The East Surrey Improvement Partnership (ESIP) consists of three local authorities; Mole Valley District Council, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and Tandridge District Council.
These authorities have much in common, located around the M25 and having a mix of rural areas and small towns within their boundaries. More than 287,000 people live in 250 square miles in the East Surrey Cluster.
The three local authorities have expressed a desire to explore areas of joint working, including revenues and benefits, which will result in service and quality of life improvements for their residents, users and customers.
The main drivers for entering into the partnership were the need to improve the capacity, efficiency and resilience of high quality local services. The partnership set a number of objectives with an underlying principle of not compromising the independence of decision making in each council or diluting identity.
The partnership has set up governance arrangements which include an Elected Member Board, Chief Executives Steering Group and Officers Group. A communications protocol is also in place to deal with both external and internal communications.
The South East Centre of Excellence (SECE) will be providing project management support and some funding for the ongoing project. The SECE has developed the methodology for establishing the business case used to test whether services are suitable for joint working. The business case methodology will be used by SECE to assist other partnerships across the south east.
Initial business cases have commenced preparation and early implementations are anticipated in 2007.
In relation to the Efficiency Challenge, what barriers did they encounter?
- Risk aversion
- Service policies
- Partnerships
- External pressures