Sheffield City Councill must save £60 million.

[annbaker 10]

Yes for free I said I would give my time. I love this city and would gladly help.

And j agree some consultants do add little value but in my experience this is often down to whoever they are working for not listening. Also 1000 a day is very very expensive a very good consultant can be found for half that maybe a little more with expenses, if they have analysts it may be a case of refocusing them, try to get some people from there to watch moneyball

 

Grayham £1000 a day is cheap for a consultant from your average capgemini large company etc etc.(btw it wasn't them in the example above but was an internationally recognised one). For a SME I'd expect £700 a day. Expenses is a very sore point!

 

I don't agree about the not listening part (in my own experience) but they were very good at inventing excuses to stay (kerching). Did they add value - not really! I've had years of them coming in and done not a lot we couldn't do ourselves. But if your services are free then go for it. I'd contact SCC and offer them!

[lobster 54]

problem with telling the council about savings is politics . " you can't cut that as it will up set people in so and so's ward " ,councillor x has made various promises we can't cut there

[Grayham 10]

Grayham £1000 a day is cheap for a consultant from your average capgemini large company etc etc.(btw it wasn't them in the example above but was an internationally recognised one). For a SME I'd expect £700 a day. Expenses is a very sore point!

 

I don't agree about the not listening part (in my own experience) but they were very good at inventing excuses to stay (kerching). Did they add value - not really! I've had years of them coming in and done not a lot we couldn't do ourselves. But if your services are free then go for it. I'd contact SCC and offer them!

 

I would question if they only did things you could have done yourselves then why were they not done? Also the average tenure is much higher in council jobs than most places which leads to a certain amount of "we have always done it this way" also I would bet that the average age is much higher which can (not always) mean staff are more reluctant to change.

Also you are right if you go through agencies to find a contractor you do pay more but always get less as different problems need different solutions and there is no consultancy done beforehand to get the best person for the job.

 

---------- Post added 15-01-2015 at 00:58 ----------

 

problem with telling the council about savings is politics . " you can't cut that as it will up set people in so and so's ward " ,councillor x has made various promises we can't cut there

 

Definitely true, but if they looked at it as cold hard business decisions to see where true value laid then make it absolute across the council that these 8-10 criteria based on business needs are mandatory and if not met by x date then you will lose or re structure person / funding/ building, you also have to supply support and tools to hit the criteria to give everything a fair shot

[annbaker 10]

I would question if they only did things you could have done yourselves then why were they not done? Also the average tenure is much higher in council jobs than most places which leads to a certain amount of "we have always done it this way" also I would bet that the average age is much higher which can (not always) mean staff are more reluctant to change.

Also you are right if you go through agencies to find a contractor you do pay more but always get less as different problems need different solutions and there is no consultancy done beforehand to get the best person for the job.

 

There is always an element of 'we've always done it that way' and it can be like turning around a supertanker in terms of attitudes. There's also a culture of being afraid to stick the head above the parapet because people are fearful of losing their jobs. Let's face it you're not going to be the most popular person if you come up with an idea that means job losses and sometimes to be honest that's why consultants get brought in. Easy to blame them!

 

I actually found the SME type consultant we got more out of and they cost a lot less but that's just my own experience.

[Grayham 10]

Ha had a look on there website and it is the first job on the list! Business analyst ! At least in my opinion they are headed in the right direction

 

---------- Post added 15-01-2015 at 01:09 ----------

 

There is always an element of 'we've always done it that way' and it can be like turning around a supertanker in terms of attitudes. There's also a culture of being afraid to stick the head above the parapet because people are fearful of losing their jobs. Let's face it you're not going to be the most popular person if you come up with an idea that means job losses and sometimes to be honest that's why consultants get brought in. Easy to blame them!

 

I actually found the SME type consultant we got more out of and they cost a lot less but that's just my own experience.

 

Yes you would have found them more useful as they know everything about 1 or 2 fields and would have been brought in on that basis.

Defiantly right about not wanting to stick your neck out as if whatever you plan to do fails then yes I imagine the fear of job loss would be high for any council employee

Also me personally only look at cutting workforce if they are underperforming after given clear kpis and the tools to fix them or as a very very last resort even if a department is underperforming its better to re deploy

[annbaker 10]

Ha had a look on there website and it is the first job on the list! Business analyst ! At least in my opinion they are headed in the right direction

 

Get in there and offer yourself for free! As you have experience could help them get off on the right path!

 

---------- Post added 15-01-2015 at 01:28 ----------

 

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Definitely true, but if they looked at it as cold hard business decisions to see where true value laid then make it absolute across the council that these 8-10 criteria based on business needs are mandatory and if not met by x date then you will lose or re structure person / funding/ building, you also have to supply support and tools to hit the criteria to give everything a fair shot

 

That's exactly what they should be doing. Whilst they are Govt funded and we do in public service have some restrictions a private enterpirse doesn't have, they should still be operating like a business. Not in a profit making sense but in an efficiency and cash saving sense

[Grayham 10]

Get in there and offer yourself for free! As you have experience could help them get off on the right path!

 

If you can supply me with an email address or contact number I would be happy to get in touch as it seems there employment contact details are through capita so I doubt they would pass the message on.

[annbaker 10]

Oh God no they won't if they have similar arrangements to what we have. I don't have a name/phone no fraid. I'd suggest their HR dept? Last gasp central switchboard and wait til an IVR option (p;robably the hang on to talk to someone one) comes along.Why are they paying Capita to recruit staff. Interims maybe but not permanent posts. grrrrr

[Grayham 10]

Oh God no they won't if they have similar arrangements to what we have. I don't have a name/phone no fraid. I'd suggest their HR dept? Last gasp central switchboard and wait til an IVR option (p;robably the hang on to talk to someone one) comes along.Why are they paying Capita to recruit staff. Interims maybe but not permanent posts. grrrrr

 

I could be wrong, I will investigate in the morning

[annbaker 10]

 

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Yes you would have found them more useful as they know everything about 1 or 2 fields and would have been brought in on that basis.

Defiantly right about not wanting to stick your neck out as if whatever you plan to do fails then yes I imagine the fear of job loss would be high for any council employee

Also me personally only look at cutting workforce if they are underperforming after given clear kpis and the tools to fix them or as a very very last resort even if a department is underperforming its better to re deploy

 

We had a 'big' company in on a programme I worked on a few years back. Cost a fortune. They were doing jobs like project planning, risk managment - standard PRINCE stuff and we had the people who could do this stuff who had more recent PRINCE quals than those who were 'telling' us how to do it (not the one I quoted earlier that was the job before). So we got that one sorted. Then we had an an army of them on comms - made no difference at all so they got sent packing and we were left with the ones that cost the most who were doing the ' we can help with that' (kerching). Thanks but no thanks we were able to do it ourselves. We don't need outsiders to do benchmarking we have the means to do it. It's not that hard.

 

I don't agree with outsourcing as I know it ends up costing more. Contract management is not cheap nor is running the exercise to get there. (And given we all have access to benchmarking data there should be no need) but I do support the idea of KPIs. However I see examples of it being mis-used in the public sector as a blunt instrument to bash folks with. As you will no doubt understand things are never straight black and white. And this is why you need not just good but excellent business analysts.

[Mecky 10]

We had a 'big' company in on a programme I worked on a few years back. Cost a fortune. They were doing jobs like project planning, risk managment - standard PRINCE stuff and we had the people who could do this stuff who had more recent PRINCE quals than those who were 'telling' us how to do it (not the one I quoted earlier that was the job before). So we got that one sorted. Then we had an an army of them on comms - made no difference at all so they got sent packing and we were left with the ones that cost the most who were doing the ' we can help with that' (kerching). Thanks but no thanks we were able to do it ourselves. We don't need outsiders to do benchmarking we have the means to do it. It's not that hard.

 

I don't agree with outsourcing as I know it ends up costing more. Contract management is not cheap nor is running the exercise to get there. (And given we all have access to benchmarking data there should be no need) but I do support the idea of KPIs. However I see examples of it being mis-used in the public sector as a blunt instrument to bash folks with. As you will no doubt understand things are never straight black and white. And this is why you need not just good but excellent business analysts.

 

The chances are the government will be paying private contractor as much as, if not more than, regular staff. Contractors tend to come in, message up the complete system, whether it's working practices, paperwork, people, whatever, then leg it and leave it to the regular staff to deal with the aftermath

[Cyclone 10]

Contractors as in individuals hired to fill a post, probably cost about the same.

Large consultancy companies, far more than regular staff.