North West Centre of Excellence

News Update

Week Ending 24th June 2005

1.      Standards Workstream

The Standards workstream held their fourth meeting on the 15^th June 2005.  Progress is being made in the Model Contractual Standing Orders workgroup and a skeleton template should be endorsed in the near future.  The Model Contractual Terms and Conditions workgroup are looking at the OGC’s model terms and conditions.  

For further information regarding the Standards workstream please contact Bev at the Centre bev.brooks@tameside.gov.uk

2.      Health & Social Care Workstream

The Health and Social Care workstream held their third meeting on the 14^th June 2005. This workstream currently has three workgroups underway: Human Resources; High Cost Specialisms and Outcome/Incentive Based Contracting in Social Care, all of these projects are progressing well.  The High Cost Specialisms workgroup have bid for a Project Manager, and this should be processed in the very near future.  The workstream are looking to make links with Health/PCT’s and as such the NWCE is looking at examples of good practice in terms of local authority links with PCTs across the region.  The NWCE is also going to collate workstream members comments regarding the Care Service Delivery Programme, and create a composite report which will be forwarded to the Care Service Delivery Programme team.

For further information regarding the Health and Social Care workstream please contact Bev at the Centre bev.brooks@tameside.gov.uk

3.      Construction Workstream

The Construction workstream met for the second time on the 17^th June 2005. The collaboration with the Highways Agency was discussed and the use of framework agreements for roads maintenance and to use model documents – The initial agreement has been to pilot their work in the North West. A researcher attached to the DBM Framework (Denso Bitumen Mastic) from the University of Salford has started initial work and will be working closely with Adam Hickson the Project Manager for the Construction Workstream.

For further information regarding the Construction workstream please contact Shelley at the Centre shelley.timpson@tameside.gov.uk

Further information regarding any of these Workstreams please see the Centres website at http://www.nwce.org.uk/

4.      Toolkit for Non-Schools education    

The National RCE website has now been updated to include a toolkit for non-schools education.  This will be the final toolkit to be placed on the website. Please see link below:

http://www.rcoe.gov.uk/rce/aio/10951

For more information the National RCE Website can be found at:

http://www.rcoe.gov.uk/rce/core/page.do?pageId=1

5.      NWeGG Customer Services Managers Meeting

This meeting will feature a keynote address by Bill Taylor, Chief Executive of West Lancashire D.C, who will be describing how he sees the importance of Customer Service Managers and their staff in providing high quality public services.

Other speakers will cover regional and national projects, including the Cheshire Out-of-hours Call Centre.

The Local e-Government Standards Body are developing a Customer Services Blueprint, and are trying to establish a stakeholder group to assist them in the development and provide appropriate material that could be used to populate it.

For more information and to register for this event please see http://www.nwegg.org.uk/interface/list_events.asp