Urban Vision Partnership Limited |
Urban Vision Partnership Limited is a joint venture company between Salford City Council, Capita Symonds and Morrison Highway Maintenance. The JVC is a unique model within the local government environment and many Local Authorities have shown an interest in this unique partnership arrangement.
The name Urban Vision is intended to reflect the core values and aspirations of the company. It is independent from Salford City Council, forward looking and clear on its own vision and that of the community of Salford. We possess very high levels of technical skill, knowledge and expertise which will be required to regenerate the City of Salford successfully.
Urban Vision is jointly managed and owned by the three partners to deliver the following objectives:
- Improved capacity with easy and quick access to experienced staff in Capita Symonds and Morrison Highway Maintenance.
- Better services for the same or less money through more efficient working practices.
- Better services as a result of reinvesting efficiency savings in to services and works.
- Access to new markets to overcome problems associated with peaks and troughs of the current workload.
- Involvement in types of work previously difficult to access, such as private finance initiatives (PFI) and Urban Regeneration.
- Bringing growth to assist with the council's economic development plans.
- Ability to recruit and retain the best staff for delivery to the citizens of Salford, due to the more varied work opportunities.
- Better roads and pavements and reduced claims payouts through targeted investment.
Urban Vision's overall remit is to manage, protect, maintain and enhance development within the city. This task is undertaken by bringing together the talents and expertise of a wealth of professional disciplines contained within the partnership, including Engineering, Highways, Planning, Property and Architectural & Landscape Design. All the professionals work closely together to provide a seamless service which continues to maintain the high quality standards demanded by the city council and its citizens.
392 people in the city council's former Development Services Directorate have been seconded to the partnership and operate under its management, this secondment model means that the staff retain their Salford terms and conditions of employment, however, the company will have access to more high quality professional staff from Capita Symonds and Morrison to speed up response and project completion times and in addition the partnership will open up new markets to the company.
Urban Vision's Jonathan Till said, "The whole basis of this partnership is to radically change the way we work in Salford. We see this as a symbiotic relationship. The City of Salford will benefit from the capital investment and the private sector management expertise. Morrison and Capita Symonds have brought additional expertise which complement our current skills, access to investment capital and opportunities of future work. This additional work will be generated by seeking work outside of Salford. By putting the two together we all benefit."
The company is split into six separate business units each producing an operating account on a monthly basis and are using Timemaster to manage their projects, record their time, and more importantly calculate their work in progress and work to be charged to clients within that period.
Time Master is used to manage the workload. Jonathan Till said, "We print out the workload spreadsheet and this gives the management information on the current levels of staff utilisation. This is important to use because a lot of the promised investment will be funded by improvements in staff productivity."
This innovative venture is designed to improve service delivery for local people while helping establish Salford as a revitalised and resurgent city - its border with Manchester puts it right at the heart of the regional centre.
Urban Vision are using the following Timemaster modules:
- Timemaster
- Timemaster Project Management
- Timemaster ResourcingTimemaster WIP & Invoicing
- Timemaster Flexi-time
- Timemaster Absence Request