Y-Fronts – West Suffolk Partnership

Y-FRONTS, PARTNERSHIP WORKING AND VALUING PEOPLE

Steering Waste through Reorganisation Conference

Over 50 delegates from Northern Ireland’s Local Authorities Waste Management Officers were recently challenged to think about the upcoming reorganisation in unique and interesting ways

The Conference Keynote speaker, Dr Suzanne Hamlin, a freelance ‘Organisation Doctor’ told a rapt audience some of the signs of potential disaster within organisations. She told stories of how reorganisation can encourage unhelpful Management approaches such as ‘impression management’ in which old ways of working are swept away and new ways of working are introduced.

The problems with this common approach, according to Suzanne, are that these ‘scorched earth’ Managers are too busy trying to make an impression themselves to notice or  reserve the areas which are already working well, and second, these type of Managers often don’t stay long enough to see the negative impact their changes have made. Instead, Dr Hamlin encouraged Managers to pursue an approach she called ‘appreciative enquiry’. This style, which involves a collaborative review of the organisation’s strengths – by asking what are we doing well? – and then weaving those strengths into the new organisation.

Hamlin claimed that this has worked wherever she had seen it applied – and to boot – has also led to a more motivated workforce Dr Hamlin memorably introduced her ‘Y-fronts exercise’ – encouraging delegates to think about the strengths of each particular authority which would be joining together in Spring 2015 in the same way that pre-marriage counselling might help new couples agree how they will do things together in the future – inspiring stuff!

The conference also heard from Danny McSorley, current Chief Executive at Omagh District Council on the need to continue to work together in partnership across Northern Ireland, something which had driven his initiation of the Route Optimisation Partnership Project. Mark McAdoo, Head of Waste & Contract Management at Cookstown District Council spoke of his experience of delivering the first live Route Optimisation project from the partnership – new brown bin rounds.

Stuart Henshaw, Project director at Integrated Skills talked about the successful regional route Optimisation project in the North East of England – five years on. An independent review of the project had identified that RouteSmart routing software had been part of the ‘good practice’  which has helped to realise the £10M savings being made each year in the region.

Paul Jones Director of Neighbourhoods at Northumberland County Council gave a detailed account of the 2009 reorganisation where 6 authorities were merged into one. Some of his key points were the importance of any partnership work which has already been delivered prior to reorganisation, and the importance of planning for a ‘smooth Day One’ of the new authority – the public should not notice the difference.

Finally, Mark Walsh, Head of Waste & Property Services, at West Suffolk, spoke about the creation of West Suffolk – a branded partnership of two local authorities, St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath in Suffolk. He talked through its formation and how this partnering arrangement made good economic and operational sense. The project, which began with shared waste services, now includes all the Councils’ staff operating in one service delivery team – surely, a perfect example of Dr Hamlin’s Y-front exercise.

Y-FRONTS, PARTNERSHIP WORKING AND VALUING PEOPLE