North West Centre of Excellence

News Update

Week Ending 21st January 2005

First a big thank you to Paul Dowthwaite whose hard work has laid the foundations for the North West Centre of Excellence.
 

1. Last week saw a meeting of Workstream Leaders at Rochdale; this demonstrated the links between the various Workstreams and the importance of prioritisation.  Each Workstream Leader has been asked to produce a report for the next Management Board meeting detailing the scope of the Workstream objectives.
    

2. The first meeting of the eProcurement Workstream took place at Hyde.  This was very well attended with volunteers forthcoming for a variety of elements of the Workstream.
    

3. The Refuse Collection Vehicle project, which is an element of the Contracts Workstream, will have its initial meeting at the end of January, and if anyone is interested in this venture please contact the Centre.
    

4. The Local Authority Purchasing Partnership (LAPP) met last week and have been asked to identify which of their framework agreements could be used more widely throughout the region.  If anyone has any agreements they think could be used more widely, please let the Centre know.
    

5. Greater Manchester has a very interesting initiative with the potential to turn waste into energy and serious consideration is being given to the purchase of a power station.  Many Waste Disposal Authorities and Councils have already indicated interest and we would be pleased to hear from any other Councils not already involved.  Please contact the Centre.
    

6. Councils in Cheshire are exploring the possibility of greater collaboration between them and held a meeting on Friday at which the 4Ps and the Centre were represented.
    

7. It is disappointing to confirm that the ODPM will not fund the bids that were sent to them late last year. The Centre will receive £1.32 million in 2004/05 and money can be carried over from one year to the next and then £1.72 million in 2005/06. Funding on a similar scale is anticipated for 2006/07 onwards. 
    

8. The top priority for using Centre funds will be Corporate Collaborative Projects, which support delivery of the mainstream efficiency review.  The second priority for funding from the Centre is ‘Sectional Added Value’ projects. This means that we will examine all project bids to see if there is any argument for requesting some funds from other areas including other government departments. 
    

9. Finally, we appear to have the national lead on public transport.  This is a huge area of spend which I take to include buses, trains and taxis.  We need to set up a Workstream to start to address this and volunteers for this Workstream would be appreciated.
    

Many thanks,

Colin Cram
21^st January 2005