A Regional Governance Story

1
A Regional Governance Story

• John Littleton
• Newcastle City Council

2

• Background and Aspirations
• Includes all the Local Authorities from the Tees
  to the Tweed.
• Transport operators.
• Through our pilots, we work with
• Education,
• Health
• Leisure
• Other regional brands e.g. the football clubs
• The commercial sector, transport and industry.

3
The Challenges we face as a Region

• Many different sorts of Authorities
• Many different Agencies
• Many other Organisations

Why do things together?

• Because we are different
• We must combine our strengths and specialisms to
  build responsive, citizen centred services.
• Because we are similar
• We must tap into the economy and efficiency of
  shared resources.

But we can not achieve this unless we operate at
a Regional scale.
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So why is working in partnership so hard?

• It requires trust
• Partnership must not mean we lose our local
  identities.
• Sharing infrastructure involves sharing
  responsibilities and liabilities.
• It requires appropriate legal frameworks
• To procure
• To operate
• To govern

We know how to do this for a single Authority or
partnership with fixed applications.
5
About Smart Cards The benefit for users

• Different users have different needs
• Pupils and students
• Employees
• Visitors and tourists
• Parents and families
• Senior Citizens
• Different channels for different purposes.
• They rely on different intermediaries.
• They have different sorts of relationships with
  services and their providers.

Smart cards allow users, providers and
intermediaries to manage their relationships.
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The NERSC Approach (The Challenge for Local
Authorities)

• We must work together at the sub-regional and
  regional levels to achieve economies of scale
• We can not afford to build and deliver solutions
  on our own.
• We need to ensure that access, delivery and
  participation is local
• Typically on the scale of the local community or
  interest group.

The ability to coordinate our resources and
relationships at these different scales demands a
federation approach.
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What do we mean by federation?

• A set of facilities and services at the regional
  level to manage
• Identity controlling how, and by whom, I am
  known.
• Recourse and settlement knowing where to turn in
  difficulty.
• Publication knowing where to find what is to be
  found.
• These must be universal and work for me wherever
  I am

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What do we mean by federation?

• It is a requirement on any service and any card
  to provide a link to these federation services.
• The smart card is the tool and token for moving
  about the region and accessing its facilities.