Connecting South West has been put in place to coordinate regional stakeholder groups, in a similar manner to the individual sub-regional partnerships, to expand the goals of the sub-regional partnerships in line with the evolving regional ICT Strategy. In particular to:

• Attract new ICT-related projects which, by collectively making the best use of resources, add value to the sub-regional broadband partnerships;
• Gain economies of scale through consolidating projects with overlapping objectives; 
• Improve the performance of those projects through sharing best practice and reducing risk;
• Bid for and co-ordinate funds for future regional ICT activities in the South West; 
• Prioritise and co-ordinate activities to encourage the acceleration of an ICT driven SW market economy.

South West Regional Centre of Excellence

The job of the Centre is to support local authorities to deliver efficiency savings and achieve the milestone requirements of the National Procurement Strategy (NPS).

Five key roles of the Centre are to:

1. Act as first point of contact for Local Authorities
2. Co-ordinate and analyse regional performance data
3. Provide support and bring to bear resources
4. Develop opportunities for shared working across LAs and wider public sector
5. Co-ordinate support to ensure that efforts of individual organisations support the needs of the region

The Centre also provides grant funding and expertise at a regional and sub regional level.

In order to minimise duplication, the Centre is also coordinating with a number of other change agents and associations in the South West including IDeA, 4ps, ogc, CoPROP, SWEGG, NEPP, SWLGA, ADSS, SWRDA, SWIP to name a few.

Partner Contact : Julian Morley, Director of South West Centre of Excellence
Telephone Number : 01305 757230
Email Address : swce@dorsetcc.gov.uk