Achieving Excellence with ISB

The alliances the ISB have fostered between public sector agencies are already starting to deliver benefits and make a difference in the way in which services are delivered.

ISB projects vary in their objectives and the innovative ideas, which they are pursuing. And each project has several dimensions to it. But three themes can be drawn out from the projects to illustrate their scope:

• making life easier for users: reducing the number of agencies which citizens have to deal with or increasing access to information held by several agencies.
  
• making Government more efficient: cutting out duplication and freeing up resources and influencing policy.
  
• exploiting new technology: joining up IT systems and seizing the opportunities provided by the Internet to improve service delivery.

Partnership working between public sector agencies brings substantial benefits. Partnership projects can:

• exploit the economies of scale which joint working can provide. For example, sharing data and information, or streamlining delivery channels.
  
• capture the benefits offered by information technology. It makes sense for many agencies to share databases and electronic channels to improve access to government.
  
• improve the focus on customers and consider what best meets their needs.
  
• enhance service delivery for particular groups. For example, reducing the number of agencies, which individuals have to deal with.
  
• capture value for money and expenditure savings, whichever budget they fall on.

Entering into a partnership is often innovative in itself. But the combined knowledge and expertise of the partners offers new opportunities for innovation in service delivery. This will often require a change in the way in which services are managed and delivered.

Making new partnerships work effectively requires commitment and imagination from all of the partners. Innovation carries risks and uncertainties, which need to be managed throughout the life of any project. Furthermore, innovative partnership projects often need some investment upfront to get them off the ground and support them through the critical early phases.

The Invest to Save Budget (ISB) was created in 1998 to fund projects, which bring together two or more public bodies to deliver services in an innovative fashion. It provides a means of investing in partnership projects with the potential for transforming public services - but which need be further developed before this potential can be unlocked.

Following a review in the lead up to Spending Review 2004, there is a new emphasis on local projects, focusing on community cohesion and engagement, with the voluntary and community sector playing an increasingly prominent role.

HM Treasury runs the ISB, in collaboration with the Cabinet Office. Funds are allocated competitively and public sector managers are challenged to come forward with proposals, which will make a real difference. Competition for support is intense and only the best ideas are supported.

Subject to the overarching objectives being met, there is no "model" ISB project. The ISB philosophy is to encourage innovation through collaboration and in some cases enable organisations to pilot new ways of working to establish the potential costs and benefits before full implementation. So the programmes boundaries are flexible in nature.

The projects are spread right across the public sector, involving central government, local government, health authorities, police and others. The scope of the partnerships underpinning each project varies according to the project's objectives and includes private and voluntary sector partners where this makes delivery more effective.

The ISB can help projects at various stages of development. For example:

• pilot projects testing out new ideas, which can later be adopted by the partners as a standard means of service delivery.
  
• pilot projects, which have the potential to be applied more widely by other public sector organisations.
  
• local projects that can be applied or adapted by service providers in other parts of the country.
  
• projects which have passed the feasibility study stage but which have still got some way to go before implementation.