Awards a-go-go!
25 June 2010
NWIEP would like to congratulate the two projects that were
finalists in the Government Opportunities (GO) magazine
Excellence in Public Procurement Awards 2010. That the
success of these projects has been recognised in these national
awards is a testament to all the hard work and dedication that the
North West bring to the improvement and efficiency agenda.
Read below to find out more about the nominations.
Category: GO Collaborative Procurement
Initiative of the Year Award (Other Organisations)
Project: North-West Foster Care Contract
The Foster Care Contract brings together 13 authorities from across
the North West who have committed to work together to drive down
the costs of Foster Care. It is expected to generate
efficiencies of over £7million over the next four years.
The contract was formally procured by representatives from
Manchester, Liverpool and Trafford Council and was supported by
NWIEP and Placements North West (PNW). It commenced on
5th April 2010 and provides the opportunity for all
Contracted Local Authorities to benefit from the consolidation of
demand for foster care placements. The contract has been
awarded to 28 independent fostering agencies (IFA's), increasing
the pool of contracted foster carers in the North-West.
Category: GO Innovation or Initiative Of the
Year Award
Project: AGMA Procurement Hub - SpendPro
SpendPro provides a sustainable and regularly updated sub
regional view on local authority expenditure. This facility
enables AGMA procurement teams to focus their efforts on key
expenditure areas, driving efficiencies from their procurement
activity. It provides a holistic view of the way in which
local authority procurement supports and influences the local
economy thus highlighting opportunities for further
improvement.
SpendPro is already established as a unique tool designed
specifically for the needs of local authority procurers. It
has fast become the tool of choice for procurement functions across
AGMA as it provides a quarterly data update, a capability that is
currently unrivalled in the market. The tool is already
embedded across the majority of the authorities in Greater
Manchester and it is considered to be a critical and trusted
procurement resource.
In other award news, a strand of the Merseyside Improvement and
Efficiency Partnership's project BEST (Building Excellence,
Securing Transformation) is a contender in the TJ (Training
Journal) Awards 2010. The Merseyside Coaching Academy has
submitted a nomination to the 'Best Coaching Programme of the Year
Award'.
The Merseyside Coaching Academy seeks to establish a network of
coaches and managers with coaching skills, the deployment of which
would begin to drive improvements. The objectives were for each of
the seven partner organisations to have:
- A jointly defined and agreed approach to coach training and a
process for accessing a coach
- A pool of managers trained in coaching skills
- A "coach trainer" who is trained to train potential
coaches
- A network of coaches who support and continue to develop
together
Their desired outcome was to use coaching to:
- Achieve tangible improvements and efficiencies and encourage
innovation by the use of coaching skills by sharing the costs
across all authorities and therefore generating significant
savings
NWIEP wish BEST and MIEP every success with their application
and will update you on how they did in September.