Summary: Joint management arrangements are beginning to emerge across the public sector as the drive for greater efficiencies gains pace. Sharing a Chief Executive and in some cases the entire senior management team, can have many benefits for public sector organisations. In this month's show, we talk to two people who have first hand experience of this growing practice. To listen to the podcast, click the grey arrow below. My first guest is Stephen Fletcher who is the co-author of a report recently published bynbsp;the IDeA that explores the impact of sharingnbsp;chief executives. The study concentrated on 10 parings of councils who are at various stages of implementing a shared chief executive and managementnbsp;teamnbsp;and Stephennbsp;details some ofnbsp;hisnbsp;findings: DRIVERS FOR THIS HAVE CHANGED OVER TIME - initially it was done on an interim basis to support a council in need of help, now it's done to make real efficiency savings COUNCILS ARE MOVING AWAY FROM JUST SHARING A CHIEF EXECUTIVE - to sharing a whole management team, officers and services, between both councils REAL AND SIGNIFICANT SAVINGS ARE COMING THROUGH - some authorities are looking at pound;1m p.a. after quite a short period of time THE WHOLE THING HAS TO BE DRIVEN BY POLITICIANS - otherwise the arrangement will fall apart Although the majority of of councils in the report are districts, Stephen believesnbsp;this type of arrangement could work well for anynbsp;local authority, however there are some fundamentally important issues to consider: nbsp;SIZE -nbsp;it's easier for smaller authorities to come together, although with careful planning and consideration, larger authorities could successfully link up nbsp;BIG SIMILARITIES - authorities need tonbsp;have similarnbsp;cultures,nbsp;geography and demographics nbsp;CLOSE LINKS BETWEEN MEMBERS - there needs to be good cross-party working with elected members wanting the the same outcomes, such as sharing and improving services THINK ABOUT THE EMPLOYMENT MODEL - many authorities initially choose the secondment route where one authority is the employer and the other pays for a segment of time, now authorities are moving to a joint employment contract. Resolve any issues around terms and conditions at a very early stage The advice Stephen givesnbsp;to anyone who is considering the shared chief executive approach, is to make it one job. You can't look upon this as two separate jobs - the secret is about bringing it together. The job is supporting two sets of councils and not to be a chief executive in two different places at the same time, as that's not sustainable. The savings will come from bringing the management teams together and sharing the services and you can only do this if you look upon it as one job, with one set of officers beneath you. A copy of the Shared Chief Executives and Joint Management:nbsp;a model for the future? can be downloaded here. Additional reports that Stephen has written on this topic can be found here. David Buckle is my second guest. David is Joint Chief Executive at Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils and is the only Chief Executive in this joint role, who won his job in competition with his opposite number at Vale of Whitenbsp;Horse Council. Bringing the two councils togethernbsp;hasnbsp;thrown up some interesting challenges andnbsp;David shares some of his experience with us. David believes there are a number of reasons for the successful paring of these two authorities: HUGE DRIVE AND ENERGY- from him, the management team and heads of service, who are fired up and committed to making this work BOTH COUNCILS HAVE SIMILAR, QUITE SEVERE FINANCIAL PRESSURES - and are looking at ways to save money THE POLITICAL COMMITMENT - there is very strong backing from both sets of politicians, who have given a clear mandate to bring everything together that makes good business se...
