With the stresses put on local government services, there’s never been a more important time to capitalise on the benefits of innovative and creative asset management.
As one of the UK’s leading public sector shared service arrangements, those benefits go far beyond the norm. We also deliver Legal and Governance, Finance, HR and OD, Payroll, ICT, Enforcement and Health & Safety services – so can offer complementary services that enhance the work of our Asset Management teams.
For us though, the priority is always people. We’ll make sure your communities and teams get the most from every building and service: whether we’re refurbishing heritage buildings, constructing award winning leisure facilities, expanding education facilities or delivering ambitious infrastructure projects, we’re experts in ensuring assets have the biggest impact on your bottom line – so you can use any savings to improve services elsewhere.
How do we do this? By making sure they’re efficiently run, are safe to use, and are as sustainable as possible: through the full life-cycle of a building, from concept and design or acquisition, through to construction or refurbishment, to facilities management, letting and disposal.
From council offices and facilities to social homes; schools to universities; leisure centres to hospitals and health centres – as well as other types of assets like our low-emission bus fleets, fully accessible vehicles and other transport – we maximise their impact on society. We make them work for your people.
Longer term, the rewards of a coherent asset management strategy can really pay dividends. We can improve local and regional economies. We can reduce ongoing maintenance costs and raise your profile as an environmental champion. And we can light the touch paper to new revenue streams. All of which help to elevate your standing as a responsible, forward-thinking custodian of public assets.
The peaks and troughs of asset programmes makes it hard to keep every project properly resourced. Our proven teams can be brought in when needed to handle everything from business case to completion – delivering to budget, programme and quality requirements. Importantly, our fully-qualified project management professionals can return to work on future public sector projects, using their experience of working with you and your teams to hit the ground running.
As well as passionate project managers, we have fully-qualified specialists in every technical discipline ready to add value in delivering your management capital projects or programmes. Over the last few years, we’ve tackled an astonishing range of projects, from the £30m Sapphire Ice & Leisure facility – the SPACES ‘Civic Building of the Year 2019’ to the Upminster Cemetery extension and £6.3m expansion of Marshalls Park School.
So, whether you need support at the outset of a project, want a second opinion on plans, are looking to improve an existing asset, or require a full concept to turn-key service – with experience gained on some of the country’s most complex projects, our experts will find the solution that works.
Public buildings are as much a face of a council as the services they support. And whether they’re central to a community’s education, healthcare or environmental needs, or simply a base for your operations – effectiveness is as important as efficiency. We help with every aspect of building and energy management, planned maintenance, building compliance and facilities services, drawing on the expertise of our colleagues in procurement, legal and elsewhere to get things right first time.
Our team of chartered surveyors have a wealth of commercial property and valuation experience to bring to your portfolio.
There’s more to managing a commercial property than money: we take pride in building strong links with communities wherever we work. From valuation services, marketing, sales and lettings, service charge administration, landlord/tenant negotiations and contracts, to the evolution of a building’s use and role in the community – we create landmarks that deliver much-needed social good as well as those valuable revenues.
With such a diversity of services at one source, we can not only create an integrated asset management strategy, but deliver it all too – meaning you’ll enjoy sharper, more joined-up thinking across a fit for purpose asset base.
For many of our clients, the priority is to save money, rationalising and consolidating assets while supporting front line services. Our asset reviews will bring into sharp focus just how effective each strategy can be. Then, we can align your operational assets with your preferred model of delivery, whether centralised or local, so it effectively meets the needs of your community.
We bring innovation to school asset management right from Early Years through to Post 16. It’s a challenge that requires specialist insight and understanding of curricular planning for how each type of setting operates.
To truly deliver for students of all ages, we believe it’s also important to keep both the big picture and small details in mind. It’s an approach that led Lord Agnew, recently DfE Under Secretary of State, to champion our work and efficiency in the delivery of school expansion programmes.
Our health and safety work spans the diverse range of public sector activities to extending to schools, academies and colleges. Whether you need help developing safe systems of work, undertaking risk assessments, complying with CDM regulations, employee skills (e.g. manual handling or ladders), fire advisory or first aid – we have a number of accredited solutions to put your mind at ease.
We can also build solutions around your needs, and training packages that help you become self-sufficient. Our range of online tools and resources enables us to support a varied range of remote clients, supported by a bespoke service where required.
Fleet management, procurement and maintenance is a specialist activity and our experienced team of transport managers offer full compliance with VOSA requirements.
Our fleet management team can also implement tracking and data applications that help you improve efficiency while keeping track of your fleet. Plus, we have a network of modern workshops that provide a comprehensive range of fleet servicing, repair and maintenance, including statutory safety checks for specialist vehicles.
Our Passenger Transport fleet of ultra-low-emission compliant vehicles is integral to our partners’ services. With 15, 16, 24, 32, 34 and 40-seaters, and 76-seat double deckers; we’re ready to chauffeur passengers to one-off UK or European events as well as regular local trips like swimming classes or school runs. We usually provide our own DBS-checked drivers; but you can provide your own if they pass our driving assessment.
With so many different facets to our service, there are a huge variety of one source asset management success stories. Whatever your challenge, we have the experience and expertise to help.
Our Talent Hub helps Havering and Newham councils maximise the Apprenticeships Levy by identifying skills gaps, improving diversity and creating more effective programmes.
Our Talent Hub helps Havering and Newham councils maximise the Apprenticeships Levy by identifying skills gaps, improving diversity and creating more effective programmes.
Any organisation whose annual salary bill tops £3m has to pay the 0.5% Apprenticeships Levy. The money is then topped up by government and put into a fund for employers to invest in apprentices’ training over the next 24 months.
Any funds that aren’t spent over those two years are reclaimed by HMRC. So it’s vital that Havering and Newham Councils get the most for the £1m+ they put in their funds each year. Our solution? A Talent Hub that maximises their apprenticeship schemes’ reach and impact.
In practice, the team behind the Talent Hub work with line managers and training providers to create programmes that fill skills gaps at each Council – not just for more junior roles, but higher and degree-level apprenticeships.
They make sure the door’s open to everyone – internal and external applicants from all backgrounds, including care leavers and young people living in poverty. And finally, they oversee the programme, ensuring the apprentices get the high-quality learning to excel.
The first Talent Hub-led programmes recruited five degree-level Social Workers for Havering and Newham. They’re all now in hard-to-fill permanent roles, and studying towards their Level 6 Social Worker Apprenticeship.
More recently, the team helped four people already at Havering start Building Control degree apprenticeships, and a further five people – two existing and three new hires – join the Level 7 Chartered Town Planner Apprenticeship, a particularly tough area to recruit for. And in terms of softer skills, six Newham managers are taking the Emerging Leaders programme run by SOLACE – experts in public sector senior leadership.
Put together, the future’s looking very bright for Newham and Havering’s apprenticeships. The Talent Hub is a unique solution that’s making great strides in not only ensuring the Levy is good value for money for both Councils – but delivering the right people, with the right skills.
The once-in-a-generation challenge of COVID-19 has shone a light on the importance of employee wellbeing. Our measures ensured everyone at Newham had the support they needed and deserved.
The once-in-a-generation challenge of COVID-19 has shone a light on the importance of employee wellbeing. Our measures ensured everyone at Newham had the support they needed and deserved.
Our holistic wellbeing programme had been a core part of our portfolio of services for a few years. As well as our own initiatives, it was built on best practices developed by organisations as diverse as: NHS and Public Health organisations, Deloitte and our own Health Champions Network.
Importantly, we looked at the issue from every angle – we built awareness, turned understanding into action, and provided support and flexibility. We laid the path for a wellbeing journey.
As the pandemic evolved, we didn’t need to read the endless newspaper articles to know the people in our care would likely need the programme in greater numbers. We saw how stressful it was navigating through such uncertain times: fatigue, fear, the repetitiveness of Zoom call after Zoom call, and the gap between logging off and logging on feeling shorter by the day.
So, rather than reacting as events progressed, we set about learning how we could help Newham’s people through the crisis.
Our first act was to set up a Wellbeing Subgroup of our most respected professionals. They looked at Newham’s wellbeing services, and what people would need during the pandemic – and highlighted the gaps.
Throughout, the team was mindful of the practicalities. Was a solution worthwhile? Is it being delivered in the right from? Would it be useful for people working from home, on critical frontline services, continuing in their normal place of work and those needing to shield?
Naturally, mental health support was a key priority. We created the Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) support network, made up of employees who could be ‘booked’ for 30-minute private chats. We also added extra layers to the existing Employee Assistance Programme, including Group Resilience – helping entire families – and Bereavement Support.
All the details were on the intranet, and we drip fed communications, so everyone knew there was help if they needed it.
As time went on, specific services got in touch for advice. One conversation led to our ‘Wellbeing Conversations – A conversation worth having’ training module for Newham’s Children Social Work managers.
And taking a step further, we went on to work with CMT and psychologist and restorative wellbeing specialists to create our ‘Time to Talk’ initiative, where internal volunteers support colleagues by making the time to sit down with them and have honest wellbeing conversations.
Elsewhere, we delivered targeted sessions for Hub Managers feeling the strain of having such a responsibility for their community. We created and ran wellbeing other audience-specific workshops in person and over Zoom – sometimes for hundreds of people at a time, at other times for small leadership teams.
The annual staff survey in June 2020 was the perfect opportunity for us to understand how people were coping, what support was working, and what services were still perhaps missing.
One thing became abundantly clear: people needed hope. Everyone took great pride in supporting councils, communities and residents. But they needed to know there was a long-term plan, and that there were still things to celebrate.
This tied in well with our work on the Council’s staff benefits site, which also launched that June. While it was held virtually, Newham’s staff awards were also a roaring success. And to prove the new normal was a lot like the old normal, we brought to life an initiative we floated in 2019 – a cross-Council Wellbeing Week, with events ranging from Dealing with Stress and Anxiety in Difficult Times, to Let’s Talk About Menopause.
One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that organisations with innovative and creative HR &OD teams have created stronger bonds with their people.
With a detailed and targeted approach to wellbeing, we ramped up Newham’s wellbeing strategy to deliver good value, cost-effective initiatives in trying circumstances. And these initiatives are going further than simply solving practical symptoms of any issues.
They’re giving people the opportunity to have real conversations about topics that used to be taboo, such as mental health. They’re helping us connect virtually and metaphorically more than ever. And they’re strengthening people’s resilience and agility – to everyone’s benefit.
There's always lots going
on across our partnerships
We have some of the most innovative and respected public sector shared services in the UK.
Your challenges are unique – but our experience makes us the perfect people to find the perfect solution. What’s more: we only work with the public sector. We share your passion for the communities you serve.