Dear clients, users, friends and everyone else not covered by these nomenclatures.

Much to tell you in this quarterly edition of the Oscar newsletter so do feel free to skip down to the important sections below.

It has become tradition to start with some kind of whimsical story or anecdote. Given the events of the last 12 months – nay 36 – months, these are somewhat in short supply. That said, in archetypal english stoic fashion, we shall endeavor regardless (besides, this is really the only opportunity for written catharsis I get).

Your narrator has decided – factoring in the aforementioned period of general sadness, misery, botheration and hardship through which in various ways we have all passed in the last few years – that our family didn’t have enough stress, so now would be the perfect time to move house. I say “I” have decided, a “joint decision primarily (exclusively) instigated and followed up by my significant other” is another description. Plus, to make it even more fun, we decided to locate the domicile of choice first and work backwards (not the best plan folks). Irrespective; hopefully a move is in progress (for those who have recently or are in the throes of doing the same, my sympathies).

On a side note: our daughter displayed the perfect showcase of 8 year old fickleness – it went something like this: “We’re thinking of moving” / “Oh no dear parents, I love our house, I will never move” / “Here’s a picture of a bedroom we thought you might like” / “Oh, it’s pink. Yes, we must move, can we go tomorrow”.

Now it turns out that buying and selling at the same time is rather a faff – and, having had 732 people traipsing through our house (preceded on each occasion by a 12 hour deep clean and re-arrangement (thrown in understairs cupboard – think tardis) of general mess) we have finally located someone that actually didn’t look too closely and has made an offer (cue cheering, wine and a general state of disbelief – then some more wine).

At the time of writing, we are currently at the mercy of respective solicitors. Much paperwork and other contract type stuff has vanished into that parallel universe where costs are doubled and time becomes relative to an event horizon; whereupon we are left with the vague hope of something meaningful occurring this side of 2023. Those who care will get to discover in the December edition of this periodical whether our poorly laid plans come to fruition. Also, and meantime, if anyone has a van and a spare weekend free, do shout!

Anyway, to business and the usual arrangement of updates, new and interesting things:

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Updates:

We’ll start with Housing Associations this time, having just completed a complete review and update across the file. This consisted of some extensive work on organisational structures and ultimately linking our data back to regulatory lists we are looking to increase standardisation, ensure full coverage (both categories and entities) and generally have a tidy up.

This includes work around:

Organisation Types

Tenant Group Types

Accommodation Types

Group Structures

More to follow on Housing as a complete update of stock volumes, including split across areas, is in the works and we are also planning a deeper dive on development status as well.

Those with an interest on the Healthcare side will have noted the demise of the following organisation types:

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG)

Integrated Care Systems (ICS)

These having been replaced by the new statutory entities: Integrated Care Boards (ICB’s). This has been added as a new organisation type and, along with all linked postholders, has been added to the accounts of all customers that had either previous org type in their subscriptions. A list of the, now historical, CCG’s linked to the new ICBs can be seen in the interesting section below.

Following the Local elections in May and the (many) related boundary changes, I’m pleased to confirm that since the June newsletter we have now updated all Ward and Electoral Division Codes (there’s always a lag due to waiting for the release of new codes and the matching required thereafter). Almost all the structural, cabinet and committee work around election councils/councillors is now also completed. As ever, the work around the non election councils will then start running up to the end of the year.

A big change to report for those with our free Supplier Subscriptions (ie those with a business profile and receiving tender alerts).Specifically we have recently completed an upgrade on the daily email tender notices system.

Upgrades include:

Name your saved selections

Save Multiple Selections

Add and choose the email recipients for notifications

All notices sent in one daily email, grouped where there are multiple saved selections

New home for the live tender notice list

New environment for managing your selections

Importantly, from this week, you need to visit our new platform to manage your tender notices.

You can log-in to the new platform using your existing Oscar username and password. If you’d like to discuss your Supplier subscription or indeed about setting one up, just drop us a line.

Outside of the above, general updating work across orgs and postholders continues as usual of course, the following table shows the number of changes made in the past 90 days:

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New:

A Central Government related theme for new things this time: The Welsh Government have had a restructure and we have therefore reflected the new Department names with a set of new Organisation types, these are as follows:

Welsh Government – Climate Change and Rural Affairs

Welsh Government – Office of the Chief Operating Officer

Welsh Government – Covid Recovery & Local Government

Welsh Government – Education, Social Justice & Welsh Language

Welsh Government – Economy, Treasury & Constitution

Welsh Government – Permanent Secretary’s Office

The recategorisation is under way at the time of typing, so for those with a Central Government subscription, you will see these reflected in the coming days.

We have also added a set of new Functional categories to the Central Government database to better allocate responsibilities:

Administration/Planning – Risk Management

Responsible for identifying and managing internal and external risks to the organisation and related services

Adult Services – Criminal Justice

Responsible for statutory assessment and supervision of adult offenders (aged 16 and over) in Local Govt. Other roles around Criminal Justice in Central Govt

Communications – International Relations/Marketing

Promoting the organisation or specific services and liaising with Government and Business internationally

Financial – Departmental Finance

Responsible for day-to-day operation of departmental/directorate accounts. Usually in accordance with budgets and processes laid down by the central finance department

Health – Scientific Services

Responsible for Scientific analysis and advice connected with the organisation and services to the public

IT/Computing – Departmental Computing

Support and development of individual department/directorates IT/ICT; may include buying hardware and software and staff support.

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Interesting:

As the eagle eyed among you may have noticed when reading the new tender alert email bits and pieces, there was a new link – this is the new home for our much talked about platform. There is much yet to add and fuller updates will follow in subsequent editions, but worth shooting over for a quick gander at the areas that are functional. It’s worth 2 mins, promise!

As mentioned in the changes section above, we have put together a list showing the CCG to ICB linkage here

Finally for this time, we are very pleased to welcome onboard a new person in the form of Maria Vaccarezza. She joins us as Sales and Customer Account Manager; she will be looking to make contact with new customers, support our existing ones and generally be a good egg. If you’d like to connect with her on the social/business platform that is Linked In, you can do so here

That wraps it up for this time. More to follow, especially around our new platform, in December.

Until then, keep warm, safe and well.

James and team at Oscar

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