The chief executive of the Norse Group has set out his insights on the challenges of merging services as local government reorganisation gains pace.
Speaking at The MJ Future Forum Midlands today, Justin Galliford offered his strategic perspective on the procurement landscape as the current reorganisation round unfolds.
He said: ‘We began to think about what the market would look like for our existing businesses and our businesses going forward.
‘At one end of the spectrum your may have a county council and a set of districts under it, and let's say they form one unitary. You then have in concept seven or maybe eight authorities all coming together. On day one you could have seven or eight sets of the same services being included. What challenges does that pose?
‘At the other end you take that same footprint but now split it into two or three unitaries. You may have a smaller level of agglomeration. At the same time you may see some disaggregation of some of those services. From a customer level we see some real challenges.'
He emphasised the importance of ‘thinking about services and the key variables around those – the ones that need to adapt on day one and those you accept you can come back to in the fullness of time, but that at the moment are ok'.
He added: ‘Our key parameters for that are risk-based, whether that's for service delivery or for political reasons. Bins are key, and from a members' perspective waste is collection is key. And from a county council perspective it's about SEND.'
Reflecting on the challenges involved in bringing services in different authorities together, he said: ‘You may have four sets of services being delivered in different ways. You may have to give consideration to when do those timelines converge, and indeed how do you get to the point where those timelines converge, so that the new authority can make some strategic decisions about the future of those services.'
He said that ‘within that it might be politically important to begin to harmonise some of those services quicker than those contractual timeliness allow.'
Procurement capability was a further consideration, he added: ‘Obviously in a new unitary there are going to be a lot of services to be procured.'
‘We know from some work we've done with [local government policy think tank] Localis thinking about the Procurement Act, there's already an insufficient level of capacity in the sector for procurement following the introduction of the Act.
‘It's important to think about those services that need attention first, and those that could be held in a holding pattern to come back to later on.'
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