Colin Cram has held senior positions in the public sector for the past 30 years, including central (including the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury) and local government, higher education and the wider public sector. He has been responsible throughout for initiating and implementing innovative strategies for procurement, shared services, outsourcings and organisational re-engineering. Savings from his initiatives exceed £1bn.

Colin has created and managed several pioneering joint and shared service procurement organisations, influencing spend of up to £7bn a year. He was a founder member of the Central Unit on Purchasing (the forerunner of the Office of Government Commerce), created and led the Research Councils' Procurement Organisation, the Benefits Agency Contracts Organisation and was First Director of the North Western Universities' Purchasing Consortium. Latterly he was Director of the North West Centre of Excellence, creating and delivering collaborative opportunities in procurement and shared services for 47 local authorities.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, Colin has been appointed a senior adviser to the Office of Government Commerce and is a member of SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives). He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences and training events, and is a regular contributor to professional journals. He has been a member of European working groups on Procurement, Innovation and Sustainability. He runs a successful consultancy, Marc1 Ltd.


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Professor Zoe Radnor is a Professor of Operations Management at Cardiff Business School. Her area of interest is in performance and process improvement in public services. Zoe is currently a Management Practice Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) Fellow considering sustainability of Lean in public services. Previously, she has been Project Manager of a research project for the Scottish Executive which evaluated how 'Lean' techniques were and could be used in the public sector. She has also led evaluations of the implementation of Lean and associated techniques in HM Revenue and Customs, HM Court Services and in healthcare organisations. She is currently leading a research project 'SLIM' which aims to develop a Strategic Lean Implementation Methodology for hospitals. She has published over 60 articles, book chapters and reports. Zoe presents, advises and sits on a number of boards and committees for organisations such as the Welsh Assembly Government, National Audit Office and the Cabinet Office.



Presentation: The principles of 'Lean'

What does 'Lean' really mean and how does it fit within the public sector? How the application of Strategic Lean Implementation Methodology (SLIM) can deliver leaner, more efficient and better quality services in the public services.

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Phillip Blond leads the award winning think tank ResPublica as a nationally and internationally recognised thinker whose work is having considerable policy and practical impact across the UK political spectrum and beyond.

He has built on his extensive academic work in theology, philosophy and political theory to become a champion of free association and group formation, attacking state and private monopolies alike.

In 2009 he set up ResPublica as a non party-political research organisation offering bold new multi-disciplinary ideas.

His book Red Tory (Faber and Faber 2010) helped redefine the centre ground of British politics around the ideas of civil association, mutual ownership and social enterprise, and inspired the British government's Big Society initiatives.

Phillip Blond has a strong presence in the British print media (Guardian, Observer, Financial Times, Sunday Times, Prospect and New Statesman), as well as on BBC and Sky and foreign media outlets. He is a stirring, thought-provoking and influential speaker; his intellect and imagination leave no audience unmoved.

More recently, Phillip has been contributing to international conferences in Australia and the Netherlands where his Big Society message is gaining support.

Presentation: Delivering leaner, more responsive public services

To meet the government's efficiency agenda and cost reduction targets, waste must be eliminated from the process of public service delivery. Revisiting the drawing board is required throughout government to ensure that quality productivity is achieved in a cost-effective manner and meets expectations.

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Brian Redpath is the UK Public Sector Director at Nuance. He has strong connections with central and local government and is pioneering the adoption of speech recognition and voice biometric solutions in the public sector to reduce cost and increase efficiencies.

Prior to joining Nuance, Brian ran the EMEA Telecoms and Mobile Business at Macromedia for three years (and subsequently Adobe post-acquisition). Brian also ran the UK Government practice for Microsoft and spent 10 years with IBM where he also held government sales roles.

Brian has a degree from Loughborough University in Economics and Econometrics.

Presentation: Telephony self-service for the public sector

There is an opportunity to significantly improve the cost and quality of service delivered to customers and users of public services in UK, via the phone. This session will explore the key enablers and references to this effect, explaining what others have achieved in UK and elsewhere.

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Graham is the Director of Human Resources at Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (BSUH). Prior to joining BSUH, Graham spent ten years in local government, most recently as the Director of HR at Westminster City Council where he implemented many changes including a council-wide remodelling of the remuneration of all staff, the restructure of the council's workforce and the council's redundancy programme, which has seen the removal of over 550 posts making budget savings of over £20 million. He pioneered the publishing of senior salaries leading the way for other councils to show the same level of transparency about their senior staff.

Prior to joining Westminster City Council, Graham was Head of HR and Organisational Development for Surrey County Council. There he was responsible for delivering HR for the council's workforce of 33,000. He undertook a fundamental review of HR service delivery with major non added value and transactional activities either outsourced or operated within a Shared Service Centre approach. This reduced the HR team from almost 400 to just 40 and took 9 million pounds out of the budget.

Graham's preceding career was mainly in the private sector with positions in a variety of commercial and financial institutions including manufacturing, retail, banking and policing.

Graham is a renowned speaker both nationally and internationally and is openly anti the business partner. He regularly speaks on the benefits of being in a business not just partnering with it.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Graham is a devoted family man who is personally committed to the values of flexible working as he maintains a full family life in his home in Northern Ireland and a busy professional career in the UK.

Presentation: Designing a Lean organisation and managing demand

People are at the heart of any organisation and success is very much reliant on the engagement of staff, particularly when adopting new working practices and strategies. For 'Lean' to deliver the results of which it is capable total workforce commitment is required.

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Sarah Jury-Önen has been an integral part of Lean activity in DWP since 2006 and is currently the Prospectus & Delivery lead of the DWP Central Lean Unit.

She led key exploratory work to identify Lean proof of concept for DWP prior to joining and being part of the highly successful DWP Lean Programme. She then led a range of successful improvement and skills transfer activities, then managing the acceleration of deployment and Lean capability growth to facilitate the delivery of the DWP Lean Vision for 2017.

Moving into the DWP Lean Academy she developed and delivered the Lean learning prospectus, skills route way and toolkit for the Department. With the first stage of the DWP Lean journey completed as a programme - she now leads the research, development, skills transfer related to the learning and product suite, alongside delivering senior leadership coaching for DWP.

Sarah has had a public service career spanning almost 30 years, rising through the ranks from the administration level, working across a number of specialisms and disciplines. Her interest in quality management and continuous improvement has been at the forefront of operational and corporate roles for the last decade in DWP.

Presentation: Lean in DWP – our experiences on the journey

To meet the government's efficiency agenda and cost reduction targets, waste must be eliminated from the process of public service delivery. Understand the DWP Lean journey to date, achievements and the lessons learned along the way.

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Ken Eastwood is an Assistant Director at Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council in South Yorkshire.

Ken was a board member of the UK government's Project Nomad, the local eGov project promoting mobile and flexible working in local government. He has an expert interest in new ways of working and organisational change and has spoken at and chaired many conferences, seminars and workshops including eGov and tGov events.

He has written published articles on transformation and the future of work and has been an advisor to the government on data sharing, new work styles and the better regulation agenda.

Ken founded Public Sector Nomads, the successor to Project Nomad, and continues to actively promote mobile technologies and new ways of working and to contribute to the broader debate on public sector modernisation and improvement.

www.publicsectornomads.com | [email protected] | @keneastwood


Presentation: The use of mobile working to create leaner, more responsive services

Transforming the public sector through technology enabled change is a significant contributor to delivering efficiencies. The potential benefits and savings that can be made by introducing mobile and flexible working technology solutions cannot be underestimated.

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Derek Drysdale is a Scot, educated in Edinburgh at the Heriot Watt University with a career that spans almost 35 years, a large portion of which has been at senior executive level within large client organisations that include a number of sectors: Highways, Railways, Nuclear and General Construction. He is a chartered civil engineer and previously a chartered nuclear engineer, responsible for some £3bn of infrastructures projects during his career. His career includes a period working in the US for UK nuclear organisations.

Derek has had a passion for continuous improvement throughout his career having implemented value management programmes in both nuclear and railway organisations. He has also been trained in 'Lean Sigma' techniques.

Since his appointment in 2004 with the Highways Agency as Divisional Director Major Projects (North) he has led the Major Projects review Change Programme implementing the findings of the Nichols and NAO reviews and was subsequently responsible for the Technical Services Division. Derek was appointed Divisional Director Lean Improvement in April 2009 with the objective of improving value for money across the Highway Agency's £2.5bn supply chain.

Presentation: Implementing Lean-delivering efficiencies

The implementation of Lean thinking can deliver frontline services in a far more efficient manner and ensure customer satisfaction. At the Highways Agency they are applying Lean tools and techniques with the objective of improving value for money across the Highway Agency's £2.5bn supply chain. Discover just how they are utilising Lean and the progress to date.

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