Welcome to Local Partnerships

Local Partnerships is a joint venture between the Local Government Association and Partnerships UK, incorporating 4ps.  Local Partnerships’ mission is to enhance the quality of people’s lives by giving trusted, professional support to local public bodies to improve their ability to source and deliver high quality, cost-effective public services and infrastructure.

Local Partnerships is working at a local level and ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with public bodies to develop and deliver innovative solutions to new and emerging problems.  To do this we will work alongside local public bodies to improve their sourcing and commissioning skills, programme and project management capabilities, procurement, negotiating and contract management capacity, and their delivery, funding and partnering abilities. 

Local Partnerships will continue to deliver all the services currently offered by 4ps.  This includes:

  • Gateway reviews for all major projects
  • Asset management reviews
  • Skills development training to build capacity and capability
  • Specialist transactor support for individual projects
  • Advice and support on shared services

In addition, building on the work of Partnerships UK, Local Partnerships will be able to offer an additional range of services extending across traditional boundaries between local government and other local public bodies, including Primary Care Trusts.

Local Partnerships will continue to remain an important part of the Local Government Association family and will receive Revenue Support Grant funding for priority areas which benefit the local government sector as a whole.

click here for the corporate brief

Local Partnerships Conference, Joint Ventures: Partnerships of the Future?
3 March 2010, London

Local Partnerships Conference, Joint Ventures: Partnerships of the Future?<BR>3 March 2010, London

Local Partnerships is pleased to announce its forthcoming one day conference titled "Joint Ventures: Partnerships of the Future", which is sponsored by Nabarro and the Practical Law Company. The event has been timed to follow the publication of new comprehensive guidance on joint ventures developed by HM Treasury and Partnerships UK.

Senior representatives from leading law firms, local authorities, Partnerships UK and Local Partnerships will come together to share their insights as well as explore and address many of the key principles and issues necessary to deliver a successful and sustainable joint venture. Afternoon workshops will allow delegates an opportunity to actively participate in more focused, smaller sessions.

The conference programme covers highly relevant discussion topics and will be of particular importance to both private and public sector specialists looking to embrace a rapidly developing area of procurement.

Spaces are on a strict first-come, first-served basis. Please click here for further details and booking form.

Meeting the Funding Challenge in Local Government
Strategies for cost-effective service delivery
16 March 2010, London

An ever-tightening fiscal position is putting increasing strain on the spending plans of local councils, bringing real pressure on delivery. Meanwhile, the expectations for innovation and efficiency remain as loud as ever.

 John Carleton, Chief Executive, Local Partnerships will deliver the keynote address on the financial pressures facing local authorities. Following his address delegates will hear presentations from eight of local authorities around the country that are already well advanced in redesigning their strategy and delivery models, and then extrapolating lessons from their experiences that might help others. These will include presentations on the Total Place pilot project.

 As Local Partnerships  is supporting this conference and John Carleton is speaking we are able to invite people to attend with a 30% discount on the Private Sector Fee and a 15% discount on the Public Sector Fee. To see a full conference brochure please visit www.cityandfinancial.com/lgerlp

Ministry of Justice Social Enterprise Conference, 4 March 2010, London

This free event is designed to bring together commissioners from across the criminal justice system with prospective or existing social enterprises and third sector organisations, to promote and increase understanding about how they can work more effectively and efficiently together to reduce offending by focusing on joint commissioning, innovation in service design, funding models and overcome barriers to provision.

David Harrison, Head of Public Services at Local Partnerships, will be focusing on the joint commissioning agenda, building on Total Place findings and local decision-making.

To register your interest in attending please email: thirdsector@justice.gsi.gov.uk

Enhancing Public Services

On 2nd November, the Public Services team from Partnerships UK formally joined Local Partnerships.

Led by David Harrison, the team focus is on transforming public services, whether by improving the way such services are commissioned or the way they are provided.  The team has proven experience in helping public and third sector bodies tackle the efficiency agenda, and in particular, how they might best prepare themselves for the rigours of increased competition for public service contracts.

The Public Services team works alongside both senior managers and front-line staff, helping them understand the challenges in front of them but then, most importantly, enabling them to build their own capability and capacity to meet these challenges.
 
More broadly across health, social care, offender management and, increasingly local government:
 
• By helping local commissioners understand the crucial role they play in creating and stewarding well-functioning markets;
• By equipping public and third sector bodies to survive and thrive in increasingly competitive markets for public services;
• By assisting public bodies design and implement complex procurements for public services;
• By investing in public bodies to enable them to create new public service delivery vehicles;
• By developing, testing and then sharing learning across public bodies that are facing similar challenges.

The team also works actively with the third sector.  Since June 2009, the Department for Health has entrusted the management of its Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF) to the Local Partnerships Public Services team, working with Futurebuilders.  As part of that work supporting the SEIF, the team works with existing social enterprise or public sector staff groups looking to reinvent themselves as social enterprises outside the NHS.

For more information, or to contact David Harrison, please click here David.Harrison@localpartnerships.org.uk

LGA