Bucks Pathfinder

Enhanced two tier working update

Issue 9 - Autumn 2009

Front Page

Issue 9 - Latest News

We've had several bits of news to report since the last edition, all of which feature this time around.

The biggest news is that following evaluation of the responses to the OJEU notice for the Support services project, the Programme Board has now agreed a shortlist of companies to go forward to the next stage, who will now be invited submit their outline proposals by mid November 2009.

The shortlisted companies were selected by evaluation of their responses to the PQQ, and in this issue we've got the low down on what the PPQ is, how it was created and, of course, what it stands for.  At the time of writing initial dialogue has been completed and we await the companies initial solutions.

We're very pleased to announce that Councillor Frank Downes is the new JIB Chairman, find out more in our interview with outgoing Chairman Councillor Michael Edmonds.

The Pathfinder extranet site has been given a makeover and re-launched with a new navigation structure that makes up to date information on the different Pathfinder workstreams much easier to find.

Last but by no means least congratulations to our very own Rachel Bennett who married her fiancé Malcolm in Aston Clinton this July.

 

 

 

This issue's in depth project profile is on the Waste workstream, but read on for the latest developments across all the Pathfinder Projects.

Over the summer the Community Engagement project has undertaken an option-generation exercise for the next phase of work to follow the evaluation reports to the JIB in September. The group have also been in action with one of the Wycombe community panels submitting an application under the Sustainable Communities Act to reduce noise from M40 motorway. Support for this submission has also been obtained from Oxfordshire Councils.

In Procurement, arrangements have been concluded between Bucks authorities, Spikes Cavell and IESE to undertake spend analysis exercise based on 08/09 data. By use of IESE negotiate framework plus direct IESE subsidy the cost of this exercise has been substantially reduced.  Work is now commencing with Spikes Cavell to extract data from finance systems for the spend analysis.

In the Waste work-stream external funding of over £150,000 from DEFRA, WRAP (Waste Resources Action Programme) and IESE (Improvement Efficiency South East) has been secured so far this year to help take forward some critical areas of work.   Areas that have been progressing in the last few months include:

• the development of a joint waste collection contract involving the four districts,
• work on possible governance arrangements for any new structure
• Business Process Improvement (BPI) study on all five authorities' waste teams.  

In September WDC agreed a bridging contract for their own refuse and recycling contract which paves the way for a wider joint district waste collection contract that could ultimately encompass all four districts.   The next steps just starting on this are an appraisal of potential future waste collection options which could operate in any new joint contract and a Service Rules Survey setting out all the different ways municipal waste is collected and handled under the existing district operations.   This will feed into a formal procurement of the new contract commencing in the spring/summer of 2010.  A new joint contract involving at least Chiltern and Wycombe DCs could be in place as soon as 2011/12.   

The BPI study will attempt to identify by Spring 2010 potential efficiencies in the way waste teams in the five authorities operate their processes and as such how much more efficient a joint waste team could be.   This project will be critical in helping to decide whether what is called Scenario 4 (service integration across the Districts) be agreed as the ultimate way forward or whether Scenario 5 (County and District integration) is the ultimate end goal for waste.   Meanwhile discussions are ongoing at a senior level around potential governance arrangements for any new structure that may emerge.  It is hoped that a decision on this latter area is will be made to tie in with the outcomes of the BPI work.

A further bid for DEFRA funding is being made this autumn, if successful this will help fund some specific projects such as examination of the wider infrastructure needs of the joint collection contract linking to the County's residual waste treatment solution.  There is also an identified need for some programme management support including a dedicated project manager, HR and communications guidance.

 
The Customer Service workstream phase 2 implementation is commencing, following the completion of the Phase 1 Project Close Report. A revised Phase 2 Implementation Project Board at Director level is being set up, with the first meeting taking place in October 2009.  The Project Sponsor is discussing the implementation plan with other senior officers and is seeking the resources and funding to move this project forward.

The Demand Led Transport Needs Assessment survey is now complete. The officer working group continues to work with Dial-a-Rides to implement recommendations from the consultants report working particularly with Wycombe Dial-a-Ride fleet management and upgraded scheduling software.

An action plan is underway which has been further informed by analysis of Needs Assessment this summer. The working group produced a final report for consideration by the September JIB. Work has also commenced to review broader transportation issues and opportunities with the local PCT and other partners leading to development of a broader community transport project.

The Shared Support Services Programme has completed the prequalification stage of the programme and the first stage of dialogue with the bidders, IBM and Mouchel, and are preparing their response by mid-November.  The programme board and team will be considering the bidders' outline solutions and there will be a mid term review involving leaders and members in January to make sure that they are happy the programme is on track to deliver.

You can find out more about the PQQ process in our article Mind your PQQs, see the article list at the top right for the link.

Project Profile

Waste Programme

This project area is building on the work of the Joint Waste Committee and exploring options for further integration of waste operations across the five Pathfinder partners.

Within scope

• The waste management functions of the five Buckinghamshire authorities.
• These include the core functions that will form part of a "Joint Waste Authority" (JWA) as well as ancillary functions that will be subject to review during the project and may be included in the JWA or addressed through other methods of enhanced two tier working.
• The core and ancillary functions are set out in the Joint Improvement Board (JIB) report dated 26 July 2007.

Out of scope

• The Strategic Planning Function of waste will remain with the County Council.
• Other ancillary functions which are currently managed through waste service staff such as public toilet cleansing and markets management.

In April 2008 the Project Board appointed consultants (Eunomia) to assist in developing a Business Case.  Agreement was reached by the Project Board that five shared service delivery scenarios would be analysed in depth and presented in the final Business Case report.  These were as follows:

• Scenario 1: Joint education, communications and enforcement teams, plus joint procurement of goods.
• Scenario 2: Joint Procurement of waste collection service contracts
• Scenario 3: Joint Collection and Disposal Officer Team
• Scenario 4: Joint Waste Collection Contracts and Joint Waste Collection Officer Team (Horizontal integration model)
• Scenario 5: Joint Waste Services Contracts and Joint Waste Collection and Disposal Officer Team (Horizontal and vertical integration model)

In broad terms these scenarios represent a spectrum of increasing integration with associated increasing cost savings and greater delegation of functions and resources under a new structure, with scenario 5 being the most integrated.   

At a Members Workshop in June and July Scenarios 4 & 5 stood out as offering the most potential.  Additional work on refining the benefits around Scenarios 4 & 5 was undertaken over the summer and autumn of 2008.  This included costs of workforce harmonisation, more detailed infrastructure analysis plus work on governance and cost sharing principles.

In terms of Cost Sharing, section 151 officers and subsequently Members were in broad agreement on the approaches and principles, a key fundamental being that costs should follow function. 

Project Board Members met on 8th January to consider which of the scenarios (4 or 5) should be supported as the end goal for Pathfinder and be the recommendation for the Joint Waste Committee on 29th January.

Following a lengthy debate the conclusion from the Project Board was that Scenario 4 should be supported as the end goal for Pathfinder. It should be noted that the County could not support the majority view to recommend to the Joint Waste Committee Scenario 4 in preference to Scenario 5 as being the desirable end goal due. 

This decision was presented to the JWC on 29th January and the decision to support Scenario 4 only, was upheld as the recommendation that would go forward.

The Leaders agreed with the suggested recommendation regarding Scenario 4, but for it to also include work on an option that combines the merits of both options 4 & 5.

If you have any questions about the Pathfinder Waste Programme, please contact Roger Seed rseed@buckscc.gov.uk, or David Smedley dsmedley@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk 

 

FAQs

Your Shout

There's been some coverage in the press suggesting that the Pathfinder programmes aren't making savings as efficiently as the Unitary Authorities.  Is this true?

This refers to press coverage of a draft report by the Office for Public Management consultancy, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Cardiff Business School.  The draft report is part of a long term project which sets out to assess the "relative effectiveness, efficiency and impact of the new unitary authorities and enhanced two tier pathfinder authorities". The report is still only in draft form and has not yet been issued. 

Discussions have been ongoing with the department of Communities and Local Government who have met all the Pathfinder areas recently. The general view being expressed by enhanced two Pathfinders is that comparing the Unitaries and the Pathfinder areas only on a cost model is not enough or a useful exercise. The drivers for the new unitaries are entirely different to the pathfinder areas. The unitaries launch in April is being portrayed as progress and compared to the more evolutionary approach of the Pathfinder areas our progress is being portrayed as slow. 

The District and County Leaders met with the CLG in late July and there will be further engagement with the government office over the coming months.

Timetable

Future Events

 

Meeting	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
CADEX - All held on Fridays. 10.30 start - The Library, Missenden Abbey	11th	9th	6th	4th
JIB - 10am start - All Tuesday	29th - CDC		24th - SBDC
Informal JIBs
County and District Leaders Meetings - 17.00 start	10th - SBDC	21st - CDC	23rd - SBDC	14th - LDR, BCC

Glossary

Pathfinder, GC2C, DCLG... too much jargon, too many acronyms

Buckinghamshire Leaders Group - is the main link between the Joint Improvement Board (see JIB) and each council for Pathfinder projects.

CADEX  - County and District Chief Executives. This group normally meets on a monthly basis, and as well as including the Chief Executives of the County and District Councils, Police and the Primary Care Trust are also members.

DCLG - Department of Communities and Local Government, this is the government department that issues guidance and controls for many aspects of the services provided by Councils. (http://www.communities.gov.uk)

ETTW - Enhanced Two Tier Working, is at the centre of the Pathfinder agreement, aiming to join up the way we work within the existing two tier structure in Buckinghamshire.

FAQ - frequently asked questions.

GC2C - Getting Closer to Communities: is a strategy introduced for local area working by Buckinghamshire County Council. It sets out a vision of strong strategic leadership combined with responsiveness to the needs of local communities. Nineteen areas across the county have been identified that are of sufficient geographic size to allow effective service delivery and facilitate joined up services with key partners.

I&DeA - Improvement and development Agency for Local Government works towards local government improvement by providing news and examples of good practice and tools and other services for Councils across England and Wales. (http://www.idea.gov.uk)

JIB - Joint Improvement Board will oversee the development of Pathfinder projects. It will comprise five County Council Members and one member from each of the four District Councils. The JIB will receive scoping papers on the agreed set of projects, will commission work to be undertaken, consider the evaluation and make recommendations to the Leaders' Group. They will also oversee any arrangements that follow from the Leaders/Councils' decisions.

OJEU - Official Journal of the European Union. The  Shared Support Services programme team will place an advert in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), an invitation to companies to bid to become the private sector partner in the Joint Venture Company.  The Shared Support Services Programme invitation to tender has to be advertised in the OJEU because it is a legal requirement for projects with a value above a certain threshold (about £100,000K).  Tendering via the OJEU is fully transparent, the intention being the creation of a free and competitive Europe-wide market.

PQQ -  Pre Qualification Questionnaire. The PQQ is the method used to select the bidders that will proceed to the competitive dialogue stage.  It is comprises questions designed to establish the bidding company's experience in providing the services required by the participating authorities, track record of working in the public sector on joint ventures, and general capability and capacity.

MKOB - Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Improvement Partnership has been established with 12 authorities in the region. The partnership focuses on collaborative working where it will lead to real improvements in service performance. There are six project strands; change management, community engagement, future skills needs, leadership development, partnership performance management and service improvement. (http://www.southeastiep.gov.uk/ip.asp?PageRef=135)

RIEP - Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership

SECE - South East Centre of Excellence is the Efficiency Partnership of the South East and is one of 9 centres in England and Wales. This partnership undertakes a number of work streams to provide advice and support to local authorities including the coordination of the improvement partnerships in the region (see MKOB). (http://www.southeastiep.gov.uk)

ToR - Terms of Reference, is a phrase, which describes the purpose and structure of a project. It specifies what has to be achieved, who will take part in it, how it will be achieved and when it will be achieved.

News in Brief

A Year in the Chair

In July 2009 Councillor Michael Edmonds completed his year as Chairman of the Joint Improvement Board (JIB). 

The JIB is responsible for ensuring that the Pathfinder Agreement is delivered to the time, cost and quality agreed by the councils through the Leaders' Group.  It will control and oversee the implementation of the programme of work to deliver the benefits of enhanced two tier working.

The JIB is made up of member representatives from each council and meets every two months. There are five county councillors and a councillor from each of the four district councils. The council Chief Executives also attend as advisors. 

In this period Pathfinder has seen steady progress in several workstreams, in particular Shared Services, Community Engagement and Waste.  At the JIB meeting in July it was agreed that the Board would focus on Implementation rather than Improvement, and is now known as the Joint Implementation Board.

Chairmanship of the JIB is rotated between the county and district councils on an annual basis. Councillor Edmonds handed over to the new Chairman, Councillor Frank Downes from Buckinghamshire County Council.

We caught up with Councillor Edmonds to talk about Pathfinder, the JIB and other changes to Local Government.

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On his Chairmanship of the JIB...

Chairing the JIB has been a very interesting experience.  Trying to pull people together and be as transparent as possible is important because networking between local authorities improves relationships and trust especially when, at the start of Pathfinder there was some suspicion between the different bodies.  Part of the Chairman's job is to forge a consensus and this is something I've noticed developing over the course of my chairmanship.  I've also cut down the length of meetings.  With too much discussion for discussion's sake, it's not uncommon for these meetings to drag on, but my record is 12 minutes, people were still turning up when we'd finished!

 

On Members' role in Pathfinder...

That local Government is in need of re-organisation is a fair comment.  The distinction between town, district and county councils isn't clear to the man on the street.

If you were to start with a blank sheet of paper and lay out a system of local government, you wouldn't begin with a two tier system in a million years.

Everyone involved in local government; Members and Officers recognise the need to make savings. In Buckinghamshire we suffer because central Government looks at the Shire counties as affluent and isn't very generous with its grants to Local authorities

For Pathfinder to be successful Members need to be strong and use their connection with the public to drive them to make the tough decisions.

 

On the JIB focusing on Implementation over improvement...

The leaders now establish the principal ideas for joint working opportunities and the JIB then develop those ideas into detailed workable plans.  This saves duplication of work and means that the JIB can focus on joint working ideas that have legs.

 

On the messages for staff... 

Local Government is inefficient, we have to examine ourselves to see where the inefficiencies lay, be open and transparent, flexible to the needs of the Authority, flexible to the needs of the economy, and to remember that Pathfinder brings its own opportunities that wouldn't be available without joint working.

 

On advice for his successor Frank Downes...

 I'd be the last person to advise someone as experienced as Frank Downes, his area of expertise is financial, very different to mine, the main thing is to be open and encourage closer working, which I'm sure Frank will do.  Joint working is a part of the culture in Buckinghamshire now, it's second nature, when looking at the way something in local government functions, to consider whether joint working could improve efficiency.  I'm sure the JIB can continue to build on this.

Mind Your PQQs

The Shared Support Services Programme Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) was the first step towards selecting the private sector partner with whom Buckinghamshire will form the Joint Venture Company.

The participating authorities recently invited bids to become their private sector partner, and there were no shortage of replies.

The PQQ is the method used to select the bidders that will proceed to the competitive dialogue stage.  It is comprises questions designed to establish the bidding companies' experience in providing the services required by the participating authorities, track record of working on joint ventures, of working in the public sector, and general capability and capacity.

The different question sections of the PQQ have been scored so that bidders can be ranked on completion of the questionnaires, with only the highest scoring responses resulting in an invitation to participate in the dialogue phase.

 

Structure of the PQQ

The first section of the PQQ contains standard generic PQQ questions regarding business activities and resource levels, quality assurance, race relations, disability discrimination act compliance, health and safety, and sustainability.  This first section is designed to ensure the applicants have the capacity to provide the scope of services required, leaving a more manageable set of potential applications.

The second part of the PQQ is focused on questions specific to the functions that the Joint Venture Company will be providing, with a category of questions on each of the in-scope services; Finance, HR, ICT and Property Services/Facilities Management.

These questions are designed to ensure that the bidding companies are proficient in the intricacies of providing the services

 

Scoring the PQQ

A range of experts from across the partner organisations will mark the PQQ responses according to a weighting framework. The various questions and sectionsof the PQQ carry different weighting values as devised by the Programme Board. 

This is so that a bidder is considered, not just according to their score, but according to the answers that the board consider most important.  This will ensure that the companies selected to proceed to the dialogue phase are secure, experienced, capable and ready to provide support services to Buckinghamshire Authorities.

 

After the PQQ

When the Programme Procurement Lead, the Programme Board and Professional groups have marked the responses, the bidders will be ranked, and the highest scoring bidders will be invited to proceed to the next phase of the procurement process; the invitation to submit a detailed proposal. 

Look out for information on what's involved in the Competitive Dialogue Phase in the near future.

 

LGA Conference

Running from 30 June - 2 July 2009, The Local Government Association annual conference and exhibition brought together 2,000 of the leading players in councils, central government, partners and business.

The LGA is a cross party organisation which represents councils in England and Wales, who together employ 1.6 million people, spend £85 billion and have more than 20,000 elected members.

The four National enhanced two tier Pathfinders worked together to hold a stand at the event in the exhibition arena. Leading Councillors and senior officers attending the event helped out on the stand and worked alongside Nick Cave, Rachel Bennett and Amy Festa to inform others of our progress and develop understanding. The event was a great opportunity to illustrate our willingness to share the learning we have acquired in project areas and this in turn helps with the application for external funding and status of the programme at a national level.

In preparation for the event a short video was produced which starred the leader of South Bucks District Council Cllr Adrian Busby seen here at Elstree Studios arranged with thanks to Hertfordshire Pathfinder. We hope to be able to get this short video which also contains content from Councillors in Hertfordshire on the extranet site in the near future.

 

Extra! Extra! Extranet! - read all about it!

The Pathfinder extranet site (www.bucksonline.gov.uk/pathfinder) has been given a subtle but much needed facelift.  The new iteration of the site makes it much easier to find up to the minute information on what's going on in the different workstreams that go to make up Pathfinder, as well as delivering the content about the structure, strategies and governance that was the focus of the original site.

Each of the Pathfinder workstreams; Support Services, Waste, Community Engagement, Customer Services, Procurement, Demand Led Transport and Communications have their own hub page, as well as individual pages housing latest news, downloadable documents, team details and milestones. 

As on the old version of the site, in-depth information is available on the governance structures of Pathfinder, including details of the re-tasked JIB; the Joint Implementation Board as it is now known.

Improvements in the technology behind the extranet site mean keeping it up to date is a much more efficient process, so it's always worth checking back to see the latest information on the workstreams that affect you.

If you have any comments or suggestions regarding the new Pathfinder extranet site we'd be happy to hear them.  Feel free to get in touch, email enquiries@buckspathfinder.gov.uk

View this eMagazine online at:
http://www.buckspathfinder.gov.uk