Efficiency and improvement

Working efficiently as well as effectively may mean making hard decisions about reducing costs, moving resources and rethinking the way things are done. We have well-tested approaches to helping you improve efficiency while keeping to the fore the improved outcomes you’re determined to achieve.

What we offer

Our tailored consultancy can help you to:

• assess how efficient you are now and reach a consensus on priorities for improving outcomes and efficiencies
• achieve efficiency in your partnerships
• see how well your resources will fit with your priorities and make choices about service reviews, procurement, outsourcing, disinvestment and decommissioning
• improve lean systems, human resources, IT and other back office functions
• develop shared services and shared procurement
• engage and involve service users and communities
• improve co-production
• integrate services across organisational boundaries to reduce costs and improve services
• develop joint commissioning
• build shared approaches to leadership, and develop leaders and managers
• prepare for difficult conversations
• manage change, and overcome institutional and cultural barriers to change.

Why choose OPM?

Our experience

Our knowledge and experience has been gained through research and reviews. We’ve carried out national research into efficiency and we’ve reviewed local government organisation and service. We also work across public services to support culture change and enable effective decision making to improve efficiency.

Our approach

We understand how complex and challenging it is to achieve ever-greater efficiencies and we appreciate that different local areas have different contexts. With this in mind, unlike some providers in the field, we don’t offer quick fixes or use predefined methods that dictate generic solutions. Instead, we’ll work closely with you and your partners to establish your aims then help increase efficiencies while improving outcomes. You’ll be actively involved in every stage of the process and you’ll ‘own’ the solutions.

We build on your strengths. We use our extensive knowledge of public services and our experience of supporting sustainable solutions to increase productivity and efficiency. And we can draw on specialists from across OPM and our partners. These specialist areas include financial management, lean systems, activity-based costing, evaluation and public engagement.

The OPM way

OPM has worked to improve social results for 20 years. We understand public policy and service delivery, and we have a wealth of public service experience. We listen carefully to your requirements, assemble a team with the most appropriate skills, and then tailor our work to meet your objectives, timescales and budget.

Find out more

If you would like to talk to someone about our efficiency and improvement work, email Aleth Abadie