00:00 Chris Bolton, Wales Audit Office

Chapters

In terms of our involvement in this, I mentioned why would the Auditors be interested in this? As the Wales Audit Office we’re in a really privileged position. We do audit work, but we see so many good things happening as well, and part of this is to try and pull some good things out and have an opportunity to share things.

We held a shared learning seminar to tackle a really important area around what public services do. Facilities Management isn’t just about the physical buildings, it’s about what happens in them. There’s a really interesting quote from Churchill saying that “You build a building, and the building shapes the people that are in it”. Well actually the facilities management does that as well, and getting that right has such an important part to play, where services are being changed, the shape of services and how they’re delivered. If the facilities there are efficient, effective and you’ve got people working in environments that really help them do their job – why wouldn’t you want to do that?

01:07 Ian Ellison, Sheffield Hallam University

This is how we’re regarded (picture of Henry the Mild Mannered Janitor), and actually in some respects this is how we regard ourselves. This is our opportunity (picture of Honk Kong Phooey). Now we can talk about how we might unlock that.

I think the key message for me is the recognition that some of the language that gets used in the Facilities Management industry, so the one that really gets me is this“core/non-core” stuff, is dangerous. And it’s dangerous because if we treat Facilities Management as non-core, and if we use that as almost our calling card, then my concern is that it always gets put as second rate. And if we are talking about real massive change in institutions and organisations in a public service landscape where we’re going to do things that have never been done before and never been seen before, if we’re not in a completely different place, which is using language like “enabling primary services”, it’s not core and non-core, it’s a completely different message.

02:01 Colin Jones, Caerphilly County Borough Council

The main message had two parts. The first part was how we developed a corporate response repair team across the authority, and the second part and perhaps the most important part is how we wanted to use the budget and the spending power of the organisation to invest in the local economy via our SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises)

02:31 Charlotte Lythgoe, Wales Millennium Centre

I think the main message has to be“How do we get the message across to members of different teams within an organisation?” And I think a lot of organisations may still suffer from a silo mentality so I work in the, say Finance department in such and such an organisation, and it’s breaking it down so that everyone is working in the same direction for the greater good, especially in public services as well, because anything that anyone is doing should be aimed at the end user.