2012-04-01
Having recently contributed to the Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council’s Value for Money workshop, held at Hinckley Hall on 29 March, I can honestly say that Les Bradshaw and his team are doing some amazing work at Dudley MBC. Having found over £750,000 of saving in the last year, Les and his team were understandably jubilant and eager to share their knowledge and experience in Value for Money audits.
Whether it’s voltage optimisation, power and water efficiency, duplicate payment recovery, or scrutinising printing and other services they are clearly leaving no stone unturned in their quest to cut costs. What’s more, they are now setting annual targets for savings that would make the eyes of any business water.
Twenty nine delegates from councils across the Midlands, with one coming from as far north as Yorkshire, were in attendance; all eager to learn what they could from the Dudley VFM team. DataConsulting and 123Consulting, the days sponsors, provided insight into data analytics and process modelling, their respective areas of expertise, which gave the delegates food for thought about what could actually be achieved.
Savings don’t have to only come from complex and expensive initiatives, just ensuring that lights, boilers, heating and other equipment is turned off over night and during weekend and holidays has saved schools in the region of 10% of their annual utility costs. Whether the Internal Auditors of the Midlands Borough Councils are inspired to fire up their data analytics software to look for duplicate payments has yet to be seen, but if they’ve learned anything it’s that people are on hand to deliver much of this work cost effectively. As Les Bradshaw said several time during the day, the guys who do my duplicate payments analytics just keep sending me cheques.
It doesn’t have to be difficult to find savings, it just has to be done. For thoughts about how data analytics can help save you money, why not check out our website, or drop us a line.
