The importance of procurement, asset management and the wider efficiency agenda

Irene LucasActing Permanent SecretaryCommunities and Local Government

28th September 2010 – NIEP Conference: Local Solutions for a New Era

Coalition Government Priorities

• Reduce the Budget Deficit

• Localism

But also to:

• Decentralise

• Encourage Social Enterprise

• Real choice and power in people’s hands

LGA Productivity Workstreams

• shared services,

• data and transparency,

• adult social care,

• children’s services,

• shaping markets and new models for service delivery,

• democratic leadership,

• workforce and skills,

• tackling central government barriers and burdens

• procurement and asset management

Size of the public estate

Social Housing£112bn

Centrally owned£88bn

Local Authority£128bn

Local partners

£44bn

The public estate is worth at least £370bn

Local Authorities own close to £250bn of this

Running costs of £25bn per annum

Backlog maintenance of over £40bn

We know data is patchy at best

Fragmented capital investment results in a fragmented approach to assets and the associated services. In addition the total existing stock is already fragmented in terms of location and ownership.

There were over 80 new buildings (excluding housing) constructed in Leeds over the last 5 years. These were constructed for different agencies largely on the basis of a national view of what was needed.

Worcestershire has mapped the extent of the public estate identifying 1300 buildings under different ownership serving 556,000 people. Lack of transparent data made this exercise difficult and makes it difficult to contextualise whether the use of the estate is efficient. Worcestershire is using this map to look at opportunities to rationalise across the estate. (This examples show that the estate is 1/3 locally owned, 1/3 national owned and 1/3 housing)

Map of publicly funded new buildings in Leeds over the past 5 years

Map of existing asset base in Worcestershire

Lift current and under construction

LIFT current under construction

Affordable Housing schemes

funded through NAHP 08-11

5

More information and transactional services are

being delivered via a virtual space: eg online

services through websites reducing the need for

office space

More health and adult care services are

being delivered in the home or your space: eg Telecare reducing usage of the public

estate

There is a separation of service delivery arrangements from asset management and capital investment which inhibits opportunities to make services more productive and responsive to the needs of local people

Public buildings provide the physical space to typically access a single service this

makes it difficult for local people to access the range of

advice they need e.g. someone who has lost

employment may need to visit 4 different buildings

Employment advice and benefits

Occupational therapy

RetrainingHousing benefits

Some areas are rationalising physical

space into one-stop shops which can make it easier for

people to access all the services they need facilitating a multi-agency response and development of multi-agency

teams

Marsh Lane police station in Sefton houses all 5 services for victims of domestic violence in one building. This led to 4 of the 5 services being merged. 6

Reduce the burden of procurement through Frameworks

Better value from joined purchasing power

Delivering sustainability

Effective Procurement

Innovative solutions

…

Proposition

Principles

Outcomes

Pathfinders

Capital and Asset Pathfinders

Incentivise local decisions on capital/ asset managementReassess responsibility and power for funding decisions

Improved transparency of information

Cambridgeshire, Durham, Hackney, Hampshire, Hull, Leicester/Leicestershire, Leeds City Region, Swindon,

Solihull, Wigan, and Worcestershire

Co design with local places how they would deliver better services through property sharing and place

based asset management.

Thinking from the citizen (demand) firstLocal “across”

Local “up”

“None of us is as clever as all of us”

How we’re doing it