The South East Centre of Excellence brings together chief executives from across the region, bringing benefits to all. Stephen Weigel explains how they operate
It’s hard to miss Andrew Larner, director of the South East Centre of Excellence (SECE). At 6ft 6in, he towers above most people.
And behind the beard and gentle exterior lies a steely determination and strong belief in partnership working and helping councils make efficiency gains.
The South East is the biggest of the Centre of Excellence’s nine regions, with 74 councils. It covers an area stretching from Kent to Milton Keynes, and includes Berkshire, Hampshire and Sussex.
Andrew has worked in local government for the last 20 years, in China, Africa, the Middle East and across Europe. He became director of the South East Centre of Excellence in November 2004.
The SECE management board is made up of South East chief executives, and chaired by Peter Gilroy, chief executive of Kent CC. The board was determined from the outset that the centre should be collectively owned by, and based among, the authorities in the region.
To achieve this, the SECE team recently changed its work style to home-based working, combined with ‘hot desking’ in South East authorities.
Hot desks had been provided by Kent CC, SECE’s host authority, and Brighton and Hove Council. But Andrew’s PA needed an office base, with hot desking and access to meeting rooms in a convenient location in the region.
For these reasons, Andrew approached Tandridge DC in Oxted, Surrey. The new location offers excellent links to the M25 and M23, as well as a direct train service to London.
Andrew’s PA and my PA also provide office cover for each other. The combination of hot home-based working, hot desking and a base in Tandridge not only means SECE can work with councils throughout the region, it also provides excellent value for money. Tandridge’s human resources, finance and ICT teams have been involved in helping SECE relocate.
Talking about the move, Andrew says: ‘I have found Tandridge staff to be very responsive and helpful. We have had no problems moving into the offices, and it has been a very smooth transition.
‘Like Kent CC, there is very much a can-do culture, providing an efficient, friendly and customer-focused service.’
Some of the initiatives SECE has already been involved in include:
l reverse auctions in environmental services. This gets companies to bid to provide the lowest costs for wheeled bins and cut costs by 30%
l e-tendering. Mid Sussex recently put its waste contract up for tender online and received 13 responses
l setting up a portal with information about waste disposal. It received 150,000 hits in the first eight weeks
l supporting spend analysis, which has led to significant savings, for example, on taxis for social care clients in Windsor and Maidenhead, managing to save 40%
l setting up a partnership framework which now has more than £0.5bn of projects to reduce spending on construction services, and get more competitive prices. Hampshire, which led the work for SECE, has used this approach and saved 12%.
Despite being a small team with a small budget trying to bring about big changes, in its first year, SECE generated £20m of savings, which Andrew puts down to the desire and commitment in councils in the South East to reduce costs while maintaining quality of service.
One of the key aims of SECE is to support local partnerships, including the East Surrey Improvement Partnership (ESIP), which is made up of Tandridge, Mole Valley and Reigate and Banstead councils.
An IT link between the three councils is being installed to make it easier to share systems and move forward on other initiatives. SECE is part funding implementation of the link, and has already supported Adur, Horsham and Mid Sussex in doing the same thing. In addition, ESIP is about to be awarded a bid from the capacity building fund for a total of £300,000 over two years. SECE is supporting ESIP financially and with expert help, such as project management. It is keen to work with ESIP to make sure the resources needed are available.
Areas for potential joint working have been identified and SECE’s project managers will help ESIP develop these, using its business case methodology.
Andrew is keen to see progress made by the South East continue, particularly with a challenging spending round ahead.
‘Our challenge is to stay local and keep our feet on the ground, while continuing to develop relationships with councils.
‘Every pound of government funds in councils in the South East is currently returning £20 of savings. We want to see this increase and believe we can help achieve this.’
And a spokesman for Tandridge DC adds: ‘Having the SECE team based in our offices has mutual benefits. It is a two-way relationship. We have easy access to its services – as it has to ours.
‘With ESIP we can see at first hand how it can have an impact in helping us move forward.’ n
Stephen Weigel is chief executive at Tandridge DC
