1. change & efficiencies
34 surveyor December 2014 www.transport-network.co.uk
The Amnick Social Enterprise for highways, parking and transportation has
recently been working on developing the best approach to continue to deliver
savings and efficiencies into 2015. John David, its executive director, reports.
Savings and efficiencies – t
T
he following outcomes have
been based around our dis-
cussion with senior manage-
ment from range of local authori-
ties, consultants, our experience,
our round table discussions, and
our mini-conferences. Those tak-
ing part have included senior
consultants, local authorities,
council members, private sector,
as well as government depart-
ments as part of our share and
support campaign.
For local authorities to contin-
ue to meet the challenges of evap-
orating budgets and still continue
to deliver high quality services,
the following seven points were
distilled as must do's:
1. Development of a clear out-
comes focused approach to all
services
2. Creation and delivery of a
quality business transforma-
tion programme (addressing
people, processes, procure-
ment and IT)
3. Development of partnerships
(public/private and equally
important – the third sector)
4.Managing demand for your
services
5. Creation of alternative service
delivery models
6.Effective leadership (at all
levels)
7. Commercialisation of services.
Development of clear
outcomes to services
The need to deliver services in a
more innovative manner has nev-
er been so high up in priorities
or cost savings. With reductions
in budgets, the need to deliver
more tailored services has now
led councils to start adopting an
outcomes focused approach to
services delivery. This essentially
looks at how the service can ho-
listically be delivered as a whole
(integrating with more than one
partner as needed) to offer indi-
viduals and communities a wider
range of benefits (apart from sin-
gle activities) as well as being less
prescriptive with the suppliers of
how these will be delivered. For
example, instead of describing
to the 'nth' degree how a bridge
will be built (the specifications,
materials, performance etc), the
outcomes will focus on a freer ba-
sis, which simply advises a bridge
needs to be built between point A
to B and to carry X people and X
traffic. How this is built and de-
signed allows for innovation and
creativity from the suppliers side,
and also can lead to solutions not
previously considered before.
The point of an outcomes fo-
cused organisation is about lead-
ing commissioning, developing
stronger partnerships, develop-
ing wholescale solutions (that
can help reduce costs in other
areas), promoting freer thinking,
liberating innovation, and ulti-
mately reducing costs and deliv-
ering better results.
Business transformation
Business transformation will
continue to get harder every
year from here on out. The sav-
ings tree has been shaken, and
all the easy or quick wins have
been harvested. The need to pur-
sue; people, processes, procure-
ment, as well as integrating new
and better IT will all need to be a
greater focus. Efforts to seek fur-
ther savings and efficiencies will
now require a different approach
and will need to include the fol-
lowing to continue to deliver suc-
cess:
What does good look like now?
• Leadership
• Change management (not
just project management)
• Flexibility, adaptability, confi-
dence / leap of faith
• Planning is everything, the
plan is nothing
• In short-manage process, and
lead change.
Key recommendations:
• One size doesn’t fit all
• Soft skills are key
• Don’t over-engineer
• Regular check points
• Learning and sharing lessons
in real time
• Collaboration is resource-
heavy and slow
• Cost avoidance savings are
key
• Supply-side vs demand-side
savings
• Proper resource/matrix man-
agement
• Avoid going straight into so-
lution mode until:
• There is a comprehensive un-
derstanding of the ‘as-is’ posi-
tion
• There is a clear articulation of
what good looks like for the
optimum ‘to-be’ operating
model
• All assumptions have been
tested, and questions an-
swered
• A selection of pilot (or pro-
totype) initiatives should be
commissioned with lessons
learned being used to help
inform/amend the ‘to-be’
model
• Extensive research of best
practice initiatives should be
undertaken to help inform
the ‘to-be’ model
• A small group should visit
other councils where innova-
tive solutions are already be-
ing run or piloted, to assess
whether they really are effec-
tive and would be fit for pur-
pose for you.
Development of partnerships
The continued need to develop
public and private sector part-
nerships is crucial to future suc-
cess. While this might be the
case, the need to develop strong
partnerships with the third sec-
tor and social enterprises is of-
ten easily overlooked. The future
of public services will increas-
ingly be delivered in partnership
with not-for profit organisations
and those who re-invest profits
back into the communities and
services.
Working with the private sec-
tor alone will support the lo-
cal authority up to a point. One
county council has even taken
the approach not to outsource to
private sector.
Otherwise this would have
resulted in 5-7% of the cost of
the outsourced service being
returned back as profit to the
private sector company and not
back to reinvestment into the
council services.
Local groups working together
There are significant advantages
to be gained from local groups
working together – they can share
spaces, pool resources, plan to-
gether so that they offer comple-
mentary activities and even join
together formally to fundraise or
create a larger single group.

2. change & efficiencies
www.transport-network.co.uk surveyor December 2014 35
Partnerships - a road to survival?
When the much needed Drum-
chapel Community Transport
(DCT) ran into problems, it was
the strength of Scottish Commu-
nity Foundation’s (SCF) partner-
ships which really helped steer
things in the right direction.
By bringing the right partners
around the table, SCF put in place
the level of support needed to get
the project back on the road.
Working with the partners
they had brought together, SCF
brokered a merger between DCT
and Community Transport Glas-
gow, which meant DCT kept its
identity and local accountabil-
ity through smart governance ar-
rangements and also meant that
important local service was saved
from closure.
Quick access by SCF to the
right partners was the road to
survival for this project.
Recommendations
• Agree a shared set of values
from the start
•
Determine the commitment
(time and money) from each
partner
• Set down the roles and re-
sponsibilities of each partner
• Establish who will lead the
partnership, make clear who
will be acknowledged and
how
• Set this down in a contract
or MoU (Memorandum of
Understanding) – it will save
you time in the long run.
Managing demand
Continuing cuts to budgets in the
coming years, will be met with in-
creasing demand on all services.
Contributing factors include an
ageing population and increas-
ing advances in medicine and
science leading to more people
being given statemented status-
ultimately leading to more people
being granted access to passenger
transport services.
The challenge for local authori-
ties will be the need to manage
demand much more effectively
than ever before. This means pre-
venting or stopping people from
requiring your services in the first
place.
Measures such as robust enti-
tlement policies will need to be
in place at the outset. Before this
should be established alternative
opportunities with community
partners to deliver these as viable
options. Using passenger trans-
port as an example, through the
robust entitlement policy a key
requirement will be to do an as-
sessment on the individual with
a view of looking holistically at
their needs.
This could mean a child re-
questing access to council trans-
port might better be served
through independent travel train-
ing. This in turn will reduce the
expensive transportation costs
for the council and should lead
to the development of a more in-
dependent and confident young
person, who-by travelling by
themselves- could be supported
to work and live independently
once they are adults. This would
then also integrate a key objective
for adult services who promote
independent living. The savings
for the council could be on two
levels, instead of just continuous-
ly accepting people onto trans-
port. In the case of highways and
transportation, examples of re-
ducing demand on the network,
infrastructure and assets are all
up for consideration. Increasing
focus on sustainable transport
(so many local authorities are cut-
ting budgets and services in this
area) can lead to less cars on road,
which reduces demand, pollu-
tion (both noise and air), wear
and tear of the asset leading to
reduction of maintenance costs,
and raises the number of people
using public transport – particu-
larly walking and cycling-which
in turn boosts health and also re-
duces demand on health services
and budgets.
In short, greater costs will
come if demand is not managed
properly.
– the way forward in 2015
Left and above: Delegates at a recent
Amnick efficincies workshop talk over
the latest challenges the industry faces.

3. change & efficiencies
36 surveyor December 2014 www.transport-network.co.uk
Drivers – statutory body
• Cost saving – most obvious
• More efficient and effective
service delivery
• Innovation
• Politics – limits to public ac-
ceptance of privatisation
Advantages
• Focus – on service delivery-
and reduce bureaucracy
• Control – employee owner-
ship and participation
• Efficiencies – increased pro-
ductivity and increased com-
mitment
• Responsiveness – closer to
user groups and nimbler re-
sponse
• Innovation – ability to experi-
ment and generate new serv-
ices faster
• Reinvestment – continual im-
prove and grow services
• Expansion – no geographic
restrictions
Commercialisation of services:
Typically commercialisation
of local authority services has
never been top of local authority
priorities. This has partly been
due to the need to consider this
approach never been of any real
relevance, partly also down to the
fact that this is not what councils
tradionally do, and also primarily
down to lack of vision, aspiration
and need to seek new opportuni-
ties.
With so many services now sit-
ting on burning platforms, com-
bined with challenging budgets,
increasing service demands, cus-
tomer expectations and the need
to protect front line services has
led to reviewing opportunities
that were previously not on the
radar.
As public sector continues to
close the gap on the private sec-
tor via better working practices,
more open thinking and devel-
opment of a more risk averse
culture. It also needs to commer-
cialise as many services that can
return profit, which in turn can
lead to protecting of public sector
jobs and front line operations.
Through round table discus-
sions like this and other events
with local authorities there has
always been an air of reservation
and reluctance to consider com-
mercialisation for many reasons:
• Lack of commercial skills and
knowledge within local au-
thorities
• Lack of resources to create
a commercial set up (set-
ting up of marketing teams,
brands, strategy, creation of
sales team)
• New risk to operations.
Yet when done correctly, com-
mercialisation can lead to some
excellent returns. One London
borough recently started sell-
ing services of their DLO to lo-
cal markets. This included grass
cutting, clearing houses, provid-
ing consultancy, energy advice,
strategic planning and within 18
months had an annual income of
£500,000 which went towards
protecting 16 jobs.
One council in Scotland set up
an arms length private company
for their parking services, which
not only managed the councils
services, but also started working
for the private sector, housing, Brit-
ish Rail, hospitals and retail parks.
This approach led to the spinning
out of services for property, leisure
and housing among others.
At one of our meetings, a lo-
cal authority senior manager ex-
pressed his frustration that he
wanted his area to function more
commercially. He advised that in
his borough a leading private sec-
tor pest control company had con-
trol of 95% of the industry. From
the council’s perspective, his team
can provide the same services at
40% of the charge of the private
sector and still make a healthy prof-
it that can be reinvested in council
services.
Another idea is to set up a
stand-alone council commercial
services arm, which all services
can be traded through. This could
utilise the council’s huge buying
power in areas like street light-
ing, parking and highways.
Every local authority has thou-
sands of street lights that con-
tractors maintain on their behalf.
If the council worked more com-
mercially they could also take
on the maintenance of electri-
cal services for those businesses
and organisations within their
boundaries (or outside). Add
these units to those the council
already has contracted out to its
own contractors.
This immediately offers lower
service costs to those who wish to
buy their maintenance of electri-
cal equipment (e.g. retail parks,
British Rail and hospitals) – all
leveraged from the reduced prices
local authorities enjoy from large
scale procurement.
Adding to these additional assets
could also reduce the overall costs.
The areas of commercialisa-
tion is quite immense, and in-
cludes planning services, leisure,
property, education and health.
The starting point has to be for a
local authority to explore the op-
portunities and get started.
At Amnick (a group of ex-local
authority directors and senior
managers) we are well placed
to advise in all aspect of deliv-
ering business transformation
and change programmes as well
as supporting and leading on
projects and programmes.
As a social enterprise, we allow
local authorities to set our profits
,which we share and reinvest with
the communities.
www.amnick.com
All delegates agreed that if demand isn't
managed properly it will lead to greater
costs to councils.
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