Events Index

Capita Local Government and Social Housing Conference 2007 Review

Empowering citizens and communities through business

The third Capita Local Government and Social Housing Conference was held at Warwickshire's Chesford Grange Hotel on 24th & 25th April. The Conference theme "Empowering citizens and communities through business" attracted over 200 participants who were able to consider this topic from a variety of perspectives.

On day one, the first of the five keynote speakers, Stephen Hughes, chief executive of Birmingham City Council set the scene by emphasising the Lyons report's call for place shaping to be seen as a vital role for local government. Indeed, local government could be defined as always being about places.

He cited statistics showing that some 85% of the UK's GNP was derived from urban areas. But there was a danger that the UK might be seen as too London-centric. He argued for other cities to put together progressive strategies so that they could control their own destinies. There was a real need for central government to devolve powers.

This theme was somewhat developed further by Andrew Hancox, director of the West Midlands Centre for Excellence. Andrew saw local government as in a state of improvement but warned that spending in the public sector was likely to tighten. The Regional Centre of Excellence (RCOE) had been established to pump prime developments and had been quite successful with the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) allowing scope for them to experiment.

Recent work by the RCOEs had considered procurement and how savings could be best achieved in the local government sector. The analysis had defined the five top spend categories - construction (17%), social care/adult (13%), environmental services (7%), road construction (6%) and HR (4%) and it seemed clear that any significant savings would need to be achieved in these areas. There was still scope for further working together on procurement.

The Conference also saw the launch of the latest CIPFA publication "Local Authority Financial Administration - emerging trends in the context of shared services". The report, which was sponsored jointly by Capita and Oracle, was presented by the author, John Thornton, and takes a largely case study approach to the issue. John was supported by David West, business manager at the Coventry Shared Services Centre and Scott Logan, benefits manager at Rochford District Council.

One of the highlights of the Conference was the introduction this year of electronic voting by delegates on key issues as they arose throughout the day. Some of the results of this year were particularly illuminating. The main barriers to the development of shared services were seen to be political and cultural. More than half of the delegates felt that central government should force local authorities to take up shared services and that the largest barrier was political.

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Overall some 53% of delegates felt that the largest pressure on work was the drive to improve efficiency, followed by 21% voting for budgetary constraints and 19% bureaucracy.

The other keynote speaker, Simon Reay, director of Consultas Limited, took the Conference in another direction by setting out his programme for effective use of IT in considering the role of IT in the social housing sector.

The work on day one was rounded off by breakout sessions covering a wide range of topics including Project Nomad, e-Benefits success at Maidstone Borough Council, choice-based lettings at Woking Borough Council, the Sussex-based CenSus Partnership, reducing paper with Medway Council and an update on Government Connect.

The latest way of improving customer service and fraud management was highlighted by Richard Sheridan from the new Capita company Inverita. Richard made the point that fraud costs the UK economy a staggering £20bn a year and demonstrated the latest computerised voice risk analysis software. This has been tried and tested in the insurance industry but has clear applications in the local government sector.

Ways of improving workflow using Academy/Equita mobile working were also highlighted using a case study in Lambeth where savings have been estimated at 70 hours a month.

Day one concluded with the very well attended drinks reception and gala dinner, followed by casino entertainment.

Despite the late night and enjoyable events at the end of day one, day two opened with a full Conference to hear Capita's John Tizard present his view of the local government sector.

The next keynote presentation was by Isobel Rickard who gave her reflections on anti-social behaviour based on her experiences working in Kensington and Chelsea.

This was followed by Dan Champion who discussed his take on web strategy and what it is possible to learn from developments such as social network sites. He advocated a serious approach to blogs suggesting that they really can be used to align with corporate strategy.

Day two also contained a very comprehensive programme of breakout sessions with input on subjects as diverse as benefit take-up, Valuebill and ESEH, housing systems as part of a group structure and the first opportunity to see Origen, the new suite of products from Capita financials.

The electronic voting was also used in day two to determine delegates' views on product issues and the results were then developed in concluding sessions run by Capita product managers.

Two competitions were also run during the conference. The prize of two days free consultancy and a bottle of champagne was won by Julie Smart of Chelmsford Borough Council and the prize for the highest accumulation of chips at the casino was won by Dave Williams of Medway Council who also received a bottle of champagne.

Events Index

Capita Local Government and Social Housing Conference 2007 Review

Empowering citizens and communities through business

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