On this page you will now be able to read some of the recent high profile speeches that I give as part of my role as Leader of the Council.

CAPITAL AMBITION IMPROVEMENT AND EFFICIENCY SHOWCASE SPEECH, 4 November 2009 

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here today to open this event. I would like to thank Steve Johnson for inviting me to speak to you today, and for this opportunity to celebrate just some of the innovative and exciting projects and products that Capital Ambition supports. As Deputy Chairman of London Councils, I hold the Improvement Portfolio which includes the work of Capital Ambition. Our vision is to ensure that London’s public services become leaders for innovation, fairness, relevance, efficiency and effectiveness.

As I travelled here today I was reflecting on how interlinked and interdependent public services across London are, and how each one of us is affected daily in seen and unseen ways by how well they are run. Certainly a salutary reminder for me as Chair of the London Improvement Board! All of us in this room have responsibility in one way or another for their delivery, and we know very well that we are facing increasingly tough times in which to deliver better.

 A great challenge that we have to address is how, at a time of tight public expenditure restraint, we can keep delivering high quality services to individuals that feel and are as good, and even better, than the ones they experience today. We have to respond by looking at how we organise our public services and the way we use our resources to meet this challenge.

The social and environmental challenges we face are complex, and along with the severity of the economic situation radical new solutions across the public sector are needed. Efficiency savings need to be delivered by greater joined up working at local level, removing duplication and waste. As we await the interim report of the initial findings from the Total Place pilots it is clear that to deliver local priorities we need to redesign and reshape public services with residents and customers at the heart of it.

If it has been difficult to drive things through before, it is imperative that we now learn from best practice in the public and private sectors, take advantage of every opportunity to accelerate our improvement and to build ways of working together. In this way we can generate large efficiency savings to be ploughed back into frontline services, to safeguard delivery to London’s residents, and to those who visit this world class city.

Capital Ambition continues to be at the forefront of new ways of thinking and working. For example by exploring new models of service delivery to empower and engage communities and supporting the development of new technological solutions.

Capital Ambition is driving the delivery of significant efficiencies through exploring new commercial techniques to improve the management of London’s £9bn supply chain of support services. Through for example joint and smarter procurement and joining up to deliver services. Here today we have a number of teams represented, including:

 - The Consultancy and Professional Procurement Service,

 - The Contract Register Service – Transforming the Procurement of Temporary, Agency and Interim Staff (led by my own borough), and;

 - The Procurement Training and Skills Project including the Buying Consultancy Workshop and E-auctions projects

 This is helping London’s local government in getting smarter with data and intelligence, using it in combination to light up areas where improvements and efficiencies can be made through the London Efficiency Challenge programme, the Local Authority Performance Solution and the Diversity and Equality programme, all in today’s show case.

 As well as these hugely impressive projects there are many more that you and your authority can benefit from, directly and indirectly – There have been more than 115 projects across Capital Ambition’s programmes, each offering specific tools and/or learning that you can pick up and use – for instance, if your authority is reviewing its accommodation and property or flexible working strategy then there’s a Capital Ambition toolkit for that. If you are preparing induction materials for new councillors, there’s a Capital Ambition project for that. If you are interested in how to get better, less costly aids for daily living to your adult social care clients, then yes, there’s a Capital Ambition project for that too. If its about carbon reduction, performance improvement, workforce data, driving down the costs of energy your council uses, a joint specification for asphalt, or maximising information security, then again, there’s a Capital Ambition project for that, and the London Smart Card project is investigating the potential to rationalise the variety of smart cards across London’s authorities, and to maximise opportunities for shared offerings between London’s authorities and public bodies.

Capital Ambition regularly considers bids proposed by a number of authorities that are aligned with its themes, and is open to approaches which are genuinely innovative and where there is potential for learning and application across the region. Every one of London’s authorities has been involved in projects supported by Capital Ambition and many are led directly by them including a number being showcased today.

This event offers you a great opportunity to hear in detail about how the projects can help you and your partners achieve further savings, deliver improved value, and to enhance your individual and organisational skills.

I would like to offer my personal congratulations and thanks to those involved in the projects here today, and to you all for coming.

Thank you

 

ANNUAL COUNCIL ADDRESS 20 May 2009

Mister Mayor, fellow Councillors, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to start by congratulating you, Roger on becoming the 46th Mayor of the London Borough of Havering. I am sure that colleagues on all sides of the chamber will join me in wishing him every success during his year in office. To wear the Mayoral chains is a tremendous honour for any councillor and Roger is certainly most worthy of that honour.

A year ago, I stood before you and outlined this administration’s vision for Havering.

I set out our Living Ambition to provide Havering residents with the highest quality of life to be found anywhere in the Capital. I explained that this was not a short term target, or a headline-grabbing initiative. Rather, it is a considered aspiration, to be delivered over twenty years, and based on five goals that focus our efforts to shape the borough and improve services.

Our Living Ambition goals – firmly based on what residents tell us they want for their borough – provide us with both a destination to aim for and a path to follow. They allow us to take a long-term view and maintain our direction, even when obstacles appear along that path.

This year, we have certainly seen obstacles appear along our way. With the country now in recession, it is more important than ever that we, as a council, demonstrate strong community leadership.

We must take the lead in helping our residents and businesses through the hard times, while maintaining a focus on the future and preparing the borough for better times ahead. I am confident that the work we are doing and the work that we have in train, will help support Havering right through the recession and out the other side.

At the same time, we must maintain momentum in our quest to provide a better quality of life in Havering.

Our services support lives, but they also enrich lives – and over the last year, we have made real progress towards our goals – progress that will accelerate in the year to come, as we work to meet the priorities of our residents and invest to improve their borough.

The Goal for Environment seeks to ensure that Havering is a clean, green and safe borough. We know that these concerns are of the highest priority to our residents, so we invest millions of pounds each year in our StreetCare service, and in support of community safety initiatives, often in partnership with the police.

Over the last year, Councillor Barry Tebbutt has worked with the StreetCare team to improve the state of our roads and pavements. This Administration invested an additional £4 million in the last year to repair and upgrade roads and pavements. That means a total investment between 2006 and 2010 of £11 million, with a further £12 million spent on maintaining and improving our principal roads. This investment is paying dividends right across the borough.

The pavements are cleaner too, helped by a rigorous cleansing regime and a robust approach to tackling fly-tipping and graffiti vandalism which saw a number of successful prosecutions last year against both individuals and major high street institutions.

Improved street lighting is making our town centres safer and here I must recognise the excellent work of Havering’s Community Safety Partnership, particularly our own Community Safety team, overseen by Councillor Peter Gardner. In March, the Council was awarded a coveted Beacon Award – our first – for the work done to make Romford a safer and more welcoming night-time destination.

Crime has fallen in the borough, but we must not rest on our laurels, particularly when we know that a recession can lead to a surge in crimes such as burglary.
Last year, we launched the Better Together campaign – a wide-ranging effort to encourage a greater sense of civic pride and civic responsibility, by asking local people to help us make the borough cleaner, greener, safer and stronger.

Much of the campaign has focussed on asking our residents to do the small things that make a big difference to our local environment. But we as a council must lead from the front and set the right example.

Next week, we will be bring forward proposals to invest a further £225,000 in the coming year, to make our streets even cleaner and safer. We will take steps to safeguard people’s homes and provide an environment that people can take pride in – that is sensible investment that meets the needs of local people.

By the end of the financial year, we will also deliver on our pledge to relocate the highways and transport depot back into the borough, making our fleet more responsive to the needs of our residents.

Our efforts to encourage recycling are also paying dividends, with recycling rates on the rise and opportunities made available for residents to recycle more of their rubbish. Our green waste scheme is also extremely popular. Next week, we will bring forward proposals to help make recycling even easier and lift our rates to among the very best in London – that is sensible investment that meets the needs of local people.

Today our children are achieving more and succeeding in reaching their goals and aims in life, thanks in part to greater investment in our borough’s schools, but also to the hard work and dedication of Havering’s teachers, students and their parents.

Our Goal for Learning is about providing our young people with the best possible start in life. In part that is about the environment in which they learn, which is why our schools modernisation programme, under Cllr Geoff Starns is so crucial. It will provide our younger pupils with new or refurbished schools in which to learn and grow – we will see two new primary schools open in the near future. The Learning Village, in Harold Hill, will offer an exciting new approach to lifelong learning in the borough, and is now starting to take shape, with the Drapers Academy set to open from September 2010.

But learning doesn’t start and stop at the school gates. The development of our children is as much about the guidance, support and opportunities they enjoy outside school, as the quality of teaching they receive within it. This year we were successful in a bid for a multi-million pound youth facility in Harold Hill and our youth service extended its reach to engage with an additional 3,000 young people across the borough.

We will shortly be announcing new funding to ensure that more activities and high quality support and advice for young people is available right across Havering – that is sensible investment that meets the needs of local people.

In defining our Goal for Individuals, we made a commitment to valuing and enhancing the life of every individual. That means delivering the best services to them, listening to them, meeting their unique needs and recognising that support for vulnerable residents must be bespoke to their requirements. That approach ensures that older, or disabled residents are not expected to make the best of an off the peg package, but instead will increasingly be able to tailor their own support to meet their own needs.

A tremendous amount of work is being done in our social services team, under Councillor Steven Kelly, to make this personalisation of services a reality for thousands of vulnerable residents who look to the Council for help and assistance in their everyday lives.

Over the last year, we have opened new care facilities at Royal Jubilee Court, dramatically reduced waiting lists for occupational therapy, and introduced more emergency support for carers. We are focusing on improving homecare services and extending telecare to help more people live in their own homes for longer. We now have our first residents receiving individual budgets – which allow them to choose and arrange for the care that they believe will most benefit them, rather than having that decision made for them by social services.

We will soon be bringing forward new investment to support older and vulnerable residents deal with the effects of recession. As savings, houses and investments lose their value, we will help ensure that older residents can stay warm and active in Havering – that is sensible investment that meets the needs of local people.

I would also add a personal note of thanks to Cllr Kelly, for the support he offers me, in his role as Deputy Leader of this Council.

Our Goal for individuals is not limited to one particular group of residents, but to all members of our community. Our customer services team is the front face of this Council and their role is crucial, as we look to undertake better and more constructive engagement with our community in the coming year – to drive up service standards and help shape our future policies.

I’m pleased to announce that last week, Customer Services at the Council was re-accredited with the Charter Mark that it achieved last year – a deserved recognition of a raft of improvements that have been made over the past year to provide a first class service to everyone who contacts the council.

This is an appropriate time to say a big thank you to our fantastic staff who turn the policies of this council into real services and projects, that change and improve lives. This year we have retained our three star rating from the audit commission, we have introduced single status within the council to tackle decades-old inequalities of pay and we have seen sickness rates fall.

Further improvements will follow thanks to the work of our three new Assistant Directors. They are charged with transforming how the Council engages with partners and residents, commissions services and delivers greater value for money.

I’m very proud of our staff and I would also like to credit the work of Cllr Eric Munday, who has had a hand in several of these areas and also oversees how we communicate with the outside world – through engaging with  stakeholders and residents, liaising with the press and producing the new-look Living newspaper. The final touches are now being made to a revamped Havering website, that will make it easier for people to access information from, and do business with the council, 24 hours a day.

In many ways, our Goal for Towns & Communities is the crux of our work, and certainly represents the front line in our efforts to stave off the worst effects of this recession.

It is our stated aim that Havering’s towns and communities will be places of culture, commerce, community and beauty of which residents will be proud.

I think we can take great satisfaction in the transformation across the borough that is helping us towards this goal. I would particularly commend the work of Councillors Andrew Curtin and Mike Armstrong in pushing forward our vision for our communities, from our most bustling town centres, to our cultural quarter in Hornchurch.

Our commitment to green spaces has seen tremendous results. Over the last year, Cllr Andrew Curtin has overseen further improvements to our already popular and beautiful parks. The number of parks recognised with Green Flags rose from two to four and we are aiming for two more awards in the new financial year. Next week we will be proposing an additional one off investment of £75,000 to further improve these pockets of natural beauty and recreation that all our residents can enjoy. That is sensible investment that meets the needs of local people.

We have seen new libraries open their doors in South Hornchurch and in Elm Park – which our new Mayor will formally open next month. Early in 2010, the refurbishments will be completed at Central Library, providing our library project with its flagship development. These facilities are much-loved and well-attended. They are places of learning and leisure and they provide their communities with a heart. I am delighted that our library refurbishment project has been shortlisted for a prestigious  MJ Award. I’m sure we all look forward to what will hopefully be good news from the awards ceremony, in a few weeks time.

We look forward, as well, to a new library in Harold Hill – at the heart of our Harold Hill Ambitions regeneration scheme for that community. Last year, we launched Harold Hill Ambitions in conversation with local people. That conversation set the tone for the programme and ensured that local people understood our vision for the area and felt able to have a real say in the future of their community.

Many environmental improvements have already taken place and plans are in the pipeline for new facilities and refurbishments over the coming months and years that will make a real and lasting improvement to the quality of life on the Hill. First up will be improvements to the local shopping area, with better and more parking to underpin the success of the vital local stores.

This year, while we continue to deliver Harold Hill Ambitions, we also look to the south of the borough.

Over recent years, we have been listening to people in Rainham of all ages, who have been telling us their aspirations for the place they are very proud to call home.

Based on what they have told us, we have drawn up a vision for the area that encompasses every vibrant, varied and unique aspect of Rainham. Our vision – which we will publish next month – provides a broad direction for the four elements that make up the area:

Rainham Village – one of our most ancient settlements and an important part of the heritage of East London;

the community to the west of the Village, centred around the exciting regeneration plans for the Mardyke Estate;

the enterprise zone around CEME and the employment opportunities that it provides;

and the natural beauty and great potential for recreation of the Thames riverside.

A first step that I’m sure everyone will welcome is the replacement of the walkway from the Village to Tesco, with a better lit and more secure alternative. I’m happy to announce that demolition work will start in the next few days.

This is the beginning of an ongoing conversation with local people, and their elected representatives in this chamber, to ensure that their views and ideas are sought at every step along the way. They have helped to shape our broad vision and we will talk further about the details. I will be meeting with local councillors in the coming weeks to continue those discussions.
As with Harold Hill Ambitions, our vision for Rainham will be delivered in partnership, not only with local people, but also with key partners such as the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation. Their involvement underlines Rainham’s strategic importance within the regeneration plans for East London.

If we are to deliver the sort of tangible improvements in quality of life that we have pledged through Living Ambition, we need to recognise that we cannot act alone. We already have very strong relationships across the borough, through our strategic partnership and we are working closer than ever with the police and NHS Havering.
But we must also look beyond our borders. Havering is a London borough – a gateway to the Capital. Our success depends on our relationships within London and I’m pleased to say that those relationships are better than ever.

Since the election last year of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London, we have seen a shift in emphasis in City Hall towards the outer London boroughs like our own. Our relationships at City Hall are strong. Myself and other colleagues have had many meetings with the Mayor and his colleagues to press our case.

Just last week, we were delighted to host the East London meeting of the Mayor’s Outer London Commission. I was able to present our justification for additional resources, as an integral part of the Thames Gateway, to a board that will be shaping the Mayor’s policy on the suburbs.

As Deputy Leader of London Councils, I am also well positioned to ensure that councils across London are well aware of Havering, our achievements and our ambitions.

Direct lobbying of key decision makers in City Hall, the LDA and Whitehall helps us achieve our ends. I am sure colleagues across the chamber will have breathed a sigh of relief that the new prison in East London, long earmarked for vital light industrial land in Rainham, will now be built outside of our borough, after a long and persistent lobbying campaign both behind the scenes and in front of the cameras.

We are continuing to try and secure further employment for the area and to argue against inappropriate developments, such as the mega-church, which would squander the opportunity that Beam Reach offers our community.

Our immediate and robust response to the charge of negligence levelled at us by the Audit Commission in March has paid dividends, with the Commission now negotiating a change of wording to their report, which removes all use of that unjustified and damaging word.

That’s all well and good, but I remain astounded that a body of such influence as the Audit Commission could act in such a cavalier manner. The Commission trashed our reputation in the national media without checking its facts. Our demands for an investigation and an apology will go on, until we are satisfied that the damage has been repaired.

We must continue to press our claims with those decision-makers that have most influence over our borough. Above all, we need the government to appreciate that its woeful funding of Havering is not sustainable, when our ageing population is going to require more support in the years to come. Havering is one of London’s largest boroughs, home to 225,000 people, successful in its own right, but still a place of enormous potential. We ask the Government and the Mayor to help us unlock that potential and achieve our ambition for Havering.
Our towns and communities may be the key to realising this borough’s potential, but they are also at threat from the economic downturn.

I spoke earlier of the need to provide our community with leadership at this difficult time and that is exactly what we are doing through a suite of initiatives and a package of support for businesses and individuals caught in the mire of recession.

For businesses, we have launched our ‘This Way to Better Business’ campaign, to signpost firms to the support and clear advice they need to navigate their way through the recession. Together with regular summits and other initiatives, we are determined to support enterprise in Havering.

Last week we heard that the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in Havering has more than doubled in the last year. For those individuals, and others facing redundancy, we have a well-regarded Jobnet service to help unemployed residents back into work, and support for people under threat of homelessness. We are providing advice on benefits, training, debt management and affordable credit through the Liberty credit union, to encourage people away from predatory doorstep lenders.

And the skills agenda, which Councillor Paul Rochford leads on for the Council, has never been of greater importance to so may of our residents.
We also launched the Haveringcard, which encourages local businesses to offer discounts to Havering residents, while encouraging Havering residents to buy goods and services from local shops and firms. It has been a remarkable success, with over 500 businesses signed up to the scheme and thousands of residents feeling the benefit in their wallets.
Next week, we will be bringing forward proposals to invest in further initiatives to support the community through recession.

Once again, we recognise that we can’t do it all alone, and so these proposals will also include support for the voluntary sector in its work to assist Havering residents and we will offer a chance for charities that are losing their usual funding streams, as budgets are tightened in the private sector, to secure short term funding from the Council to continue their work – these are sensible investments that meet the needs of local people and along with our other new investments, are much needed at this testing time.

In the spirit of Living Ambition, we will not allow this recession to divert us from our long-term goal for our towns and communities. It is our job, not only to support those in need, but to lay the groundwork for future prosperity when this recession eases.

We do that through ongoing regeneration of our town centres – and our exciting plans for Romford market, Harold Hill and Rainham are already underway.
We do that through providing young local people with a step onto the housing ladder and last year we delivered 545 affordable homes in partnership with housing associations.

We do that by supporting the culture and heritage of our communities – making them places where people choose to live. And we see our commitment in the refurbishment of our great listed buildings such as Langtons, our state-of-the-art leisure centres and our many historic and cultural attractions.

We do that by bringing our community closer together, with events for all – whether that’s the Cultural Olympiad in Romford Marketplace, our forthcoming parade to honour our armed forces personnel, or this summer’s free-to-enter Havering Show.

And we do that by making sure that our services – that our council – provides the people of this borough with real value for money.

Our Goal for Value underpins all that we do. As the recession affects more and more people, we are doubling our efforts to deliver more and better services for a stable council tax.
To this end we have delivered over £6m of efficiency savings, so that we can continue to invest in frontline services while holding down the council tax.

This year, we pegged the overall increase in council tax to just 1.9%. I would like to thank Cllr. Ramsey, our finance team and indeed all of our dedicated staff, for their work in making this possible.

This past year has again shown Havering to be a place with real ambition and real prospects for the future. A place which measures its success on the quality of public services, the quality of green spaces, the quality of towns and communities and the range of opportunities afforded to its residents.

Havering is a community which has given the country Olympic champions, sportsmen and women, actors, musicians and authors. Through history people from this area have explored the new world, designed towns and served as Bishops, Barons and Chancellors, while Havering itself has provided a home for kings.

This fascinating history should inspire us to look forward in the hope and expectation that there are still greater achievements on the horizon.

Right across the borough the Council is making progress towards its goals. Making progress in delivering more and better support for our vulnerable residents; making progress in delivering a better standard of education and care for our young people; making progress in shaping towns and communities that are culturally rich, economically sound and united around common aspirations. And making progress in delivering a safer and better borough to live in, with falling crime and cleaner streets.

Havering, like every other borough, is facing challenges that are beyond its control. But as we look towards next year and beyond, we are confident that these challenges can be met and we can remain on course to deliver our stated Living Ambition – that residents of this borough will enjoy a quality of life that is the envy of London.

Mr Mayor, colleagues and friends, may I wish you all the very best for the coming year.

Thank you.

SOCIAL ENTERPRISES FUTURES CONFERENCE 22 October 2008
(London boroughs, social enterprise and delivering for London communities)

London Councils, the boroughs and social enterprises are all working to improve the quality of life for London’s communities, socially, economically and environmentally.

Improving the lives of Londoners is a thread through London Councils’ corporate plan.

I am very pleased to be here today at this conference to talk about the importance of effective partnerships between boroughs and social enterprises to improve the lives of Londoners.

Local authorities have a duty to promote social, economic and environmental well-being in their communities and produce a Community Plan in which they state how they will do this.

Social enterprises typically develop from communities and work closely with them, developing their businesses and using profit for social and/or environmental uses.

Many provide services to the community in areas such as health and social care, culture and leisure and transport.

The election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London in May 2008 has also seen the start of a closer working relationship between the Mayor, the GLA Group and the boroughs. By the time the Mayor came to his first Leaders’ Committee meeting at London Councils, we had signed a City Charter outlining some principles about how we’ll work together and govern London.

With common interest and good working relationships, we can work together to deliver better services for Londoners.

Policy Context:

Involving communities in public services and giving them more say about how their communities develop is at the heart of recent local government reform.

In championing community empowerment across Government, the oft stated view is that ‘There isn’t a single service or development in Britain which hasn’t been improved by actively involving local people’.

The Government has announced a number of initiatives to get more people involved int heir communities and their local services, such as:

Participatory budgeting – where communities have a say and vote on budgets for local services. The Government has a target that all local authorities should have a participatory budget in place by 2012;
Community calls for action – local petitions to be considered fairly across all councils and a councillor call for action to ensure that community issues are considered by council executives and committees;
A new duty for local authorities to ‘inform, consult, involve and devolve’.
Further proposals will become statute shortly in the Community Empowerment, Housing and Economic Regeneration Bill. The Government is seeking to promote active citizenship and social enterprises are already delivering on this agenda.

And London boroughs are responding to this agenda: our London Summit this year focused on councillors engaging more effectively with local people and the nature of community leadership. Our ‘be a councillor’ campaign has particularly sought to encourage more people to take an interest in being a local councillor, with an emphasis on a more diverse range of candidates for the 2010 local elections in London and beyond.

Boroughs are also working through Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs), to identify priorities for their local area and then deliver these with other public agencies, businesses and the voluntary and community sector. Targets have been set in Local Area Agreements that will be delivered by collaborative working. The new performance framework for local authorities (the Comprehensive Area Assessment) will look at outcomes and customer satisfaction for all public services across the local area – rather than focusing on only local authority service performance, as the current regime does.

So there is a powerful momentum driving local authorities to develop and improve their community engagement and create an environment in community activity can thrive.

This is a common interest that both London boroughs and social enterprises share and a good platform for further developing their relationship. Many boroughs have developed initiatives in this area, encouraging community organisations to develop activities that enable them to generate income that makes them more sustainable in the longer term.

In Ealing for example, the local Community Transport organisation, in partnership with Hackney Community Transport, recently succeeded in winning a major contract to transport workers around the developing Olympics site.

Lewisham have, of course, lead on a number of initiatives seeking to promote the development of community enterprises, epitomised by their Chief Executive’s lead on the review advocating the development of Community Assets.

And in Havering, my own borough, social enterprise development is undertaken by officers in our Regeneration service. In 2004, Havering was successful in receiving London Development Agency ‘Opportunities’ funding to deliver a three year social enterprise capacity support programme. And we are the only London borough to have a dedicated Social Enterprise Unit, which has been acknowledged by the LDA as a flagship project.

Some of our success include:

Enabling emerging social enterprises to have the confidence to consider applying for public sector contracts;
Changing procurement practices within Havering to encourage social enterprise to apply for contracts;
Raising the profile of social enterprise by introducing a social enterprise award at the Havering Business Awards;
And being the first local authority in East London to achieve the Customer First Accreditation.
At London Councils, we’ve worked with the third sector and communities in London to change the way our grants programme operates and re-focusing priorities. We have also supported a consortium of social enterprises to support this sector across London.

London Councils’ Commissioning of its Grants Programme:

London Councils’ decision to commission its grants programme brought a fundamental change to the way in which priorities were set, processes designed and services specified:

New processes were designed in partnership with a working group drawn from the voluntary and community (now referred to as third) sector;
Potential priorities for commissioned services were identified from intelligence from the 3rd sector and existing funding achievements; from research findings; from policy developments and then consulted on;
Detailed service specifications were then drawn up for each of the 59 services eventually agreed, detailing what the targeted outcomes were and in what proportion borough by borough the services were needed.
At every stage these were subject to extensive consultation with boroughs, other funders, third sector organisations and networks; as well as with communities more widely through public events held across the whole of London.

Actual delivery will be regularly scrutinised by partnerships involving the local authority and the local third sector, comparing achievements with targets, looking at what is and isn’t working, looking to continually improve upon the effectiveness of the services and helping inform funding priorities for the future. There are great similarities here with the way in which public sector bodies will need to engage with communities and commission services from the 3rd sector in future, and probably some useful lessons to be learned from our experiences.

The priorities themselves have not just focused upon the direct provision of services but also a range of other infrastructure support services such as those intended to better enable communities to engage with the public sector through providing ‘policy and voice’ support, provide access to appropriate support and advice for all 3rd sector agencies around “socially enterprising activity” whether they seek to become full blown social enterprises or are seeking to maximise their potential to earn income from trading in part of their work. Supporting social enterprise: future opportunities and challenges.
In addition to the activities I’ve just outlined, there are a number of ways that boroughs and London Councils can help support and work with social enterprise to develop better communities:

Delivering public services in innovative, new and cost-efficient ways;
Increasing levels of enterprise and the diversity of people setting up and running businesses;
Making the best use of community assets and regenerating areas and communities.
Today I’m going to focus on public service delivery and making the best use of community assets.

Public service delivery
Social enterprises are being increasingly successful at securing public sector contracts but there are opportunities to do more. Social enterprises already deliver quality services for local authorities and other public agencies, some are on a large scale:

Greenwich Leisure Limited is now providing leisure services in 14 London boroughs;
Hackney Community Transport delivers a range of community transport services across some east, central and north London boroughs. As many of you will have heard, HCT has also joined forces with Ealing Community Transport to provide the bus service to transport construction workers around the Olympic Park. The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) stated that the reason for their success in bidding was their commitment to making a difference in the areas they operate – such are targeting locally unemployed people for recruitment.
Secure healthcare runs healthcare services for prisoners and has successfully secured the contract to deliver this for Wandsworth PCT and the South London Doctors Co-operative provides out of hours GP services to 1 million Londoners living in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.
Understanding the advantages of contracting with a social enterprise is an important step towards developing a mutually beneficial relationship. As I mentioned earlier, social enterprises share a goal to improve social, economic and/or environmental well-being of communities with local authorities.

Consequently, social enterprises tend to employ a greater proportion of people who traditionally have been more excluded from the labour market (women, disabled people, the long-term unemployed and some minority ethnic groups). They are also more likely to employ people who live locally and this maximises the economic benefits to the local economy.

If rooted in the community, as many social enterprises are, they will have a good understanding of the needs of the community, share its values and have a real stake in its sustainability.

An SEL survey also found that a higher proportion of social enterprise employees understood and shared the goals of their organisation, considered their employer supportive of their needs compared to the public and private sectors. Social enterprises also had lower levels of staff turnover.

Of course, these potential competitive advantages need to go hand-in-hand with a high quality service and value for money.

The move towards public services that are personalised to customer needs and are driven by customer choice is another opportunity for social enterprises. Government and local authorities moving forward with this agenda – employment and skills services, including through Jobcentre Plus, are becoming more personalised as are those in the social care sector. The Government is proposing that future skills funding should be placed with the customer to spend on provision that best meets their needs; a similar system is again developing in the social care sector. As more of these services are commissioned, social enterprises, with their close links with communities, could provide effective personalised services and demonstrate this to potential commissioners. They are better placed to provide these services.

Challenges remain, however.

Local authorities, along with other parts of government, are tasked to provide 3 percent cashable efficiency savings each year as part of the Gershon efficiency agenda. Delivering better services whilst achieving efficiencies will continue to be a priority – whatever happens at the next general election;
One way of achieving this will be to let larger contracts for services by joint commissioning between boroughs.
A poor finance settlement for London local government over the current and following two years – 29 out of the 33 London boroughs are getting the minimum increase from central government this year and 24 during the following two years.
Funding is therefore extremely tight.

Local authorities are therefore looking for innovative new ways of delivering services to deal with a drive for more responsive services in a tight financial climate. This is both an opportunity and challenge for prospective contractors, including social enterprises.

The way that public bodies procure their services is important. It can be attractive for boroughs to diversify their supplier base and for some services, have a number of smaller and more specialised providers. Increasingly, boroughs are looking at their procurement processes to see if they can deliver wider objectives – to reduce local worklessness or child poverty, to support local enterprise, to promote environmental sustainable – whilst also compiling with national and European tender regulations.

The London Centre of Excellence (now part of London Councils Capital Ambition directorate) has funded a ‘Buying a Better London’ project that looked at identifying changes to procurement practices within councils to enable small businesses and ethnic minority owned businesses to better understand and compete for contracts and to identify and disseminate good practice. Whilst the project did not focus on social enterprises, some of the key lessons are transferable. Better use of IT to enable procurement teams to handle supplier enquiries and disseminate opportunities, a consistent business case for the social and economic benefits that can be obtained using small suppliers and encouraging the use of main contractors to mentor small businesses were among some of the key lessons learnt from the project.

However, there is still a challenge to spread pockets of good practice and work to develop a more consistent approach across London – working with the GLA group, who have led the way on some aspects of this agenda and with whom the boroughs are developing a Charter, and the Government Office for London.

In order to get the best social, economic and environmental benefits from public services whilst still delivering good quality and efficient services, and responding to call for more personalised services in a tight financial climates will require innovation and hard work from all of us.

Making the best use of community assets

The Quirk report advocated transferring public sector assets to communities to own, manage and use, and to provide them with a potential source of income generation independent of the more usual reliance upon grants, commissioning and contract funding.

Though the rationale behind community asset development promotes a mixture of both social and economic benefit to communities, for emerging social and community enterprises, this offers one of a number of opportunities to access accommodation in which to expand activities. In terms of public service delivery this can help ensure they have the operational capacity in order to provide services of the highest quality.

Eight London local authorities have been successful in securing grant from The Big Lottery to help them and their community organisations to transform identified properties into community assets that are fit for purpose. Other authorities may follow suit in the coming months, though in the current financial climate there will be many that are inclined to hold on to and protect their assets, at least for now.

Other funding streams such as FutureBuilders provide development opportunities for social enterprises to secure loans and grants to expand their business capacity, and improve their efficiency, with a specific focus on delivering high quality public services.

The problem with so many of these initiatives is that they have largely developed in isolation from each other, and so we have a challenge to create some real synergy between the improvements each can bring, and secure complementary developments that will maximise the potential for better quality service delivery benefitting all of London.

In conclusion there has been much progress in the field of social enterprise, much innovative work undertaken and I believe that nurturing social enterprise is a fundamental strand in developing cohesive and successful communities and society.

Thank you.