North West Centre of Excellence

News Update

Week Ending 17th June 2005

Stakeholder Event

We did say that the Newsletter this week would be dedicated to the Stakeholder event  – to cover this we have put presentations on the Web - presentations can be found at http://www.nwce.org.uk/events/.  Feedback received so far has been very positive – if you have not yet done so please register your comments with us by emailing nwcope@tameside.gov.uk or using the feedback link on our website http://www.nwce.org.uk/feedback.php.  Thank you to all who attended - over 125 people from across the region. 

We are now planning next years event and would like your input - what would you like to see on the day and what we should avoid?  We are also working with NWeGG on a series of joint events and would welcome suggestions for events and activities.

Contracts Information

The NWCE will shortly be carrying out a data collection exercise for all contract information for Local Authorities in the North West. This will include commodity, start and end dates, values etc.  A model contract register will be provided but the information can be submitted from any existing system you may have. This information will be analysed and used to inform the workplan for the framework agreements workstream. For individual Authorities it will help to identify any gaps in your contracts portfolio and identify opportunities for quick wins where you can join with existing arrangements to make efficiencies. If have any comments or questions regarding this exercise please contact Olly Baker (olly.baker@tameside.gov.uk) or Beth Loudon (beth.loudon@tameside.gov.uk) at the NWCE before 24th June which is when we plan to finalise the arrangements for the data collection.

Local e-gov National Projects Programme

These sessions bring together National Projects and wider e-government initiatives to provide topic focused sessions based around key local government themes including Efficiency, Citizen Take-Up, Service Improvement, Customer Centric Thinking and Multi Agency Working & Data Sharing (Children's Services). The aim is to help councils use the tools developed by local authorities as part of the local e-gov programme and also learn from the communities of experience that are emerging around these key themes.

The half and full day events are taking place over five weeks in June/July 2005 at the following locations across England:

21-23 June, Newcastle

27-29 June, Harrogate

5-7 July, Coventry

12-14 July, London

19-21 July, Bristol

Full details about the events: www.localegovnp.org.uk/events/esw3

e-Procurement

Reminder that North West Centre of Excellence and NWeGG e-procurement questionnaire – responses due by 24^th June. Copies of the questionnaire will be made available on the Centre’s website.

Postponement of e-procurement workstream 24^th June 2005.  Following the revised date for returning the above questionnaire to 24^th June, we have deferred the next meeting of the e-Procurement workstream to 15^th July.   The venue will be Hyde Town Hall, Tameside and further information will be circulated in due course.  If you would like to attend this meeting please email nwcope@tameside.gov.uk.

Consultation and Communications

Following feedback from workstream members we will be producing a newsletter updating all workstream members with progress made in each workstream and all other projects.  Updates from Workstream Leaders should be circulated to Viv (viv.greatwich@tameside.gov.uk) by no later than 27^th June.  The first newsletter will be circulated in July.