Leading Public Services
Membership
The North Wales Regional Leadership Board (NWLPB) is made up of the Leaders and Chief Executives of the six North Wales Councils plus the lay and executive leaders of the other key public service bodies in the region: -
- Conwy County Borough Council
- Denbighshire County Council
- Gwynedd Council
- Isle of Anglesey County Council
- Flintshire County Council
- Wrexham County Borough Council
- The Chair and Chief Executive of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board,
- The Chair and Chief Executive of the North Wales Police Authority,
- The Chief Constable of the North Wales Police and
- The Chair and Chief Fire Officer of the North Wales Fire and Rescue Authority.
Formation and Purpose
The NWRLB was formed in 2010. It absorbed the former WLGA North Wales Regional Partnership Board which formed in 2006 in response to the Making the Connections agenda.
The role of the North Wales Regional Partnership Board was: -
- The management and promotion of collaborative projects that would pilot joint service delivery models where a service provided by a lead authority would serve more than one council.
- The sharing of experience and building of relationships to underpin joint working
- The development of a “North Wales Voice” where the NWRPB would campaign on “regional” issues specific to North Wales.
From Partnership to Leadership - The North Wales Regional Leadership Board
Current Focus
The North Wales Regional Leadership Board (NERLB) aims to provide strategic leadership to: -
1. Promote more efficient and effective public services through: -
- Collaborative service delivery
- Sharing of best practice and change that “works” with regard to service delivery
2. Strengthen relationships with other public services in the region, like the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, the North Wales Police and The Fire Service through sharing information, promoting better, more effective partnership working between public services and regionalising successful and innovative local collaborative working between public services.
3. Influence the Welsh Assembly Government and UK Government on regional issues.
Vision
The Board has developed an innovative Vision for driving and supporting change in public services.
The Vision commits the partners to: “use collaboration and other innovative partnerships to improve services and make them more efficient through sharing overheads, expertise, IT platforms and smarter management of the market place through joint commissioning and procurement”.
Delivering the Vision: Programme Boards
The Vision is being realised through four Programme Boards: -
- Social Care and Health
- Education and Related Services
- Environment and Regulatory Services
- Support Services
Each Programme Board: -
- Consists of relevant Cabinet Members and Chief Officers and representatives of other public service partners on the NWRLB.
- Is developing regional collaboration projects that will make efficiencies and improve services.
- Will be a platform for responses to ministerial challenges to improve services and efficiency in the programme area e.g. education and social services
- Has a chief executive sponsor who reports back to the NWRLB and seeks to ensure, ambition, challenge and pace in the work of each board.
Key Projects include: -
Programme Board & Project
Social Care and Health
A regional commissioning hub for Children’s Services, Learning Disability, Mental Health and PSI Placements
The development of a regional commissioning mechanism for Supporting People
Education and Related Services
Transforming Education by creating a joint school improvement service
Environment and Regulatory Services
Creation of a shared service for Construction Design and Building Services
Fleet Management and Transport Services
Support Services
Shared Back Office Services
A regional procurement agency
Other Work-streams
Other work-streams the Board is working on include: -
- Rationalising partnerships in North Wales with the support of the North Wales Police and the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board
- Improving joint working with the NHS through regular consideration of reports from the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board where the local authorities have representation on the BCUHB Executive Board.
- Providing the Trade Unions with involvement in discussing the development of the NWRLB’s collaboration programme through regular liaison meetings.
Challenges and Solutions
Key challenges that the NWLPB faces include: -
- Resources and capacity to deliver Collaboration projects
- Maintaining good communications from the NWRLB, programme boards and projects back to individual councils
Convincing sceptical elected members and managers that regional working will:
- deliver savings and service improvements
- will remain responsive to local control through new governance mechanisms
To overcome these challenges the NWRPB is: -
- Working hard to communicate its actions including regular reporting on council agendas from Programme Boards, Template reports on projects to launch a project and obtain ownership of recommendations, Project newsletters and bulletins and linking the management of projects and programmes to the relevant professional networks
- Using a regional transformation fund of over £1m to invest in projects capacity and appoint managers of new regional services with a mission to develop the new regional service without lengthy and bureaucratic business case processes.
- Providing strategic leadership and commitment from the NWRPB
- Seeking to deliver tangible benefits from current projects to demonstrate that the collaborative concept works.
For more information contact: Stephen Jones