Elizabeth O'Nions

Supporting activities as required; providing excellent customer experience with regard to image and reputation and maximising income to the charity.

Digital Transformation

• Lecturer Level 7 - Digital Change Management
• Lecturer Level 7 - Strategic Information Systems Planning
• Lecturer Level 6 - Strategic Information Systems Alignment
• Lecturer Level 4 - Business Information Systems
• Lead responsibility for student engagement, attendance/submission rates, Level 4 & 6. Performance 96% first time submission

CEBE

• Lecturer Level 3 - Independent Practice, 2 x 40 students

Other

• Innovationfest Event - Industry Judge
• Supporting assessments across modules as required, e.g. Introduction to Programming, viva's
• Supporting Level 7 students with projects
• 5-day sprint - work experience programme / safeguarding
• Service Improvement - B3 outcomes

Development and management of Oxfam stewarding at Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Art; the UK's largest music festival.

• Co-ordination, training and management of approximately 200 volunteers undertaking stewarding activies.
• Liaising with a range of support services, including emergency services, site security, gates and traffic and others.
• Managing a shift team to ensure the smooth running of site-wide festival gates vehicle and pedestrian entry, exit and re-entry in collaboration with site security and wrist banding staff.
• Having due regard to public safety, risk management, volunteer welfare, image and reputation at all times.
• Supporting ad-hoc requests for crowd control at specific times, e.g. visit by Prince Charles (at time).
• Participation in pre-festival development days and post-festival review sessions to target the improvement in stewarding/customer experience.
• Development of a range of other corporate fundraising events including the Abinuku Adventure and GEC Challenge.

• Content creation, engagement and development of online Yammer social enterprise network to positively support mental wellbeing and reduce loneliness of staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Engagement with staff via network during and one-to-one telephone support calls to staff as requested during lockdown periods. Contribution and commitment to staff engagement and wellbeing leading to formal staff recognition by Senior Leadership and nomination by frontline employees for Chief Executive Employee of the Month.
• Supporting management team to develop communication and engagement plan and activities to understand and reduce negative impacts of the pandemic on staff wellbeing.
• Supporting the opening of Retail Stores across the UK as required, including flag ship and pop-up stores.
• Providing cover for Manager sickness and leave etc for Retail Stores across the region as required. Managing all aspects of Store Operations, either lone-working or managing volunteers, with due regard to safeguarding of young adults and others with mental health conditions and/or physical disabilities.

Project Lead for 'Voices of Windrush' Project, funded by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

• Responsible for project management including delivery of project plans and aims, marketing, internal/external communications, engagement, development of web content, and contribution to Corporate Black History Month Event.
• Engaging with black staff, their families and Barnardo's children (young and adult) to facilitate the collection of their stories and recollections of Windrush, living in care and being supported by the charity.
• Completion of periodic project documentation as required by awarding body.

Supporting retail activities as required; providing excellent customer experience with regard to image and reputation and maximising income to the charity.

Hosting of children from Belarus to provide recuperative holidays for children in remission from cancer.

• Provide (donate) zero cost home-based accommodation, food and ad-hoc and planned activities to meet requirements of each child, introducing them to UK culture and hospitality.
• Provide (donate) zero-cost transportation to medical/health appointments such as dentist and opticians.
• Having due regard for safeguarding, wellbeing and care of children at all times.

Responsible for safeguarding vulnerable adults and improving heathy life expectancy of 310,000 local residents through the integrated delivery of back office functions across the newly formed Adult Social Care and Public Health Department. To maximise efficiency, effectiveness and economy through the design and implementation of integrated strategic plans.

Responsible for the innovative deployment and delivery of a mix of planned and ad hoc projects through virtual teams and collaborative partnership working including:-

• Multi Workstream Lead (People and Culture) responsible for the award-winning implementation of an integrated social care case management system, IMPRESS digital transformation project. Delivery of 100% attendance of a mixed cohort of 750 employees across 10 training modules. Innovative use of communication tools and techniques to create engaging stakeholder led system-design; resulting in zero interruption to services, the safeguarding of vulnerable adults, and ensuring that nobody got left behind.
• A 12-week service improvement secondment; managing and transforming a customer facing licensing service, improving the customer journey and reducing the response time for customer requests for service from 3 months to 4 days; raising customer satisfaction, delivering efficiency and improving the image and reputation of the Council.
• Responsible for the production, monitoring and review of the annual Integrated Business Plan for Adult Social Care and Public Health, Annual Performance Review and other strategic plans including Workforce Development, Communications and Engagement, Marketing and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
• Project ideation and lead officer for the development of the Councils first Work Experience Placement Program for young people in the borough. Targeted at providing a taster of hands-on frontline line service delivery, including working with service users with severe dementia, other adults in care and those with learning and physical disabilities. This challenging project resulted in providing skills for future employability, raising awareness of these vital services, and improved the image and reputation of the Council. Placements provided in the first year of scheme were 40% over target. Program rolled out across the Council in year 2 by sharing best practice.
• Project ideation and lead on development of the Councils first Apprenticeship Scheme offered to young people leaving care. Developed in collaboration with Children's Services, securing permanent employment for participants upon successful completion of their qualification. Scheme rolled out across the Council in year 2.
• Production and review of the departmental Workforce Development Plan to ensure that that employees have the skills and knowledge needed to deliver all of its Business Plan objectives, are prepared for change and leading to improved employee retention, service continuity and reduction in sickness levels.
• Lead on the development of a suite of Management Briefings and Events securing 100% attendance of its 80 managers across the organisation within 6 months, raising confidence levels regarding the organisations ability to respond to national and local drivers for unprecedented change.
• Development of a recruitment programme consisting of public events and packages to attract highly qualified and experienced social workers to work in the borough, reducing the reliance on costly agency workers, improving the image and reputation of the Council, and improving service quality and assurance.
• Design and management of the Adult Social Care & Health Director's engagement programme to enable employees to influence change, enable leaders to identify potential areas for improvement, and join up strategic objectives with operational activity to ensure delivery of the Business Plan.
• Development of an innovative departmental Skills Matrices tool; managing employees attendance at allocated mandatory, strategic and operational training; ensuring that the organisations workforce had the skills and competencies required to deliver change. Shared across the Council to support wholistic positive change.
• Lead on development of an online web-based Directory of Health and Social Care services, signposting the public to private sector and third sector organisations; reducing reliance of high cost social care services and promoting local charities, businesses, and support for carer's.
• Responsible for the production of the Directors Assurance Statement, providing robust evidence of the effectiveness of the councils systems of internal control for scrutiny and external audit.
• Lead Officer working with the Council's Internal Audit Team to proactively respond to its annual programme of process and system audits, working with senior managers to develop plans to mitigate the risk of significant recommendations and breach of policy and legislation.
• Lead officer for the roll out of General Data Protection Regulation across Adult Social Care and Public Health, mitigating risk of breach of legislation, substantial financial penalty, and negative impact on the Council's image and reputation.
• Lead officer for the communications and engagement for mutual Peer Reviews (informal service assessment) with other Local Authorities in the region; sharing best practice, identifying area's for improvement, benchmarking against similar organisations and as preparation for future assessment by the regulatory body, Quality Care Commission CQC.
• Responsible for the development and management of Adult Social Care Public Community Forums, as a mechanism to engage with local residents on service improvement and to provide evidence of service user engagement to support change.
• Member of the Transforming Adult Social Care Board, ensuring the delivery of austerity efficiency savings and service improvement projects through effective communication and engagement with stakeholders.
• Working in collaboration with NHS and Clinical Commissioning Group communication leads to ensure the implementation of the Better Care Fund, a single pooled budget to develop closer working relations between care and health, targeting improved care and wellbeing to local residents.

Responsibility for the shaping and innovate delivery of a range of back office functions across Adult Social Care. The successful design and implementation of strategic plans to ensure robust delivery of Business Planning, Organisational Development, Communications and Engagement, Democratic Governance and Equality plus others. Managing a team reduced by 75% due to Austerity restructuring, making innovation key in the ongoing delivery of these primary functions and vital in ensuring that the organisation continued to keep vulnerable adults safe.

Responsible for the innovative deployment and delivery of mix of planned and ad hoc projects through virtual teams and collaborative partnership working including:-

• Production and implementation of the annual 3-year Business Plan and Performance Review. These accessible documents were available for public scrutiny, and set out future plans to improve Social Care services, respond to customer requirements, provide objective review of progress. Use of new communications tools tailored to local need to ensure reader understanding.
• Lead officer responsible for the implementation of 'Count down to Care Act' Project; legislation to change the focus of the organisation away from service provision towards service design and delivery based on the wants and needs of individual service users and their carers.
• Responsible for innovative process redesign to integrate commissioning and procurement business systems (lifecycles) to optimise contract lead in times, and resulting in the commissioning of highest quality services at the lowest cost.
• Lead officer responsible for the first collaborative creation of a programme to support and assess the development of newly qualified social workers across Children's Services and Adults Social Care, providing in-workplace skills, enhancing pace of workforce development, developing self-confidence, and raising levels of care to required standards.
• Procurement and implementation lead for the Councils first Enterprise Social Network 'Yammer' as the primary collaborative working tool, enabling more effective communications between leaders and all employees. Implemented to ensure the successful delivery of the Transforming Adult Social Care Programme, in response to Government Austerity measures. Lead officer for roll-out across the Council in Year 2.
• Development of innovative process redesign to minimise length and increase pace of the Councils democratic decision making, provide evidence of statistically appropriate customer and service user engagement to validate reports for recommendation; and improve image and reputation of the council.
• Development and implementation of innovative management development and performance tools to ensure that employees who manage people are responsible for the performance of the their team's.
• Development and implementation of the annual Strategic Workforce Development Plan and Equality Plan to ensure all employees have the skills and competencies required to improve outcomes for their customers and all current and future polices and key decisions work to eradicate discrimination in the workplace and across the borough.
• Development and implementation of the annual strategic Communications and Engagement Plan to ensure that all stakeholders have a voice in change and in how their wants and needs and positive outcomes are met.
• Development and implementation of the annual Marketing Strategy to keep the 310'000 local residents healthier for longer and delay the need for high cost social care services. Innovative in-house delivery; where necessary procurement through innovative methods such as the use of start-up companies to maximise economy and effectiveness.
• Communication and engagement lead for the delivery of a range of projects making up the Transforming Adult Social Care TASC programme, the response to Government Austerity Measures.
• Responsible for the development of an innovative programme of Director and employee engagement, giving employees a voice in service improvement, the delivery of change, raise concerns, enabling the organisation to become more agile in its delivery of service improvement programme, TASC
• Lead officer on the reintegration of Mental Health Social workers into Adult Social Care. Developing a 12-month programme of workforce development and culture change activities, to support effective delivery of these critical services to ensure the safety of vulnerable adults and local communities.

Working as part of a small newly formed team, supporting the Senior Management Team to deliver strategic projects as set out in it's Facing the Future Programme; the Councils response to delivering Government Austerity measures.

Responsible for the design, development and delivery of innovative improvement projects including:-

• Lead officer and blog editor responsible for the design, development and management of the Councils first blog site, the Chief Executives blog, a new communications tool central to the successful delivery of austerity measures and Council-wide restructuring. Available to internal and external readers, this cutting edge technology revolutionised the way local communities, business, the third sector and employees communicated with the Council. Significant efficiency savings realised by replacing traditional methods of communication. Use of data analytics to drive number of subscribers, increase readership and develop blog content. Innovative procurement of hosting services and integration with Council intranet.
• Responsible for the set up, design, running and recording of the annual programme of Cabinet Summits; bringing together the Senior Management Team and Members of the Cabinet to shape the future of Council services in the borough. Working in a position of trust supporting Cabinet/Officer teamworking to deliver local service improvement, whilst ensuring that Austerity savings were realised.
• Lead officer responsible for the first collaborative creation of a public safeguarding campaign bringing together Children's and Adult Social Care and Housing departments. This award winning campaign making 'safeguarding everyone's responsibility' was integrated into the HR council employee induction process in year 2.
• Managing the council's 3-year budgeting online consultation exercise with the public; enabling residents to directly influence council spend and service delivery prioritisation. Responsible for associated brand, and marketing and communications.
• Responsible for the preparation and performance review of the Council's Strategic Risk Register for external scrutiny; liaising with external auditors and supporting senior managers as directed to ensure sustained progress towards the mitigation of significant risks.
• Working as a team to support the Senior Management Team to develop democratic reports for recommendation for approval and undertake associated work; making positive change the way of working in order to deliver service improvements and realise significant efficiency savings.
• Responsible for the production of the first shared-services Council Resilience Plan (Emergency Plan) between Sandwell and Walsall Council, leading to back-office efficiencies, widening the network of support and mitigating risk in preparation for unforeseen local hazards or threats.
• Responsible for the development and management of the CEO engagement programme with the private sector. Working with the Planning Department to promote current and future investment and growth in the borough, listening to the aspirations of local business leaders and identifying ways that the Council could support companies to provide high skilled employment opportunities for local people.
• Responsible for the development and management of the CEO engagement programme with the third sector, raising awareness of the impact of Austerity on delivery, funding and exploring new ways of working in partnership to develop a new 'offer' for local people, supporting residents to stay safe and healthier for longer.
• Responsible for the development and management of the CEO engagement programme for the council's 6000 employees, giving employees a voice in developing solutions to respond to challenges facing the Council due to Austerity. Providing listening opportunities to enable employees to influence change, raise area's of potential concern, contribute to service improvement ideation and increase pace of culture change.
• Working with the Senior Management Team to develop bespoke Tours of the Borough for influential guests as required; promoting current and future plans and projects in respect of social care, education, the built and natural environment and business growth.
• Set up of the Adult Social Care Response Hub, working with the Council's Facilities Management Team and others to set up a newly designed physical protected space for teams to provide fast reactive care as required for the safeguarding of the borough most vulnerable adults.
• Responsible for the design, development and delivery of the public facing marketing campaign 'A New Era for Children's Service' working in partnership with the Police, Social Care, Health and others. Development of associated branding, videography, social media and large events, aimed at giving children and young people in care a voice to express their hopes, dreams and aspirations, and making safeguarding children everyone's responsibility.
• Design, develop and deliver marketing campaigns, events, communications and engagement plans to support Facing the Future projects, the Council's delivery programme in response Austerity.
• Lead officer for the management of the Council's Employee Survey, targeting increased return rate, analysing data, communication results and working with Service Managers across the Council to develop bespoke plans to improve employee satisfaction.
• Responsible for identifying and piloting new channels of communication and engagement across the Council such as unconferencing, social media, vlogging for example, intended to increase the pace and effectiveness of change, improving morale of employees by raising their perceived value in influencing change.
• Undertake review of the Directors Assurance Statements across the council, prior to scrutiny by the Council external auditors, KPMG. Ensuring quality of statements, identifying and rectifying area's of concern and ensuring consistency. To Prove objective evidence for the effectiveness of the Council's systems of internal control.
• As required, secondment to Democratic Services department, working with the Elections Team in a position of trust, and responsible for undertaking final checks and validation of election results prior to formal public announcement; safeguarding the image and reputation of the Council and in compliance with legislation.
• Responsible for the development and delivery of the communication and engagement events, marketing, branding to ensure delivery of the critically important Children's Services Improvement Plan, to significantly improve standards of care of vulnerable children in the borough moving the OFSTED rating from 'inadequate' to 'good'.

Working as part of a small newly formed team to support the Senior Management Team to successful deliver integrated services; undertaking whole organisation restructuring and delivering efficiency savings across a large number of 'Place' services including Planning, Highways, Environment, and Housing.

• Responsible for the production of a ground-breaking public facing 3-year Business Plan for the Highways and Environment Department; designed to inform, capture and engage readers about the future impact of unprecedented cuts to Council budgets and the resulting total transformation affecting all services.
• Lead officer working with the Highways and Environment Director (Place side of the organisation) in the development and implementation of plans to close the last remaining Council owned children's home in the borough (People side of the organisation). Responsible for undertaking sensitive engagement with young children to give them a voice in the future of their care. This challenging ground-breaking innovative project resulted in significant improvement in the quality of care for looked after children.
• Lead officer on the introduction of the Councils first breakout meeting area's in the council, reducing the reliance on costly meeting rooms and proving pleasant spaces for people to work, rest and socialise.
• Responsible for the production of the first Equality Impact Assessment on a large Council Restructure, scrutinised in court and through the media, and commended for its robustness and compliance with up coming Equality Act 2010 legislation.
• Working with Senior Managers as directed to respond to the introduction of Government Austerity measures, though the development of innovative programmes of work.
• Development of the first Council blog of the Executive Director of Urban Regeneration, which developed into the Council CEO blog in the following year. Innovative procurement for outsourcing hosting to ensure balance between high quality service and cost, and speeding up the pace of communication between leaders and employees .
• Responsible for the interior design of the newly formed Urban Regeneration Directors Suite; modernising and improving the professional image and reputation of officers engaging with current and local businesses and future investors in the borough; representing a new era for service delivery excellence.
• Thematic lead officer and corporate advisor on the implementation of the Equality Act 2010, seeking to eradicate discrimination and foster community cohesion though decision making process and policy.
• Thematic Lead Officer for the implementation of the public facing Council performance management and reporting software, InPhase. .

Responsible for keeping local people safe through the integrated delivery of a range of back office functions across the newly formed Highways and Environment Department to maximise efficiency, effectiveness and economy.

The design and implementation of integrated strategic plans to ensure robust delivery of Business Planning, Organisational Development, Workforce Development, Risk Management, Communications and Engagement, and Equality functions plus others.

Responsible for the innovative deployment and delivery of mix of planned and ad hoc projects including:-

• Project ideation and lead officer on the development and implementation of Council's first satisfaction survey designed for frontline peripatetic employees. Aligned to the wider corporate survey for its employees undertaking office based roles. Targeting direct engagement with selected groups of frontline employees to improve response rate, engender trust, raise awareness of the value of their contribution in shaping change, and the positive impact on delivering better services to local people.
• Responsible for the digital transformation of Waste and Street Cleansing services, computerising the schedules of waste and street cleansing vehicular routes ensured coverage of the whole borough, enabling objective planning, performance management, and cost effective use of resources to improve productivity and reduce customer complaints.
• Preparation of the Annual Performance Reporting across the department. Ensuring robust, accurate evidence of performance to provide assurance to the Senior Management Team and improve the image and reputation of the Council.

Working within a small newly formed team and responsible for the audit, reporting and review of a large suite of national Best Value key performance Indicators KPI's. These new indicators of council performance were set to evidence the Council's performance in compliance with the Local Government Act 1999 and relating to the delivery of services within it's newly formed Direct Services Theme (Department). This innovative work received recognition from the councils external auditors, and government regulatory inspectors, and set the benchmark for best practise across the rest of the Council.

• Preparation of the Annual Performance Reporting across the Direct Service Theme, made up of the Housing, Highways, Environment and Leisure, Libraries and Museums services. Ensuring robust, accurate evidence of performance to provide assurance to the Senior Management Team and improve the image and reputation of the Council.
• Preparation and reporting of the Direct Services risk register associated with the delivery of national Best Value key performance indicators, enabling the Senior Management Team to identify risk of poor performance and put plans in place to mitigating risk.
• Direct responsibility for the performance of a number of Best Value KPI's
• Undertake planned secondments into service area's as directed, to audit and validate performance and compliance of these strategically important indicators, reporting identified discrepancies between actual and reported performance to the Senior Management Team for consideration.

Founder of the registered charity, 'Operation Raleigh West Midlands' later 'Raleigh International West Midlands' set up to support young volunteers in the region to undertake life-transformational expeditions around the world.

• Lead on the development of a volunteer support group; meeting on a monthly frequency and open to past, current and future volunteers.
• Lead on the development of a programme of voluntary work and social opportunities for volunteers; to share experiences, develop relevant skills prior to and post expedition.
• Represent the West Midlands at national events, bring together Regional Co-ordinators to understand, influence and engage in decision making discussions to steer the direction of travel of the overarching charity, Raleigh International UK (Operation Raleigh UK).
• Lead on the day-to-day operations of the charity; working with others to securing funding, develop project ideation, managing events and communications, and ensuring compliance with local policy and legislation.

Working within a culturally diverse area with high deprivation to lead, guide, and inspire young people aged 14-25. To motivate them to develop new lifelong skills, improve employability, understand the value of teamwork, build self-confidence and self-worth, as well as gain an appreciation for the environment and local communities.

• Working within policy and legislation to design challenging and safe walking, cycling, canoeing expeditions, volunteering opportunities, new hobbies; to enable young people with challenging beginnings to succeed in achieving Bronze, Silver and Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

Working within a small newly formed Performance and Service Quality team, supporting the Senior Management Team to maintain the 40'000 local council housing stock to the highest standard and availability for rent to it's 310,000 residents.

• Responsible for the development of new tools and processes to maximise employee communication, engagement and satisfaction leading to improved customer service satisfaction levels, mitigate risk of contract loss, increase the ability of the organisation to take advantage of future contract opportunities, recruit and retain highly skilled employees and minimise unauthorised absence.
• Support the programme of compulsory competitive tendering through the development of associated documentation including Schedules of Rates.
• Develop new performance tools and processes to improve organisation performance including quality circles and benchmarking activities with other Direct labour Organisations DLO's in the UK.
• Implement new business performance and quality assessment frameworks, such as British Quality Foundation BQF and Investor's in People IIP to identify areas of improvement and investment within the organisation and leading to service excellence and satisfied customers.
• Undertake annual and ad hoc audits of multi-depot housing maintenance stock and business processes as directed.

Working in a small newly formed Information Technology IT team, enabling the organisation to utilise cutting edge technology to drive business change, improve efficiency and to transform the way that service were delivered to it's customers.

• Responsible for set-up and management of the first Departmental IT customer help desk, engaging with customers (employees) and acting as an interface between IT provision and service users. This created a effective tool to manage the growing demand for new technological solutions to replace paper-based information systems.
• Responsible for the set-up, management and delivery of the first departmental in-house IT training programme for employees; delivering a range of training on software applications to support the efficient implementation of new technology.
• Responsible for the set-up and management of the first Departmental work scheduler to manage the performance and delivery of IT requests. Requests were triaged and reports developed to the Senior Management Team for approval; enabling the management of cost effectiveness of new technology against business requirements.
• Responsible for the development of communications tools to raise employee awareness about present and future technological advancements within the department.
• Responsible for the set-up and management of system developer events and communications as part of the IT system procurement process.

Responsible for preparation of monthly management accounts and undertaking annual audits of physical stock held for use by Housing Maintenance, Street Lighting, Signs, Waste and Grounds Maintenance services.

• Support the Corporate Audit Team in financial and systems audits as directed.
• Support the department to prepare monthly, quarterly financial reports across a range of services including Waste.
• Analyse financial information to identify discrepancies.
• Prepared financial reports and projections based on financial data to support the Council to deliver services in compliance with local policy and legislation.

Cost Accounting Finance Assistant supporting the organisation in the preparation of monthly, quarterly financial reports.

• Batching and submission of a range of documentation for IT systems processing, ensuring accuracy, correctness to ensure appropriate recharging of a range of services.
• Analyse financial information to identify discrepancies.
• Prepare reports and projections based on financial data.
• Analyse data and transactions through the use of internal mainframe.