Based in a Grade II listed former Quaker Friend’s Meeting House at 62 Dovecot Street, the centre will also ensure a previously empty building becomes part of the regeneration of the town centre.

The 200 year old building will be transformed by a £500,000 grant from the European Regional Development Fund and a £500,000 investment by its owners Stockton Council to encourage digital and new media businesses to be based in the town.

Councillor Mike Smith, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Transport, said: “This development is part of our ambitious £20m strategy to regenerate the whole town centre, with vibrant new businesses, outstanding events, markets and interesting places to shop and eat.

“We believe there will be massive benefit for these predominately young companies being based close together so they can swap ideas, business advice and create a strong digital network both in Stockton and across the Tees Valley.

“The Dovecot Street digital centre will also benefit from being near to ARC arts centre in Stockton, which is a thriving cultural business, and it will help to connect this area with the rest of the town centre.”

Work will begin on the detached, two-storey building this summer with the six-month refurbishment completed and ready for its new occupants by Christmas.

The centre will be a flexible base for companies with options for short-term lets available through a membership system which will also give firms access to general networking areas, support services and business advice.

When the restoration and refurbishment work starts, the premises will be stripped down to its basic shell to exploit period features such as 1 foot deep coving and high level ceilings.

Stockton Council, which bought the building in the 1990s, will also be improving the streetscape outside the offices as part of this regeneration project.

The Middlesbrough office of Xcite has been awarded the design services contract.

Investment by General Motors will secure and create jobs in UK automotive sector.

Mr Cameron said:

“This is excellent news for Ellesmere Port and for UK manufacturing.

“Once again we have seen the success of the UK automotive industry and the crucial role it plays in growing and rebalancing our economy.

“This has been a real team effort with the government, the company, unions and workers all focused on keeping production in the UK.

“And the workforce at Ellesmere Port should take great pride in their skill, hard work and commitment which has proved vital to ensuring this great result today.”

Responding to the announcement from GM that Ellesmere Port will make the next generation of Astras, Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

“This is fantastic news and secures car production at Ellesmere Port until at least 2020. I am delighted for Vauxhall’s exemplary workforce and management who have all worked hard to make the cost savings needed and ensure that the UK remains at the centre of GM’s operations in Europe.

“The unions and the Government also played a significant role in demonstrating to GM’s board that Vauxhall has a very flexible workforce and making the commercial case for their continued investment in the UK.

“Today’s news shows that GM is now committed to the UK for the long-term like other global vehicle manufacturers such as Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Honda, Toyota and BMW. It is further testament to the strength of the UK auto sector.”

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

“Today’s figures are mixed, with the welcome fall in unemployment driven entirely by part-time jobs.

“However the collapse in wages is terrible news for people in work and threatens our chances of economic recovery.

“The number of under-employed people, who are taking part-time and temporary jobs for a lack of permanent full-time work, has hit two million for the first time ever.

“The falling number of full-time jobs and six per cent fall in real wages over the last two years means that people are having to make huge salary sacrifices and put their careers on hold just to stay in work.

“People’s incomes and job security today are barely any better than they were at the height of the financial crash. Unless governments act together and stop our austerity misery spiral, the UK’s economic depression will continue for far longer than feared.”

There are now 887,000 people who have been unemployed for more than one year, up 27,000 in the last three months and the highest since September 1996. The number of people unemployed for more than two years stands at 428,000, up 5000.

Back to work schemes contracted out under the work programme to companies such as A4e – which, despite being stripped of one yesterday, holds government welfare contracts worth tens of millions of pounds – are supposed to help people who have been out of work for long periods.

The union has consistently argued that this work should be done by public servants in Jobcentre Plus and that the pursuit of profit has no place in our welfare system.

The official unemployment statistics also reveal that there are almost six unemployed people for every job vacancy in our economy. The number of vacancies fell by 7000 to 457,000 in the three months to April – also down 12,000 on a year earlier.

While employment in general increased, the number in full-time employment fell by 13,000 to 21 million. The number who work part time but want full-time work was up 44,000 in the last three months to 1.3 million – a 149,000 increase since last year. There are also 590,000 people doing temporary who want a permanent job, up 10,000 in the last quarter.

PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said: “These figures show clearly that this government is not only failing to tackle long-term unemployment, it is failing to create the kind of jobs we need to help get our economy back on its feet.

“Ministers should be creating jobs, not cutting them, and investing in our communities. But instead they are taking us back to a previous Tory era of long-term unemployment while handing tax cuts to the rich.”

For the first time ever, parents will be given the power to control personal budgets for their children with severe, profound or multiple health and learning needs, meaning they can choose the expert support that is right for their child, instead of local authorities (LAs) being the sole provider.

The biggest reform of SEN for 30 years will also force education, health and social care services to plan services together by law – so when their children are assessed, parents will be assured they will get full provision to address their children’s needs.

The Startup Career Milkrounds is part of the Government’s enterprise education package and will see the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE) and Enternships.com working with university enterprise societies.

They will create a national brand for an annual Milkround fortnight that will give students and graduates the chance to engage with small firms through Milkround-style fairs, securing summer placements, raising entrepreneurial skills levels and creating graduate jobs.

Business and Enterprise Minister Mark Prisk, said:

“Providing opportunities for young people to start and grow a business is crucial to the long term economic success of the UK. The Startup Career Milkrounds, being developed with the university enterprise societies, are a great way for students to meet local businesses, build strong links and discover the opportunities available to them whilst they are studying or when they graduate.

“We are already doubling the number of enterprise societies and aim to have them in every university and most further education colleges by 2015. We will also soon be launching a £10 million startup loan programme for young people so that budding entrepreneurs can get a range of mentoring support and a small amount of capital to start their enterprise. By investing in enterprise now, we can inspire and nurture the entrepreneurs of the future.”

NACUE has selected 20 enterprise societies to organise student-led Startup Career Milkrounds for their regions. Each society will receive £500 from NACUE to design and host the event, which will be match-funded by the society’s respective university.

Students will have the opportunity to hear from and connect with the vibrant startup communities in their regions through a series of talks, speed-networking sessions and meetings with local SMEs.

Salary – £38,961 – £41,616 pa.

The generic and flexible role will cover a wide range of duties and responsibilities and is required to operate interchangeably across all areas of Corporate Procurement activity for the organisation.

As a result of the secondment of a Corporate Procurement Team Leader to lead on a major project within the Council, we are currentlylooking to recruit an enthusiastic and motivated individual to join our team for a two year secondment.
For more information, click here.

By John Tizard, an independent strategic advisor and commentator on public policy and public services

Commissioning versus Procurement

The public sector is obsessed with jargon, and one particular term which is over-used and abused is ‘commissioning’. I have rarely encountered any two organisations which share a common definition, but most commonly, and incorrectly, it is used interchangeably as a term for procurement – perhaps with a softer hue, politically more acceptable or simply more sophisticated-sounding.

For those few who care about such niceties, strategic commissioning is about much, much more than buying services or goods – which is procurement, and thus merely one of many possible means of implementing a commissioning decision.

Commissioning should consist of several activities: understanding the needs, choices, expectations and aspirations of a community (geographic or interest based) and/or service users; determining what outcomes will be required to address these; identifying the options for securing outcomes; matching the available resources when deciding what outcomes to pursue; and consequently deciding what to do and how to do it.

It is only in the above context where ‘procurement’ makes its entrance as being one (but just one) of many potential actions. Others may include: public sector ‘in-house’ provision; some form of co-production and/or co-payment with service users and/communities; grant aid; partnerships with other public sector organisations; or seeking to change public and service user behaviour. This list is not exhaustive but I hope it illustrates why procurement is only one of the options that might be appropriate. Of course when it is the selected option, there are then further options as to whom to procure from – the public, business, social, voluntary and community, co-operative sectors or some hybrid combination of these.

‘Commissioning’ must involve the public – not just service users, as well as staff and their trade unions, public sector partners and potential suppliers. Commissioning is (or should be) about an integrated, systemic whole and not an isolated, bureaucratic, top-down decision-making process.

Strategic commissioning is political and key to good strategic management

Of course, the question arises – is this strategic commissioning, which a few of us have heralded for many years, really anything more than good strategic management and politics? Truthfully, probably not.

Strategic commissioning is clearly a political activity given that it is about making informed choices – of what to do and what not to do; how public services will relate to the public; how to allocate public money; and what to charge the public for public services. It also requires some technical expertise to undertake the analysis and other elements of the overall process. However, ultimately many decisions will be based on political preferences.

Some contend that strategic commissioning also involves market management and development. Clearly, if there is to be choice of supplier and competition in public service supply (particularly where there is either little or no choice currently), then there will need to be some such market management and development – at least in the early days. Commissioners and procurers have to understand the potential suppliers and what they can offer – and indeed on what terms. They may wish to encourage new suppliers. They may believe that competition will drive price down and quality up. They may see it as a stimulant for innovation.

Commissioning councils? 

Some local authorities have been announcing their intention to become ‘commissioning councils’. Often the precise meaning of this term is unclear although it normally appears to signal a desire to divest much (though usually not quite all) of existing direct service provision. However, given the definition of commissioning that I have used above, what such councils really mean is that they wish to become procuring rather than delivering councils. Now obviously, this phrase does not sound nearly as attractive as ‘commissioning councils’ – but it is a more accurate and perhaps a more honest description!

Of course, if challenged, every local authority, health commissioning (there’s that word again) group, government department and indeed public body will claim that they wish to act and will act strategically in the manner that I described earlier in this piece as ‘strategic commissioning’. But do they? Indeed – can they? Do they have the right mindset and the necessary strategic capacity? Are they able to commission strategically and / or to procure strategically? The risk is that many may be more concerned with buying cheaply than they are with securing long-term objectives. They are at best tactical but only sometimes strategic. And if they are to seek to overcome this, the last thing that is required is a pile of yet more manuals and sets of guidance.

Commissioning is about mindset and behaviours

Commissioning should be not portrayed as some mystical activity only to be undertaken by cadres of specialist technicians any more than it should be confused with procurement.

Commissioning is not procurement – and procurement is not commissioning.  Organisations, politicians and senior managers should stop lying, and deluding both themselves and us (the public). If you are going to ‘procure’ using top-down, bureaucratic diktat where price and process is everything and nothing else really counts – then be honest and say so, but stop calling yourselves ‘commissioners’.

If you want to be ‘commissioners’ and ‘commissioning councils’ and you really want to ‘transform’ service delivery and to meet the aspirations of local people – then it’s really all about mindset and behaviours, and it’s time to act.

Surely what matters is that those responsible for the stewardship of public money and for public services should deliver what the people need and desire, and can afford.

Whether we call this commissioning or something else does not matter, but if we are to be paralysed by process and constrained by over-engineered commissioning we should find another word – and very different behaviours.

He is returning to his home in the North West of England to focus on non-executive and spousal roles in charity, sports, academic and church activities.

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “Ian has played an important role in establishing the Efficiency and Reform Group within the Cabinet Office. This group put in place tough cross-Whitehall controls on property, procurement and ICT in 2010. As a result we have helped departments deliver billions of pounds in cash savings for the taxpayer. He has assembled an enormously impressive team in ERG who will carry forward this crucial agenda.

“I want to thank Ian for his hard work, support and dedication in helping deliver this vital agenda, and wish him well for the future.”