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What's New
All areas of the public sector are faced with the prospect of making large, radical cost reductions, between 25% and 40% of their current budgets. Clearly the days of the traditional method of budgeting which entailed taking last year’s costs and adding 2% or whichever factor was agreed are long gone. Many are therefore turning to the concept of Zero Based Budgeting (ZBB) in order to ascertain how much they really need in a budget. Click here for more
Parking Services offers councils the opportunity to take control of a major contributor to their revenue budget, yet many councils are not grasping that opportunity. Recent work that ValueAdding.com has carried out with Local Authorities to transform how they manage and administer PCN’s and Parking Permits has shown that there are very real opportunities to collect more money and spend less on doing so, whilst at the same time offering a better service to the customer. In order to deliver these improvements you first need to take a step-by-step approach to reviewing your Parking Service. Regardless of whether the enforcement service or administration teams, or any other part of the service is outsourced, it is imperative to know what the whole cost of the service is across all departmental and organisation boundaries. Click here for more Improving Streetscene Services
ValueAdding.com have just published a White Paper on Improving Streetscene Services based upon work undertaken by us and Oakleigh Consulting Limited for the the London Borough of Croydon. The London Borough of Croydon, like many other councils, are well aware of their need to ensure streetscene services are delivered in a more joined up manner. As part of their push to improve efficiency and the perception of the streetscene services by customers they commissioned a review of streetscene services across the council and the Metropolitan Police. Click here for more
Harmonisation and Improvement in a New Unitary Authority
Our client was a unitary authority formed in April 2009 from the merger of two district councils and a county council. The Development Management functions, which included Planning and Building Control, were continuing to operate independently under the previous district and county structures. The problems around lack of integration were also not uncommon in other parts of this council. Management were keen to bring the functions together in a single harmonised manner providing an improved service to customers at reduced cost. Click here for more
Stop Budget Cuts Meaning Service Cuts
It is clear that there will be significant reductions in council budgets next year and whilst there may be debate as to whether this reduction is 15%, 20% or 30% these reductions are real and are being planned now. We are aware that some councils are implementing cuts immediately in order to balance this year's books. It is our firm belief that whenever and whatever the actual reduction is there should not be a corresponding reduction in service delivery. ValueAdding.com has published some suggestions on how you can maintain and improve services in light of these budget reductions to stop budget cuts meaning service cuts. Click here for more
Salami Slicing is no Longer Enough
Many Councils are realising that the traditional approach of “salami slicing” budgets will be insufficient in today’s climate. The expected savings targets threaten this approach due to their likely urgency and severity. At the October 2009 SOCITM annual conference the consensus was that 20% savings will be demanded of councils over the following 4 years. However, due to “ring-fencing” of some services, councils will have to adapt to cope with reductions of around 40% of their revenue budget in other services. Click here for more
ValueAdding.com is offering its web-based benchmarking site to all local authorities at no cost. We are starting with Waste Services but over time plan to include all services and build a comparison of collection costs for every £1,000 of revenue collected. Click here for more
All effective management involves some level of change just as all organisations are in a constant state of change. Change management is about enabling organisations to identify, plan and implement changes to ensure that:
If a change is going to be worthwhile it must, by definition, impact on how the business operates. The challenge is to ensure that, as far as possible, the full nature of the impacts have been appreciated and planned for, whilst accepting unforeseen consequences may arise that will need to be acknowledged and addressed. Click here for more
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