AGMA Agency Staffing
30th July 2008
Aperia project managed this ambitious “shared service” project for eleven authorities. The project specified, procured, implemented and realised the benefits of a single contract for a vendor neutral managing agent.
The project has delivered:
• £1 million of quick win savings that were delivered within six months
• Ongoing annual savings of £2.5 million per annum (7% of expenditure)
• Non cashable efficiencies that will be worth approximately £1 million to each authority in the life of the contract
• Used the management information to target areas of over-reliance upon agency workers – the result has been an estimated £4 million reduction in expenditure
• Better visibility of ongoing safeguarding checks
• The project is also exploring the opportunity to use the new infrastructure and processes to stimulate and deliver a richer supply base of temporary workers which better reflect the diversity of the population.
The project has delivered under budget and broadly to time scale – some achievement across a collaboration of 11 authorities.
The Situation
The Office of Government Commerce estimates that Local Government spends £2.2 billion per annum on “agency workers”.
The authorities that make up the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities spend in excess of £35 million per annum. The market-place could be summarised as follows:
• Terms and conditions tended to favour the suppliers
• Charge rates and profit margins for similar roles varied enormously both within and across authorities
• These charge rates were dictated by suppliers rather than based upon a market price for the necessary skills
• Processes, controls and management information for engaging and managing temporary workforce were inadequate
• authorities and service managers felt nervous of addressing the situation for fear of losing key front-line staff
Authorities face ever increasing budgetary pressures and 11 of the 12 authorities in AGMA decided to embark upon a collaborative project to better manage their expenditure on this expensive resource.
The Project
Aperia Government Services were engaged to project manage the ambitious collaborative project. The objectives were to work collaboratively and manage the market place to bring about the following outcomes:
• To reduce the prices paid for temporary workers
• To reduce the reliance upon this expensive work-force
• To improve the quality of temporary workers
• To deliver a process that can be audited to demonstrate that it delivers equality of opportunity for all
• To reduce related to compliance to necessary reference checking and vetting (such as “CRB safeguarding”, POVA, POVC, rehabilitation of Offenders Act and other certificates and registrations)
• To reduce (or at least mitigate) the employment risks to which the organisations might otherwise be susceptible
Approach
The project was managed across five work-streams, as follows:
• Project and change management
• Analysis and solution specification
• Quick Win
• Procurement
• Implementation
The project was managed in line with the principles of PRINCE2. The success relied therefore upon a clear business case. Aperia worked in partnership with the elected stakeholders in each authority to design and implement the change management controls and processes to ensure that the benefits were realised. During the lengthy procurement and implementation processes the quick wins delivered significant savings through renegotiating existing rates.
Reference
“Aperia understand Local Government. They worked seamlessly alongside all of the partner authorities as a natural extension to our organisations. They provided the right balance of challenge and facilitation at all levels of the organisation from salaried officers up to Chief Officers. Aperia were fundamental to the success of the project.”
David Winstanley – Assistant Chief Executive, Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council and Sponsor for the AGMA Agency Staffing project