Norfolk & Suffolk: Council's Rewarded For Money Saving Ideas

9 October 2013, 07:50 | Updated: 9 October 2013, 07:57

Councils across Suffolk and Norfolk are getting rewarded by the Government for coming up with new ways of working.

Local Government Minister and Great Yarmouth MP Brandon Lewis announced that 18 local authorities will share a £6.9 million reward for radically overhauling how they do business, a part of the government’s pledge to transform public services.

The winners of the Transformation Challenge Award will receive funding for demonstrating their ability to remain at the cutting edge of service transformation, while delivering efficiency savings.

In the East of England, South Norfolk Council, Broadland DC, Norwich City Council, King’s Lynn and West Norfolk BC, Breckland Council, Babergh DC, Mid Suffolk DC, Suffolk FRA and Suffolk Constabulary are all set to benefit.

Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said:

"Today's award paves the way for further support for councils radically transforming local service delivery, enabling better outcomes to be achieved for less. In particular, as announced in this year's Spending Review, in 2015 there will be a £100million Transformation Fund to help even more councils to set up shared services, combining their operations for service delivery, including with other public and private sector service providers."
 
“While councils have a vital role to play in tackling the inherited deficit, the government has always been clear councils should not close services. Instead councils should demonstrate the best in innovation and ministers will champion councils that successfully redesign services.

“The tide of change that began with chief executives and sharing management teams is now going further to include shared service delivery across council boundaries. These reforms will be key to protecting services while reducing costs to the taxpayer.”
 
The winning local authorities are:
 
Suffolk FRA / Suffolk Constabulary
Subject: Blue Light Integration – co-location of fire and police
Amount: £60,000
Summary: Shared fire and police stations for Suffolk communities. Funding is to initiate the feasibility for co-locating additional fire service and police teams into shared buildings

Babergh DC / Mid Suffolk DC
Subject: Shared Services / Study – Transformational Enquiries
Amount: £166,900
Summary: Plan to build on existing collaboration and support the development of a new business model and to embed new ways of working. Have developed a suite of design principles and plan to deliver the programme through a single structure entitled Transformational Enquiries which involves setting up six enquiry groups to investigate specific outcomes identified through engagement with communities and service users
 
South Holland DC/ Breckland Council
Subject: ICT
Amount: £385,000
Summary: Invest in their ICT systems to enable them to build on the shared management arrangement and improve its effectiveness, enabling more shared services. Funding to upgrade hardware, connectivity, video conferencing and telephone services, including shared service platform and programme management.
 
South Norfolk Council/ Broadland DC/ Norwich City Council/  King’s Lynn and West Norfolk  BC
Subject: Shared Services - building control
Amount: £500,000
Summary: CNC Building Control Consultancy involves building control departments of 5 districts. Propose to expand and develop existing service and take this county-wide model and roll it out on a regional basis by extending an offer to 10 to 12 councils.