Midlands’ councils save millions through joint working

29 October 2009

Councils across central England are saving millions of pounds, thanks to a number of joint working partnerships under the Midlands Highways Alliance (MHA).

The projected savings for 10 ‘demonstrator projects’ is £20m, with potential for this to increase if more councils sign up. London borough councils are also looking to emulate the success of the MHA through better collaboration.

Savings in the Midlands have been found across the highways board, from salt procurement to sharing best practice on reactive repairs.

The MHA’s main focus areas are: creating frameworks for both medium and large projects; collaborative procurement of materials; sourcing professional services – such as Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire’s use of consultants Scott Wilson; and term contractor management.

Speaking at an event this week showcasing the demonstrator projects, Keith Gordon, assistant director for efficiency and delivery at Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands, said: ‘Following the recession, most councils are looking at making budget cuts of around 10%. This is on top of the 10% announced in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review.

‘Choices will have to be made and members won’t want to touch the frontline services, such as education and social care.

‘And if the “tsunami” is coming, we need to prepare for it now.’

Mark Stevens, assistant director of environmental services for Leicestershire CC, said that in addition to materials and processes, authorities could benefit by collaborating on staff recruitment, training and attracting graduates.

‘We are in a position where we have variable information on what skills our workforce has,’ he said.

‘We have been visiting universities and graduate fairs – almost all engineering students are already linked to contractors or consultants.’ With a strong collaborative approach, councils could persuade more qualified students to join them, he added.

Meanwhile, in the capital a collaborative steering group for highway maintenance has just been launched to look into authorities’ contracts and the scope for finding efficiencies through joint-procurement.

Dana Skelley, director of road network management at Transport for London, warned that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach would not work in the capital, but admitted there were ‘huge opportunities for collaboration’.

‘Customers don’t want to see boundaries. We owe it to the users of the roads network,’ she added.
Speaking at a London Roads debate, Ms Skelley said TfL was currently working with local authorities in order to explore where efficiency savings could be made.

‘[This could] potentially divide London into larger-than-borough-shaped groups when searching for efficiencies,’ she said.

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