13 March 2013, 18:30-20:31 -

EA Transforming Highway Services

 

 

Transforming Highways Services

Paul Bird

Director of Highways & Transportation, Essex County Council

Venue: Central Baptist Church, Victoria Road South, Chelmsford

Date: 13 March 2013

Essex County Council provides a wide range of local government services for 1.4 million people in one of the UK’s most populous counties. The Council is running a major, multi-year transformation programme to enable it to become a more commissioning-based organisation and take a more business-oriented approach to service delivery.

As nine separate fixed-term contracts with external suppliers were scheduled to expire at the same time early in 2012, the Highways and Transportation service within the Council took the opportunity to radically change its business model. The service had a long and successful track-record of sourcing services from external contractors, but saw the potential to make a step change in improving efficiency and overall performance.

Under the new model, the Highways and Transportation service has a strategic commissioning function that focuses on managing the overall engagement with the preferred bidder. The remaining council staff responsible for delivery are co-located and organisationally integrated with personnel from the preferred bidder. This new model is unique in two ways. First, it does not transfer Council staff by outsourcing at the outset, but retains skills and knowledge which allows flexibility to further optimise the model as the relationship matures. Second, the model includes a route map to enter into a public-private joint venture, which will open up opportunities to trade within and outside of the County.

This partnership approach, including co-location of personnel, removes the adversarial elements that previously complicated engagements with external contractors. It also removes duplication of effort and ensures that neither side wastes resources monitoring the other’s activities.