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 the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE). 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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Amyas Morse was appointed Comptroller & Auditor General on 1 June 2009.

Amyas was born in Edinburgh, and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He led the Coopers & Lybrand practice in Scotland, before moving to London to manage the London City Office, and subsequently becoming the Executive Partner of the Coopers & Lybrand UK firm. When PricewaterhouseCoopers was formed, he took on global responsibilities, and served as Global Leader of the Assurance Practice (audit and related services), and then as Global Managing Partner (Operations).

Amyas joined the Ministry of Defence in July 2006 as the Defence Commercial Director. During his time as Commercial Director he was responsible for shaping the Department's relationship with industry, and he played a key role in the agreement of strategic commercial arrangements. More widely across government, he served as a member of the Major Projects Review Group, the Public Sector Board of CIPS, and on an NHS Project Board.

Presentation: Delivering quality public services

The twin approach of efficiency savings and public service reform pushed by the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG) has been widely welcomed. However, there is concern over potential harm to frontline services. The important role of the National Audit Office (NAO) in evaluating the work of the ERG and the wider public sector in achieving productivity goals, offering practical advice based on its reports, is vital in ensuring outstanding public services.

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Steve Fairman has specialised throughout his career on improving public services for end-users. He joined the NHS following a significant spell in local authorities and a university-sponsored social research unit. Steve has previously led NHS information and IT service functions. He has applied his information skills in varied areas, including performance management and public health. Trained as a health economist, and an experienced and qualified Programme Manager, he has led a number of complex multi-organisational programmes to successful conclusion. Previously lead for innovation at the SHA, Steve used these as a lever to stimulate service improvement, more radical transformation and to widen inter-organisational change networks. Steve is now the Executive Director responsible for the delivery of QIPP transformation of patient pathways, and wider service change, across the region.

Presentation: The NHS productivity challenge

Through the QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Prevention, Productivity) programme, the NHS aims to achieve £20bn of productivity gains by 2015. This session will outline how the agenda has been working so far, how it fits in with the ongoing health reforms, and how quality of care can be improved whilst implementing substantial efficiency savings.

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Andrew Cushion is a Qualified Accountant with over 25 years experience. He progressed from the profession into a Corporate Audit role, including International Audits at Senior Manager level.

Andrew has gained extensive experience in Internal Audit, including over 20 years of direct involvement in Accounts Payable reviews. His Public Sector experience includes the Health Service (at both Senior Audit and Finance Management level) and undertaking a wide variety of Council and Local Authority reviews on behalf of the Audit Commission. He also has financial services experience with Nationwide Building Society, Winterthur Life Insurance (part of Credit Suisse) and manufacturing and retail experience whilst at Dairy Crest. His major focus is now on ensuring that his company always looks for ways to exceed Client expectations both in terms of identifying exciting new areas of audit recovery and maintaining high levels of Customer service.


Presentation: External Recovery Audits – a 'healthcheck' with a difference

Aligned with efficiency and reform, External Recovery Audits provide a 'healthcheck' with a difference, providing a guaranteed benefit for the whole public sector. This session will highlight a number of services focused on identifying 'savings' opportunities and the generation of 'direct' recoveries and savings. Can the savings generated save jobs and services and can these services be procured efficiently?

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Lord Michael Bichard was founder director of the Institute for Government in 2008 and held the post until 2010, when he became a Senior Fellow of the Institute. He was previously Chief Executive of Brent and Gloucestershire Local Authorities and in 1990 became Chief Executive of the Government's Benefits Agency. In 1995, he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Employment Department and, subsequently, the Department for Education and Employment.

Michael received a knighthood in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours. In May 2001, he left the Civil Service, and in September 2001 was appointed Rector of The London Institute, the largest Art and Design Institute in Europe, which became the University of the Arts, London in May 2004. In January 2004, he was appointed by the Home Office to chair the Soham/Bichard Inquiry. From 2005-2008, Michael was Chair of the Legal Services Commission.

He is currently a board member of Shakespeare's Globe Trust, the River and Rowing Museum Foundation and Henley Business School Strategy Board. He is Chairman of Film Club Limited, Chairman of CreateKX, Chair and a Trustee of the CNAA Art collection Trust. He has been a Chairman of the Design Council, Governor of Henley Management College, Chair of the Board of Companions of the Chartered Management Institute, a Member of the Guild of Educators, Chairman of Rathbone Training Limited and a Governor of Langley Academy.

Michael was elevated to the House of Lords in 2010. He has honorary degrees from Leeds Metropolitan, Birmingham, Middlesex, and Bradford universities and the Southampton Institute.

Presentation: Community budgets: delivering joined-up public services

The Comprehensive Spending Review announced the pilot phase of the 'Community Budgets' initiative, through which 16 areas will identify the national and local funding they need to deliver transformational solutions for families with multiple problems, enabling places to go even further in designing service solutions that meet the key needs of their citizens.

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Bill McCluggage joined the Cabinet Office as Deputy Government CIO in September 2009 and he is also Director of ICT Strategy & Policy with overall responsibility for the formulation, development and communication of cross-government ICT strategies and policies. On behalf of the Government CIO and CIO Council he chairs the CTO Council and the CTO Delivery Group.

His most recent success has been the publication of the UK Government's ICT Strategy in March 2011 and he is SRO for the government's new Identity Assurance programme. He joined the Cabinet Office from the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS), where he represented Northern Ireland on the government's CIO Council and was the Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO) for the Northern Ireland Civil Service. He was also a director on the Board of Audiences NI, the European Education Research & Innovation Centre and 'Momentum', the ICT federation for Northern Ireland.

Prior to joining the NICS, Bill held a number of senior positions in private sector companies, including IT Director for Harland & Wolff Heavy Industries in Belfast, and prior to that served in the Royal Air Force.

Bill is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. In June 2008, he was appointed a Visiting Professor within the School of International Business at the Ulster University, Magee Campus.

Presentation: Moving on from the Government IT Strategy

ICT is considered to have a central role to play in delivering productive public services. The government's ICT strategy was published earlier this year and sets out the ambition to deliver better public services for less cost through re-using and sharing ICT assets. This has been followed by Socitm's locally focused 'Planting the Flag' and the CBI's 'System reset' report, demonstrating the growing importance of this agenda.

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Chih Hoong Sin has extensive experience of helping organisations demonstrate the impact and value of their work, from the perspectives of both commissioners and providers of public services. He has worked across diverse policy fields, with particular experience within health and social care and in local government. He is an expert evaluation adviser to a number of central Government departments and is highly skilled in the design and implementation of different types of evaluations. He has specific skills in economic evaluation, including cost benefit analysis, cost effectiveness analysis, returns on investment studies, etc. He is deeply involved in OPM's capacity-building work in relation to designing practice-focussed tools and embedding evaluative practice to help frontline staff demonstrate impact and value.

Shelley Dorrans has wide ranging experience of designing and delivering complex, multi method evaluations for the NHS, local authorities and the voluntary and community sector. Shelley has a particular interest in economic evaluation and has worked with a diverse range of clients to help them evidence their impact and demonstrate their social and economic value. Shelley is knowledgeable about difference economic evaluation approaches and is skilled in working with clients to help them make an informed decision about the kind of approach their data and resources will support. Shelley is passionate about working with clients in a way that build their internal skills and capacity to deliver economic evaluation.

Presentation: Building capacity to demonstrate impact and value

There is a growing onus across the public sector to demonstrate impact and economic value. Whilst the terminology of economic evaluation is widely used (SROI, cost benefit analysis, returns on investment etc), this is not always supported by an understanding of what these approaches involve. OPM has tried and tested frameworks and tools designed to help people 'get their heads' around economic evaluation.

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Siobhan Coughlan leads on Service Transformation for LGID, working with local authorities, the local government family and central government to help ensure that local government is engaged in shaping this important agenda to deliver services that are designed to better meet the needs of different customers in their communities.

She is responsible for the work programme for the Local Government Delivery Council, a body that was established to help improve how local and central government can work together more effectively on the service transformation agenda.

Siobhan also leads on the Customer Led Transformation Programme, which has funded over 60 local authorities' projects to enable them to use customer insight and social media tools and techniques to better understand and engage with their customers to redesign services so they are more efficient and effective.

LGID has worked closely with central government and local authorities on the development of the Tell Us Once Programme, a service that enables a citizen to report a bereavement or a birth once and for that information to be shared with appropriate public sector partners. Siobhan represents local government on the TUO Programme Board.

She has also worked with DWP to support the implementation of the Government Connect Secure Network, which enables the sharing of data across the public sector. She developed the Customer Service Peer Review and leads on the cross-government work to highlight and share good practice on the Front Office Shared Services project.

Presentation: The local productivity programme

Supporting councils in generating productivity improvements, the Local Government Local Productivity Programme aims to get the very best value for money and outcomes for communities, at the same time as engaging local government and its partners in the debate about longer-term public service reform. Amongst other things, the programme is exploring new ways of working, which could unlock significant productivity gains.

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Colin Barrow was born in 1952 and educated at Dulwich College, where he studied Modern Languages. He read law at Clare College, Cambridge. In May 1997 he successfully stood for election to Suffolk County Council. Colin soon became Deputy Leader and also Chairman of the Conservative Group specialising in finance and social services; he represented Suffolk on the Local Government Association and the County Councils Network. In 2000 he became the Chairman of the Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government, a role he held until July 2004. In May 2002 he was elected to Westminster City Council, becoming leader in 2008.

Under Councillor Barrow's leadership the council has frozen council tax and developed a number of innovative policies that seek to change modern service delivery including the Family Recovery Programme, widely recognised as the template for tackling broken families and used as a model for the government's Community Budget scheme. In 2004, Colin was appointed CBE for services to local government.

Presentation: Delivering productive public services across London

Discussing the outstanding achievements of Westminster City Council in delivering productivity gains, in particular the close work being done with neighbouring councils Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea.

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