WIREDGOV

A blog from AXELOS provides useful guidance on how to get management ‘buy-in’ and help ensure smooth progress.

It’s not uncommon for project managers to have a degree of trepidation about project boards.  The board, after all, is a holding-to-account session, where the project manager presents progress – or, sometimes has to justify the lack of it. 

Boards can be confrontational, they always require a lot of work generating the reports, however they can be enjoyable.  There are things you can do, that help to make things go more smoothly.  

Here are 3 steps to an enjoyable project board:

1. Communicate
Sounds obvious. However, we often get caught up in the “franticness” of delivery and forget to do the basic thing.   A project board should be a forum for discussing issues that have already been surfaced.

2. Know your stuff

Make sure you are on top of your delivery, your data, your reporting. No one, the client included, wants to be in a project board where you are fumbling around for the information, or presenting the wrong data.

3. Broker in advance

An NHS programme in Somerset has helped patients avoid 7,500 nights in hospital and freed up at least £2m for other services.

Somerset’s pioneering ‘Homefirst’ scheme offers patients who are healthy enough (& their families) tailored help to finish therapy at home, with personalised care reducing stays in hospital by up to ten days.

Described by health leaders as ‘a common sense approach’, Homefirst is delivered by specialist teams of staff who have been given additional training in a range of care techniques, so they can do more with patients once they are home, to help them regain independence faster.

The NHS’ long term plan, unveiled this week, set out how care will be increasingly integrated across communities, with different health services, councils & other agencies working together to provide faster, more convenient and more joined-up care within each community.

In Somerset, instead of waiting to complete assessments, such as walking the ward, in a busy unfamiliar place, people for whom it’s safe to do so can be discharged home at the right time and get support for important tasks, based on their home and enabling a quicker and happier recovery.

The team see patients on the wards at both Somerset’s acute hospitals, involving families about when a patient is ready to go home and liaise with medical & nursing staff to ensure patients are comfortable & happy that they can be discharged safely.

UK businesses can apply for funding to develop technologies, products & processes that could offer better outcomes for patients.

Through the Biomedical Catalyst - a partnership between Innovate UK and the Medical Research Council - there is up to £10m available to UK businesses to:

• prevent disease & support proactive management of health conditions
• detect & diagnose disease earlier, leading to better patient outcomes
• develop tailored treatments that offer potential cures or change an underlying disease

Projects in the competition can be in any life science sector or discipline, including:

• medical technologies & devices
• stratified healthcare, which involves grouping patients based on risk of disease or response to therapy
• advanced therapies, such as gene & cell therapies
• digital health
• drug discovery

An update on EU exit preparations by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

In all the recent media ‘froth’ one area for discussion has been virtually ignored – that of the direction the EU has moved & is continuing to ‘travel’ in.

None of the politicians, ex-politicians (including Tony ‘responsible for the Iraq war’ Blair) and political pundits are critically discussing & analysing just how that would impact on the UK if we remain bound by its rules.

Last week the EC quietly announced their desire (and they normally get what they want - eventually) for a transition to qualified majority voting (QMV) on EU Tax policy, which currently requires unanimity among Member States.  In the Communication, the EC asks that EU leaders, the European Parliament and other stakeholders assess the possibility of a gradual, four-step progression towards decision-making based on QMV as set out below (see factsheet for full details):

The Communication suggests that Member States decide swiftly to converge on a decision to develop Steps 1 & 2 and (on the face of it) their proposal(s) seem fairly logical.

The EC claims, the use of QMV under Step 3 would help to modernise already harmonised EU rules such as VAT and excise duty rules (thus frustrating forever the UK’s desire to zero rate sanitary products for example?).  

 Step 4 would allow a shift to QMV for major tax projects, such as the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) and a new system for the taxation of the digital economy.  While the UK might agree the need for the latter, would we still have any voice in the decision-making process by then?  

More importantly both the UK and Ireland could ‘kiss goodbye’ to changing their corporation tax levels in response to market forces.   Surely with Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, etc. all currently having tax rates of 25%+, the QMV process would inevitably force the rate to rise in the UK.

Tax rates in Europe - Wikipedia

The Communication suggests that Member States consider developing Steps 3 & 4 by the end of 2025.

Action in the areas outlined would be possible under the so-called ‘passerelle clause' (Article 48(7) TEU) in the EU Treaties which allows for a shift to qualified majority voting and the ordinary legislative procedure under certain circumstances.  No EU Treaty change is necessary.