Critical Friend Services

A Critical Friend can play a unique role within a project team. CDW's principal consultants have spent considerable time providing this kind of external support to authorities from within the EIP community. One of the longest standing relationships is with one of the e-government pioneers in East London

London Borough of Newham

Initial Brief

To act as peer reviewer for the EC ATTACH project to develop and implement kiosks for public information. Partners from eight EU countries were involved including LB Newham, Metropolitan Police and Borders Council in the UK.

CDW Services

Review progress both formally for the EC and informally, using knowledge of kiosks generally and, in particular, of kiosk implementation for Federal Government purposes in USA.

Key findings

The project delivered valuable insights into early technology development and produced useful guidance on implementation.

Outcomes

CDW subsequently reviewed LBN's Customer Centres for the EIP Report and assimilated learning from that and related work into the PEG Project.

Learning from what was, at the time, leading edge work among authorities was shared among a group of practitioners through the project.

Initial Brief

To review the planned procurement of an outsourcing agreement for print and reprographics.

CDW Services

Benchmarking of procurement processes against good and best practices
Critical friend assessment of proposed migration to "e-first" approach to docments

Key findings

The procurement methodology was validated, in particular the approaches regarding outcome-based specification and operation of open-book accounting.

Outcomes

In the council decision to award the outsourcing contract in 2002, the following outcomes were identified:

Cost effective and high quality print, reprographic and mailing services
A document management strategy which ensures that the migration from paper based to electronic information systems improves customer service delivery and organisational efficiency
The provision of a local print and publishing enterprise which can support Newham businesses and community organisations.