31st March 2011 – YCChange’s theme of personal resilience was tested at the annual Kirklees Business Summit.  The Summit was themed around procurement and the manufacturing industry and it was of interest to us as Adrian Lythgo, the Chief Executive of Kirklees was on the panel.  In direct answer to my personal resilience question – “how are you making sure that you, your team and your partners maintain personal resilience during these challenging times for the industry”, we had answers around allowing time at work to think and share information with colleagues to obtaining a personal trainer aligned with the ‘healthy heart, healthy mind’ approach !!

All that was very interesting, but it was refreshing to hear Gary Jones,  MD of CKMA, talking about how he was trying to procure ‘locally’ and how he’d researched and sourced local suppliers to see if they could meet the organisations needs – so much more innovative than the tender portals in public sector and Adrian’s approach.   The event is timely as given the aims of central government to move 15% of public sector employees into a social enterprise, and the move for public sector to outsource much of their service delivery to private sector providers probably leaves small local suppliers very much out of the loop – and that’s something that Adrian is in a position to turnaround – so watch this space !  I’m on the case to finding out what we can do about this – locally !!

Just wanted to share something with you whilst I’m on my travels !!

I was at a “local by social” event the other day and wanted to share some of the interesting stuff organisations are doing with social media.

At Blackburn and Darwin “local bloggers” attend full council and share what’s happening in terms of council decision making – it’s instant new information ‘out there’ for those interested parties, and for the council, not only is it increasing transparency of decision making; accessing those who it may not usually access; but also Councillors find they get “tweeted” (or contacted via ‘usual means’!) individually, to talk about the specifics.  This describes using social media to create “a movement – not a moment”.  Some of the decisions around using social media, in conjunction with traditional methods, has saved the Council £250k – now that’s worth knowing! 

Other discussions during the day included developing a “Digital Engagement Strategy” to provide clarity about how the Council will use electronic means of engaging, communicating and involving, including the balance between new and traditional methods.  One of the big discussions was around creating a culture of 80/20 i.e. 80% of the time (because this is new) we’ll get it right and 20% we might not – but let’s not stifle innovation and experimentation !!  Organisations are encouraging council officer bloggers to demystify the workings of the sector.   People found that it also helped staff engagement in challenging and contributing to new ideas.  Social media is being used to build trust – trust that the organisation is listening and that the customer is contributing.

The Police joined the day to showcase the outcomes of their “GMP24” on Twitter – for those that missed this, for 24 hours each officer tweeted their daily activity.  At the start of the day there were 3,000 followers – this grew to 19,000 by the end of the day !!  It was high impact PR at low cost.  There are examples here of how “the local bobby” has become highly interactive with their communities through Twitter – they are sharing instantly some top tips on e.g. safety for young women; or local events happening in the area for students, or asking people if they know......  A PCSO tweeted the description of a burglar within seconds of attending a crime – this led to the capture and resolution of the case due to local tweeters providing information.

Hope that’s provided you with a bit of interesting information on getting “local with social” and how it can work with practice.

Just sharing this information with you, from one of my customers.  We have found that the TSA are alive and well !!  TSA colleagues are carrying out desk top reviews of the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard for a number of you, using your Annual Report.

An insight to some of what they are looking for – in case this turns out to be you – are assurances of – and providing supporting evidence to:

• Prioritisation of expenditure in delivering your local offers – based on tenant involvement in setting priorities

• Tenant involvement in assessing your performance against standards, especially in the production of your annual report

• Your insight strategy and how this will develop services in the future – as well as some detailed questions on your profiling

• Assurance for the Board of compliancy against the regulatory framework

Just wanted to share with you our fantastic news – we’re winners !! (well almost!!).

We were asked to put together a submission to the East Midlands “Committed to Construction Awards 2011” by a key partner of one of our customers.  We developed the strategic and operational approach to equality and diversity across the whole of the organisation and then ran a training programme for all staff, the Board and key partners to raise their awareness of their own personal contribution to this.  Our customer was Charnwood Neighbourhood Housing (CNH) and their key partner was FHM, their capital improvement contractor, a member of the KeepMoat Group.

FHM were so impressed with what we’ve done – and what our profiling has been able to achieve e.g.

• a tailored approach to working and communicating with customers knowing their varying ethnic, physical, emotional and social needs

• prioritising home improvement works to support those most vulnerable

• increased customer satisfaction with home improvements following the training programme and use of data

• increase in access at first visit due to utilising the customer preferred contact means

• specific contact to those most elderly during challenging times

• increase in rent collection levels due to targeted support to those of most need

• efficiency savings through e-correspondence

• plus many many more things in the pipeline .................

Want to invest in your staff, but want greater value for money?  Then why not try our webinar approach ! In simple language this is training, on-line ! 

It’s low cost yet retains the YCChange high quality – there’s no travelling cost or time – and it’s still interactive to enable creative discussion and debate.  All you need is a computer and a headset with a microphone – so no big IT investment required at all ! 

Our first webinars include:

• “magic meetings” – effective meeting management, making use of everyone’s time and focusing on impact and outcomes

Here’s another interesting Equality Impact Assessment debate – Unison are warning ¾ of Council’s who did not carry out an EIA on their job cut plans that they should halt their cuts programmes! Unison say that they could face costly and time-consuming legal challenges.

We hear via the lovely Amy Lamé on Twitter that lots of people are planning to give their religion as ‘lesbian’ in this month’s Census, protesting at the absence of a question on sexual orientation.

Have you equality impact assessed your planned budget cuts? Whilst this has been on the agenda for a long time now, the legal testings of the London Councils cuts to some of the voluntary sector bodies have been proved illegal – your business cases need to be watertight!

YCChange supports organisations develop a robust approach to Equality Impact Assessments. We provide full training for staff and partners so that it becomes a natural part of what your organisation does.

I’m very, very conscious that almost every single person out there is being faced with challenges they’ve never had to face before, given the current uncertain climate. This might be having to review your finances just to reign in, or because you’re going through a restructure or redundancy process at work, or because your business is suffering from the current climate. It might be that you are facing redundancy and you’re not sure what to do next. You might have taken a confidence knock – but don’t let this happen, it’s the climate, NOT YOU!

What I do know is that success will come from facing these challenges head on with a positive mindset and a feeling of confidence that, whilst it may wobble, will not be taken away from you.

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