Free to plan...?

Christian Rogers, Director, Capita Symonds, looks at the government’s big idea of ‘Big Society’…


The ideas for devolving decision making to the local level, especially in terms of planning and housing, as well as the proposed rights for communities to take-on service delivery and increased local financial autonomy, could enable significant efficiencies as well as better quality, more locally relevant services. With the right support and approach, local communities could now be free to plan for all of their local needs as part of a single, joined-up local approach for council, education, housing and health services.


In conjunction with potential overhauls to local government finance, this could enable communities to make real decisions about their futures which can be backed up with the means to deliver - free of Whitehall control.


The spirit of these proposals is to be particularly welcomed for its recognition that lasting and sustainable change is more likely to occur if local people are in the driving seat and own it. Direct community involvement in the planning system could help make the move away from the historical position where people have only engaged in the planning system as objectors, and towards groups with the same determination and enthusiasm for positively planning their communities.

But to make it work, local authorities and their local communities will need new skills and resources to be able to engage this ‘legion of community grass roots capital’ and thus enable local government to play its critical role effectively in making the change happen.


Of course, there is a risk that, if not properly supported, it could lead to a return to the bad old days of local government being the whipping boy for failings at both the micro-local and macro-national level. Some might say that there is also a risk that there will be a balance shift towards smaller scale local regeneration projects and away from the kinds of larger scale brownfield developments that have been seen over the last ten years. This could adversely affect the drive to ‘close the gap’ on the supply of affordable housing which major developments like the Thames Gateway and sustainable urban extensions have been addressing. It may even lead to regeneration funding and control being diverted to more ‘politically popular’ projects.


There is also the need to carefully consider how to balance the potentially conflicting aims of greater direct community involvement and a more streamlined planning system as councils will be covering the cost of even more consultation and needing specialists to properly facilitate this engagement process. The need for specialist support for planning within local communities if the regional tier of planning is removed (i.e. moving from a national planning framework straight to a local council level service) again increases costs and the need for specialist support.

There may not be universal support for these new policies - and the RTPI has indicated it will resist them through negotiation with new ministers - so the danger is that we could end up with little more than smoke and mirrors and little real change.


Overall though, the greater freedom for areas to decide how they want public services to operate could be exciting and efficient, stripping out costly central supervision and local duplication. The separate streams could be drawn together in a model that allows local authorities to fulfil a strong community leadership role that includes coordinating a single plan for all local services developed in a cohesive way, focused on local needs and priorities, providing for not only the delivery of health and education services but also for the housing that the teachers and nurses will need. This would replace the current system where formal plans just implement government targets on housing and are often divorced from spending decisions on schools, GPs, hospitals etc.


Local Authorities would therefore be ‘free to plan’ because they would have both the financial autonomy and the planning autonomy: they would be free to focus on the local priorities that they understand best and to provide genuine community leadership that removes duplication and overhead, delivering better services at less cost.

Capita Symonds students complete BusinessWise

42 students from Capita Symonds have successfully completed the company’s BusinessWise programme, achieving a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Performance Management from the University of Salford.

This is the first group of employees to complete the ground breaking business skills programme, one of the first programmes to be jointly designed and delivered by an employer and a university in the UK.
The knowledge and skills that the graduates have developed during the programme, will be essential now, more than more than ever before, to the continued success of the company...

Successful students attended the graduation ceremony at The Lowry Art and Entertainment Centre in Salford where Craig Kirk from Capita Symonds' Cumbria & North-East business also collected the award for Most Outstanding Student on BusinessWise from Capita Symonds Executive Director Dave Spencer.

Pictured: Craig Kirk, winner of the first ‘Most Outstanding Student Student’ Award for BusinessWise, with Capita Symonds project manager Ann Graves and Dr Ed Doran, University of Salford programme leader

Dave said: “We are delighted that BusinessWise has proved to be so successful. The knowledge and skills that the graduates have developed during the programme, will be essential now, more than more than ever before, to the continued success of the company. We are proud of the commitment that all the graduates have made to BusinessWise and in particular Craig should be congratulated on achieving the Most Outstanding Student award, which is a credit to the work he has put in over the last two years.”

Stuart Wells, Director of Management Development Programmes at the University of Salford, Salford Business School commented: “We are extremely delighted to see the first cohort graduate from this ground breaking programme. The programme is unique in that it is co-developed and co-delivered by Salford Business School and senior staff from Capita Symonds. It offers a substantial grounding in the theory relating to management disciplines combined with business specific skills. This has enabled students to combine learning in both the workplace and the class room. Special praise should go to Craig for the effort and determination he has put in over the course of the programme. He has excelled in his studies and the prize is recognition of his outstanding academic performance.”

23 students that commenced the second cohort of BusinessWise are now half-way through the programme and are on track to graduate in July 2011.

Find out more about BusinessWise.

How the stunning Goodwood Festival of Speed sculpture was made

Capita Symonds’ Structures team provided structural engineering design for the spectacular central sculpture at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The innovative display – sponsored by Alfa Romeo to celebrate the company’s centenary – was designed especially for the event by renowned sculptor Gerry Judah. The structure’s design, which is reminiscent of the car giant’s Quadrifoglio badge and the red livery of its racing cars, features an Alfa Romeo P2 (a P2 won the inaugural Automobile World Championship in 1925) and a 2003 8C Competizione.

Click here to see how this amazing structure was designed and put together.

Property efficiency? This time it's for real

Mark Norris, Executive Director, Capita Symonds comments on the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) / Capita Symonds survey on public sector estates rationalisation.

"The results of today’s LGC/Capita Symonds survey are fascinating. Although the progress is limited, there is clearly a serious drive from local authority chief executives to unlock the savings available from their property estates and services. More importantly, there is also a greater willingness to work with the private sector in developing new property solutions in innovative partnerships.

Our survey shows that the top three issues in terms of property are serious ones: that buildings are not suited to modern service delivery, they are costly to maintain and cannot meet sustainability targets.

Surprisingly, given the unprecedented level of public sector debt, more than half of respondents indicated that their estate remained largely unchanged from that analysed in the most recent Audit Commission report on local authority property in 2009.

There also appears to be a mismatch in the available resources for the rationalisation of property portfolios (approximately 70% of chiefs indicated that the required strategies, finance, and expertise exist in-house) and the progress made to date.

Nevertheless, the tightening of central government funding has undoubtedly brought the capital that is tied up in local authority assets into sharp relief. For example, 84% of respondents said estate rationalisation was vital, and all respondents were looking to find ways of reducing the operational cost of the estate.
But how can efficiencies be realised? Most chiefs indicated that the key lies in relocating out of redundant space and consolidating into modern and efficient property while introducing new ways of working (with potential savings of up to 40%). As a result, a willingness to ‘de-silo-ise’ historically separate organisations is increasing – 73% of local authority respondents indicated that public service convergence and co-location was on their immediate agenda.

The survey also reiterates that effective estates rationalisation using new delivery models is key – stand-alone sale and leaseback of assets by local authorities is not considered a viable solution under the current local government funding regime, whereas the release and sale of surplus nonoperational assets in combination with property services outsourcing certainly is.
Overall, it looks as though, after umpteen reports on public sector property efficiency, this time it’s for real."
This survey was carried out by LGC and was commissioned and sponsored by Capita Symonds. The report on the results was independently written by LGC and published on 08 July 2010. Visit the LGC website here.