Transformation time for 'Brum'

Birmingham City Council has set up a number of internal bodies to manage its service transformation.

The council has announced the establishment of nine programme boards for different service areas and a Business Transformation Advisory Group to coordinate and monitor their work. The new arrangements will be submitted to the city's Cabinet for approval on 22 May.

This comes weeks after the formation of Service Birmingham, a joint venture with Capita Group, to deliver IT to the council and support its business transformation.

Glyn Evans, director of business solutions and IT for Birmingham, told Government Computing News: "The programme boards are effectively the council's way of managing the transformation. Each one will commission work from Service Birmingham, or other organisations if they wish.

"Business transformation is something the council wants to do and Service Birmingham is the way of supporting it."

He said the new arrangements draw on the Office of Government Commerce's guidance.

"What will be very important to its success is that we have a corporate management team sponsor and a political sponsor at senior level on the boards."

The nine programme boards will operate under the following titles:

• Efficiency
• Housing Services
• Adult Services
• Customer First
• Supporting Community and Environmental Services
• Excellence in Information Management
• Children and Young Person's Services
• Excellence in People Management
• Working for the Future (Property Utilisation)

Each board will manage a range of projects designed to improve efficiency and effectiveness and be required to produce an annual report for the Cabinet.

Councillor Paul Tilsley, deputy leader of the council, said: "The introduction of these structures will herald a significant step forward in our plan to enhance and improve the quality of services offered to Birmingham citizens.

"We have high ambitions and these proposals will undoubtedly help us improve customer and staff satisfaction as well as achieving better productivity, to the point where we are rightfully regarded as a world class local authority."

This article was originally published at Kablenet.

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