Christ Church Business School awarded Small Business Charter
The Small Business Charter Award, recognised the University's commitment to student entrepreneurship, supporting small businesses, and the local economy.
2yr ago
Christ Church Business School has partnered with Law firm Browne Jacobson and Wiltshire Council to help local authorities across the country generate additional income streams by providing a best practice advice and guidance network.
The Council Company Best Practice and Innovation Network brings together academic experts and senior local authority leaders to share best practice in relation to council owned companies.
There is currently no central forum for authority leaders to share best practice and local governments face multiple challenges from the impact of rising inflation, increased material costs, inter-continental trade challenges, political and cost-of-living pressures.
The network combines academic knowledge with practical experience to highlight the importance of mitigating against the risk of failure and to provide insights about positive commercial activity and innovation in turn, hopes to advise on improving effective governance and management, facilitating additional new revenue streams that could be delivered to local government as a result.
Dr Ping Zheng, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Christ Church Business School has been leading the project alongside graduate and Director of Legal & Governance and Monitoring Officer at Wiltshire Council, Perry Holmes.
I am delighted to bring my expertise and the reputation of Christ Church Business School to this exciting new venture. I look forward to showcasing how cutting-edge research on entrepreneurship and innovation can help Council Companies solving problems and improving their competitive edge. The partnership with Wiltshire Council and others is significant and meaningful to orchestrating regional networks and promoting collective actions and projects among Network stakeholders and local communities.
Dr Ping ZhengSenior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Christ Church Business School
Dr Zheng added: "More research will be developed on this subject area of council company's best practice, covering management, governance, leadership, entrepreneurship and innovation topics.
“The collaboration aims to build a repository of best practice, academic and practical resources to share with the network, a synergy of innovation ecosystems.”
Perry Holmes, added: “I have seen at first-hand how council companies can leverage value in their locality. That can be through efficient, well-run services or strategically held land or buildings to deliver profitable activity to benefit the community and local tax payers, but also social value, regeneration and market stimulation.
“There is a science to this success and through the Best Practice Network we want to ensure that science is widely understood and informs the governance and performance of council companies nationally.
“The Best Practice Network is designed to bring together cutting-edge academic expertise about council companies and innovation linked to on-the-ground practical experience from network members to create a shared resource of good and best practice governance, audit and scrutiny. We also want to encourage novelty and commercial success for the hundreds of companies operating nationally and the community benefits that it delivers.”
Dr Christopher Russell, Director of Christ Church Business School, reflected: “This is a great example of the partnerships our MBA Collaborative Leadership fosters, extending our contribution to South East England’s innovation and enterprise ecosystem, recently recognised by our award of the Small Business Charter, further afield and in to the public sector.”
The development plan includes setting up network website, organising events/workshops, inviting membership as over 700 council companies and 300 local authorities/councils could potentially join the network. Through the collaboration, CCBS aims to grow its research expertise and enterprise in the area of council companies’ management and innovation and increase our research impact in the public sector.