| Description | The purpose of this report on the Efficiency and Reform Fund (ERF) is to summarise the achievements of the projects that received funding. The projects and activities outlined in this report represent just some of the activities under way across the public sector contributing to the overall purpose and objectives of the Scottish Government. |
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| ISBN | (Web Only) |
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| Official Print Publication Date | |
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| Website Publication Date | June 23, 2009 |
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Background
The purpose of the Fund was to support the then Scottish Executives' programmes of Efficiency and Reform by providing resources to accelerate significant programmes of work to drive efficiencies, reform and productivity in the delivery of world class public services in Scotland.
The Fund created on 1 April 2006 was a merger of the Efficient Government Fund and Modernising Government Fund. The Efficient Government Fund supported projects in the wider public sector which delivered significant efficiency gains, were joined up, had a number of partners and could be replicated. The Modernising Government Fund supported the Customer First strategic programme of work which aims to deliver joined up customer focused services with gains in efficiency and service improvement and benefits for citizens.
The focus of the fund was to:
- deliver existing and developing strategies on efficiency and public service reform;
- support significant scalable projects, or in the case of reform pathfinders, transform services, with the potential to contribute towards the delivery of world class public services in Scotland; and
- contribute to the delivery of efficiency targets in Scotland.
The realignment of fund activities in June 2007 has meant that all the projects that have been supported by the fund contribute to the delivery of National Outcome 15 "Our public services are high quality, continually improving, efficient and responsive to local peoples needs". Some of the projects can also be applied to other National Outcomes.
How the fund was managed
The Efficient Government Fund was established as a bid fund at the launch of the Efficient Government Plan in November 2004. In addition, the Modernising Government Fund supported national opportunities for collaboration and sharing. The Efficiency and Reform Fund as already stated was a merger of the Efficient Government Fund and the Modernising Government Fund.
The previous funds had different application processes in place. For the Modernising Government Fund strategic priorities were set and organisations were invited to confirm their contribution to delivering those objectives. The subsequent strategic approach was developed into the Customer First programme (see page 48). For the Efficient Government Fund a two stage application process had been introduced. Stage 1 was considered as "an expression of interest", which allowed a judgement to be made on whether the proposals were likely to be eligible for funding and had some reasonable prospect of successful delivery. A total of 26 projects were at that stage invited to submit Stage 2 business case bids.
Successful Stage 2 bids were assessed and where alignment with priorities was achievable received ministerial approval and were funded by the merged Efficiency and Reform Fund.
However, it is important to note that not all the projects that were funded went through the same process.
Local Government
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) provided leadership in terms of the approach for Local Government. This resulted in the formation of the National Shared Services Board for Local Government and the process for consideration of Local Government bids is described below
National Shared Services Board for Local Government (NSSB)
In practice, the fund operated as a bid fund until Spring 2006 but with an emphasis on collaboration/partnership and 'scalability' in designing proposals. On a competitive basis, 70 out of 90 Local Government proposals were rejected at outline proposal stage (December 2005) and 20 were invited to develop their proposals further.
In Spring 2006 COSLA, Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), the Local Government Improvement Service and the Scottish Executive agreed that it would be better to have a strategic fund that focused support on a small number of collaborative pathfinder projects with high impact than a bid fund that operated on a competitive basis.
All the remaining bids clustered round a small number of key themes:
procurement;
shared services or shared capacity;
collaborative workforce planning and development, and
shared specification/convergence in ICT.
The publication of the McClelland Review of Public Procurement in Scotland, and the creation of The National Procurement Reform Board, created the possibility of a more strategic focus on procurement. The publication of the 'National Shared Services Strategy' consultation paper, created a stronger framework for assessing shared services development proposals. Work also continued on the development of customer focused approaches through the Customer First Programme.
These factors led to the Efficient Government Fund being used as a strategic resource to support key developments in shared services and shared capacity. The clear agreement was that it should be focused on a small number of key themes and adopt a pathfinder approach to developing new practice. The overall objective remained supporting improvement in the efficiency of local government corporate and service functions. The National Shared Services Board was created in April 2006 comprising representatives from COSLA, SOLACE, Scottish Executive and the Improvement Service.
The Board commissioned programmes around the key theme areas which would focus on:
(a) identifying, sharing and standardising around best practice process.
(b) sharing front line and back office services between councils.
(c) sharing front line and/or back office services between councils and other public bodies in their area.
Fundamental to the approach was that there should be clear evidence and that estimating the benefits of such approaches should be done on the basis of good diagnostic analysis.
The initial prospectus, governance and key approved projects are set out below:
All projects were assessed using a common framework and issued with grant letters detailing the conditions and deliverables expected as well as the reporting requirements. These projects are described later in this document.
Projects funded by Efficiency & Reform Fund
The following sections of the report detail the wide ranging projects and programmes that have been supported by the Efficiency and Reform Fund. The projects have been categorised under the following headings:
The projects are at various stages of delivery and benefits realisation. Some have already delivered against their grant agreements and are building on realising the benefits. Others are longer term programmes of work e.g. the Local Government Shared Services programme which is moving into the design and implementation phase with the majority of local authorities having completed the diagnostic phase.
The following diagram illustrates the breakdown of funding between the categorised headings.
