December 21, 2007
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Dear Colleague,
WELCOME
to this week's Christmas special edition of the NWCE weekly
news.
We thought that, in the true spirit of Christmas, we'd
give you 10 very special gifts that can save your local
authority money - and help you make improvements. So enjoy these
seasonal presents from the NWCE.
Kind regards,
North West Centre of Excellence
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Stop press...
MINISTERS and the LGA have now agreed a joint National
Improvement and Efficiency Strategy.
The strategy highlights the important role which is laid out for Regional
Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships and sets out the steps towards
agreeing regional strategies - for which Government is making available
up to £185m over the period 2008-2011.
An additional £11m is available in 2007-08 to
support the transition to new arrangements.
Click here for a copy of the
agreed strategy and associated papers.
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Open  The Vault
THE Vault is a contracts
register that has been created by the North West Centre of Excellence and
has the potential to save local authorities in the region £millions.
It provides local councils with
a one-stop shop where they can instantly view contracts held by all other
councils in the region and spot potential
savings opportunities.
The information for every
contract listed covers the value of the contract, its size, duration and
the name of the supplier. By sharing contract information, councils can
use their combined buying power to gain a better deal from suppliers.
To enjoy the benefits The Vault
can provide, local authorities need to register and enter their contracts
information into The Vault.
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 Eye up The Chest
THE Chest is the north west's
public sector procurement portal and has been created with funding from
the North West Centre of Excellence.
It can help local
authorities and other organisations in the public sector to get better
value from their buying, and provide suppliers with easier access to new
business opportunities and contracts.
Suppliers register on The
Chest via the Suppliers' Area. Registering is simple and means that
suppliers receive email updates on new contract opportunities issued
by the public sector that match their capabilities.
Tendering is carried out on-line
via The Chest which means a typical reduction of 58% in the time and
costs incurred compared with tendering using traditional paper
methods.
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 Lock on to The Docking
Station
THE Docking Station provides council officers with a
blue-print for buying. It contains a fully validated suite of contract
and tendering documents that council officers can use when searching for
new contracts.
The full
suite of 'off-the-shelf' documents contain everything that local
authorities are likely to need - from the start of the
tendering process through to the awarding of contracts - and beyond.
All documents
in The Docking Station have been through a multi-authority drafting
process and have also been checked and validated against preset criteria.
They
can be adopted in their entirety or extracts can be used, where
appropriate.
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 Hit the heights with a framework
agreement
THE North West Centre of
Excellence has put together a catalogue which lists the money saving
framework agreements available for all public sector bodies to use.
To keep things simple, many of
the framework agreements just list the name of the framework
agreement, the benefits and a website link.
Framework agreements have
already been subject to OJEU and are fully in line with EU procurement
regulations.
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 Go back to school with free
training
THE NWCE gave council officers
the opportunity for free training on sustainable procurement in November,
saving £350 per delegate.
The one-day training course gave delegates hands-on tuition to help
them discover the tools and techniques of sustainable procurement
and how to identify and manage the sustainability impacts of supply
chains.
This training usually costs £350 per delegate, but was offered free of
charge by the NWCE to one delegate per authority, if accompanied by a
supplier.
The training received excellent feedback, and, as a result, a further
training session is planned for late January, details of which will be on
the events
section of the NWCE website.
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 Make first class savings
AN NWCE framework agreement
for postal processes has the potential to save £2 million across the
region.
FOUR north west
councils are starting to change their internal postal processes, after
attending an open day on November 14 about the NWCE postal framework.
Liverpool,
Wyre, Preston and Cheshire Councils are
now at various stages in the process.
The
framework continues to generate interest within the region, with a number
of other councils also planning to get involved. Any other councils are welcome to join the framework.
A
frequently asked questions page has been created. This page can be viewed here.
To
find out more register for the next open day on January 16, 2007 by clicking here.
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 Re-visit your student days
GIVE
yourself the Christmas gift of a new qualification, and your council the
gift of £6,600 a year - all free, courtesy of the North West Shared
Services Programme.
Free
places are still available on the business process improvement training,
which can generate savings of around £6,600 a year for every member
of staff who undertakes the course, takes 12 to 16 weeks to complete, and
is delivered on-site. There is no limit to the number of places
that each council can book and those who do undertake the training gain
an NVQ level 2.
To
register interest, simply contact Rosemary Cowgill.
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 Say goodbye to telephone troubles
THE
NWCE has revealed how councils can save up to £25,000 a year on
BT bills.
Councils
who currently receive individual phone bills can save money if they
switch to BT's new, One Bill system. Councils switching to One Bill will
avoid paying BT's surcharge of £4.50 per bill. In the case of larger
councils, who receive around 6,000 separate bills a year,
that can add up to savings of around £25,000.
Additionally,
councils who switch to One Bill before December 31, 2007, can reclaim
every £4.50 they have already incurred.
Councils
can also make savings on their phone bills by using an OGCbuying.solutions BT framework.
"Even
those authorities who have a service provider other than BT can save
money by using the framework," explained Neil Hind, NWCE programme
manager. "Many authorities still have BT lines and the framework
will, therefore, provide savings."
Copies
of the workshops can be found here.
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 Get the right toolkit for the job
A
NEW national care costing tool for adult social care, due to be
launched in spring 2008, will help providers and local authorities to
achieve a better understanding of the market for accommodation-based care
for adults with a learning disability.
The
toolkit will help councils deal with the challenges of increasing demand
and spend on residential and other care, provide a united approach, both
between councils and care management and procurement departments, and
lead to a more consistent approach.
Bury MBC, Halton MBC, Lancashire CC, Oldham
MBC, St Helen's MBC, Wirrall MBC and Cheshire
CC have signed up to take part in the pilot phase, along with 64 other authorities
from across the country.
The
latest bulletin from the project team can be accessed here.
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 Give VOCA a shout
SAVINGS
of £1.45 million on councils' revenue and benefits systems have been
identified by Voca.
The two-year project has highlighted potential savings for
councils in the north west
on both transaction processing - £623,858
- and automated payments - £826,210.
Voca has also
produced a table of those councils with the highest potential for making
savings.
Manchester City Council tops the table with the potential
to save £172,595, followed by Liverpool City Council at £138,229. Oldham,
Tameside, Wirral, Stockport, Bury, St.
Helen's, Trafford and Knowsley Metropolitan
Borough Councils all feature in the list.
A copy of the final Voca report
has been issued to each of the relevant contacts in north west councils. However, further
copies are available from the NWCE on 0161 342 4080.
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