Construction and Asset Management Projects

Below is a summary of each of the Construction & Asset Management Programme projects. Documentation relating to the programme can be found on the Key Products page.

Facilities Management - This project was generated in response to the view that there is a current lack of capacity and expertise in understanding the tasks associated with Facilities Management and therefore that potential efficiency savings could be achieved by addressing some of these issues

Benchmarking - A regional "Benchmarking Club" was developed as part of the NE IEP Construction and Asset Management Programme with the intention of assisting Local Authorities and Fire and Rescue Services to collaborate and compare performance in order to understand the scope for and to deliver efficiencies and improvements in their Construction projects through a structured approach to benchmarking between the NE LAs construction practitioners.

Asset Management - The Asset Management project arose from the fact that Property is second only to staff costs in terms of LA expenditure. The project was carried out in 2 stages, the first phase of which provided an understanding of the current position of each LA in the region by engaging CIPFA Property to identify a "Best Practice" model and then providing each Council with a Health Check against the model. The second was a "strategic" piece of work that sought to develop a methodology for LAs and FRSs to challenge their property portfolio in a way that demonstrates how their strategic needs will be met and how the business will be supported by assets that are fit for purpose and efficiently managed.

Carbon Management Plans - This project was intended to address the growing concerns at the lack of progress being made by LAs in the region in achieving the targets in relation to climate change and sought to identify potential collaboration in shared learning from trials of new technology and future procurement exercises. The intention was to identify carbon reduction measures that are successful and then to make a strategic approach to the market in a way that would help to stimulate the growing regional green economy.

Targeted Recruitment and Training - The Targeted Recruitment and Training project helps LAs to generate training and employment opportunities by using powers in relation to Procurement, Planning and Land transactions applied consistently through construction projects and then also applied to provide work opportunities in completed developments.

Regional Managed Framework Agreements - The Project examined the use of frameworks in other regions across all appropriate strands of Construction activity in the region (New Building, Refurbishment, Building Maintenance, BSF, Housing and Highways) and to develop an approach appropriate to the needs of the region as dictated by the appetite and the opportunity for impact within each of these areas. The project laid the foundations for a long term collaborative procurement arrangement that will provide improvements and efficiencies for a number of years. The future management arrangements are to be undertaken by NEPO

Involvement in National initiatives - The objectives for this allocation of funding were to ensure that the NE RIEP derived any benefits associated with construction improvement and efficiency related activity in other regions and also to take account of the ongoing reviews that were currently underway in relation to construction in general.

Innovation and Efficiency Fund - The allocation for the Innovation Fund was used to fund two projects that were delivered by the ILG (Addressing Worklessness and Longitudinal Study - see below). An amount from this funding was also allocated to the implementation of Regional Managed Frameworks.

Addressing worklessness - This project was initiated in response to the economic downturn and recognised the expectation that public sector construction projects would contribute towards recovery. In anticipation of an increase in employment opportunities in the construction industry, this project considered how existing LA approaches to the recruitment of apprentices into building trades could be improved so that job seekers in the NEET group will be in a position to find employment.

Longitudinal Study - There is a lack of quantitative evaluation concerning social impacts generated by large scale regeneration and development projects.
This project therefore sought to establish a longer-term evaluation process to assess the social impact of regeneration projects in the period following the implementation phase. It is argued that any evaluation carried out in the months immediately after a project is likely to be insufficient, unbalanced and skewed towards the needs of the agencies involved in the regeneration activity, rather than provide data to demonstrate 'satisfaction'. Building in an evaluation phase for up to 25 years covering the lifetime of the programme and after the completion of a project is likely to provide more 'telling' results of the longer-term successes of the programme, issues arising and more substantive insights into the impact on residents.

As the results will be gathered over a period of 25 years (a generation) which exceeds the lifespan of the RIEP and the availability of funding, this project sets out the initial parameters upon which the impact will be measured through a study based on the delivery of the Greater Eston Regeneration Master Plan.
Vehicle Brokerage Pilot Scheme

The project was initiated as a Pilot and during the initial phase, it became clear that there was an overlap with a simultaneous Council-wide Transport efficiency programme, as it has clear synergies with the vehicle utilisation work being carried out across all Services and current initiatives to reduce Home to School transport costs by making greater use of school minibuses at the beginning and end of the school day (when they are often idle) in preference to using taxi provision.

Tees Valley Integrated Transport Pilot - This project applied the findings from three projects from the RIEP Programme that use methodologies that can readily be applied in other service areas (Fleet KPIs, Vehicle Brokerage Pilot Scheme, Route Optimisation Project). This project combined the appropriate elements of the three projects into a model that draws upon the outputs of each project to provide an integrated toolkit to develop related Improvement and Efficiency measures that can be applied to any LA's Transport activities to either lead to more efficient use of transport for the LA in question but will also provide a platform for scenario planning potential for shared services.

Regional Installation of PV Panels (Capital Project) - This project aimed to take advantage of the improved viability of micro-renewables and to install appropriate technologies (solar PV recommended) on prominent public sector buildings across the north east.