Improving on Improvement
07 July 2010
The North West Improvement and Efficiency Partnership
(NWIEP) would like to introduce their new Chief Executive - Rebecca
Murphy.
Rebecca Murphy joins NWIEP from the IDeA (Improvement and
Development Agency) and is brimming with enthusiasm and ideas on
where NWIEP should be going. "Efficiency has never been more
important. All over the country councils and public sector
bodies are being asked to find savings in excess of 25% of their
budgets. The enormity of this task can not be underestimated,
collaborative working will need to be accelerated, innovative and
new models of service delivery will need to be developed and
councils and their partners will be required to rise to the
challenge.
The North West can lead the way in this and we at the NWIEP are
going to be there every step of the way to help encourage and
engender change that is focused around putting the customer first
and protecting frontline services."
As well as leading NWIEP, Rebecca is also key to the development
of a partnering approach to driving and delivering sector led
improvement and efficiency in the North West. The regional
body, NWIEP, and the national agency, IDeA, have joined forces to
pool their knowledge, skills and resources to provide a streamlined
and accessible support infrastructure to the public sector and
their partners in the North West.
Rebecca says, "This innovative approach to delivering
improvement services to councils is still in the very early
stages. The long game will hopefully reveal a much sharper,
more focused and accessible body of support to North West local
authorities and public sector bodies that other regions will want
to copy. For now the focus is very much on aligning the
organisations and producing clarity on the offerings that are
available from both. This is a truly important opportunity
for the North West, and we all want to push this agenda, but we are
also keen to do the job properly and generate success, which means
taking the time to be thorough.
Councillor Michael Lee, Chair of NWIEP, said: "We are all aware
of the difficult times, which the public sector will be facing with
reducing budgets, and a continuing increase in customer
expectations. I am really excited by this partnership, which will
build upon the success of the NWIEP and IDeA and provide support
and guidance to assist our local authorities, health partners and
police partners to work together more efficiently and effectively
to reduce costs and deliver more responsive services.
The North West is the first region to look at how we can
maximise all of the improvement services at regional and national
level for the benefit of local people, I am sure that it will be a
huge success."
Rob Whiteman, Chief Executive, IDeA commented, "We are delighted
to join forces with NWIEP at this very important time when the
public sector is facing unprecedented changes and a coordinated
approach to improvement and efficiency is a must across the
sector."
ENDS
NOTES:
- For media enquiries, please contact Alexia Mitton on 01942
705459, email alexia.mitton@wigan.gov.uk.
- The NWIEP was established in April 2008 as one of nine regional
partnerships throughout the country via central government funding
to drive forward the improvement and efficiency agenda with local
councils and their partners. The NWIEP is a member led Partnership
made up of elected members, chief executives and regional bodies
from throughout all of the 5 sub regions in the North
West. Over the initial three year period, NWIEP will have
received c£30m to support the improvement and efficiency agenda and
to date has led huge improvements in areas such as procurement,
skills and capacity, and economic recovery, and has returned over
£110m in efficiency savings.
- IDeA is local government's own improvement agency. It
offers a wide range of improvement and development support to
councils and their partners with national and local focus. It
has been rebranded this week as Local Government Improvement and
Efficiency.
- Rebecca Murphy was Head of Programme, Service Improvement at
the IDeA.