What is the Productivity Programme?
The East of England LGA's Productivity Programme enables a council to engage an experienced expert in their field from our “Talent Bank”. These experts offer direct, bespoke advice and support which can help the council deliver efficiency, innovation or transformation.
The East of England LGA’s associates can provide support across a range of service areas and all of them have a proven ability to work with councils and to deliver results.
The programme allocates £3K of support available for each of our local authority member councils to be accessed in Financial Year April 2017 – March 2018.
Which service areas does the programme support?
The Productivity Programme provides a flexible range of support to enable councils to access skills and expertise in their chosen area. Below is a list of the core areas where we can offer the highest quality of associates but it is not exhaustive - support for activity outside of these areas will be considered and you are welcome to contact a member of the team to discuss your specific needs.
- Asset Management including investment, property development, re-use of assets, disposal and any support related to the government’s One Public Estate (OPE) programme
- Commercialisation including income generation, local authority trading, service commercialisation, commercial skills, training programmes and developing commercial business cases
- Human Resources and Organisational Development including re-structures, re-organisation, senior recruitment, leadership development, coaching, mentoring and skills training
- Procurement and Commissioning including contract management, market engagement, Public Contracts Regulations, specification writing, procurement project management, skills and development training, reviews of policy and procedure
- Public Service Reform including support with devolution, shared services, organisational and cultural change, collaboration and cross-sector working
What are the objectives of the programme?
The objectives of the Productivity Programme are to:
- supply proven short-term expertise to help, advise and challenge councils
- enable officers and members to identify and deliver improvement and efficiency
- support and enable approaches that will boost productivity, innovation and new ways of working
- provide seed-funding to identify opportunities for substantial and transformational change
How to access the programme
The programme can be accessed by individual councils or you can apply in partnership with other councils to support a collaborative project or piece of work. For example, 4 districts working together in partnership could access a total support package of £12K.
The funding is provided to councils in the form of associate support to the equivalent value and not in the form of a grant.
To apply for the Productivity Programme your council must:
- be a member of the East of England Local Government Association
- have identified a clear need for the support with a stated desired output or outcomes
- be willing to dedicate the necessary resource to support their participation in the programme
- be open and willing to share their learning from the programme with others and commit to producing a case study at the conclusion of their project
- have corporate buy in from the relevant lead member(s) and chief officer(s)
For a further discussion about how the Productivity Programme can help your authority and to obtain an application form, then please either contact our Senior Manager, Eddie Gibson on 01284 758300 / eddie.gibson@eelga.gov.uk or e-mail the office on info@eelga.gov.uk