28/01
6 March 2001
OVER 100 INNOVATIVE PUBLIC SERVICE PROJECTS
WIN UP TO £60 million FUNDING
Young people will soon be benefiting from training by retired military instructors as part of a drive to cut juvenile crime and raise education standards. This is just one example from over 100 innovative projects put forward by a wide range of partnerships, involving central Government Departments, local authorities, police, health authorities and many others that will be receiving good news today.
Chief Secretary Andrew Smith and Cabinet Office Minister Graham Stringer, have announced that 123 projects, exploring new and imaginative ways of delivering key public services, are the winners of funding totalling £60 million over the next three years.
The Invest to Save Budget is aimed at providing support for projects that involve two or more public bodies getting together to deliver services that are innovative, joined up, locally responsive and more efficient. This, the third round of the Invest to Save Budget, includes bids for funds from local authorities and health authorities, among others.
Andrew Smith commented:
?Investment and innovation are both needed to modernise public services and improve their delivery. Partnership working between providers can provide a powerful means of improving service delivery. The Invest to Save Budget (ISB) provides a source of 'venture capital? for providers who want to join forces with others to provide better services.
The projects that the ISB has supported to date are starting to make a real difference. For example, by starting to reduce the time it takes to buy a house and piloting ways of speeding up criminal case handling.
The third round of projects adds to this impressive list. They will tackle the issues which matter to citizens, including crime, health, and education. And they will make access to services much easier and seize the opportunities provided by new technology to streamline government.?
Projects include:
Police Direct - a project that will explore the services the police and criminal justice organisations should provide ?on-line?. It will develop a police portal to provide services electronically to the citizen in the most efficient and cost effective manner and publicise the use of ?Police Direct?. The project aims at raising awareness of police portals and highlighting the benefits of working on-line.
Skill Force - a project which brings together MoD with DfEE, Home Office and others to use retired military instructors in a number of pilot schemes to train disaffected 15-16 year olds. This innovative project is modelled on a successful US scheme and seeks to reduce truancy and exclusion, cut juvenile crime and raise educational attainment.
21st Century Citizen - a project that will support the inclusion of citizenship as a National Curriculum subject by pooling resources of the ONS, Public Record Office and British Library to create an on-line resource for schools.
Speaking at a special Invest to Save Budget conference in London, Mr Stringer emphasised the benefits of partnership within the public service:
?The projects we are announcing today demonstrate innovative partnership, alongside effective approaches to risk identification and management.
Modernising Government is about making a step change in the quality of our public services. The public sector is often accused of being too risk adverse and of being slow to react to social and technological changes. The Invest to Save Budget is a key tool for encouraging public service providers to pioneer new ways of delivering joined-up public services that are responsive to peoples real needs and expectations.?
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The Invest to Save Budget (ISB) is a joint Treasury/Cabinet Office initiative. It provides support for projects which increase the extent of joint working between different parts of government, identify innovative ways of delivering public services and reduce the cost of delivering the services and/or improve the quality and effectiveness of services delivered to the public. This is the third round of the ISB. A fourth round is planned for later in the Spring.
2. It is expected that a total of £380million will be spent on ISB projects over the period to 2003-04. Round One was restricted to central government departments and their agencies. In the second and third rounds local authorities, police and fire authorities, health authorities, non-departmental public bodies and public corporations could also apply.
3. Bids are assessed by an official committee, chaired by the Treasury and on which the Cabinet Office is represented. Bids are assessed using a pre-determined set of criteria. The official committee makes recommendations to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who makes the final decision on the winners after consulting with the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
4. Winning projects have to agree an implementation plan with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office. Each project has to provide six-monthly progress reports and carry out an evaluation of its success once it has been completed. Projects running for longer than a year also have to carry out an interim evaluation exercise.
5. A list of the winning projects is attached to this notice.
6. Graham Stringer is Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office. He was speaking at the Invest to Save Budget Conference at Church House Conference Centre, London. The event was attended by over 300 delegates representing public sector service providers, policy makers and the private sector.
7. For more information about the projects highlighted in the press notice contact:
8. For the Police Direct project: Chief Inspector Bob Kennett, PITO Policy and Planning Unit, New Kings Bean House, 22 Upper Ground, London. Telephone 0208 358 5433
9. For the 21st century citizen project: Greg Hayman, Press Office, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB. Telephone 020 7412 7116.
10. For the Skill Force project: Sarah Haywood, Ministry of Defence. Telephone 0207 218 3253.
The full list of round 3 winners is available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website.
For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.