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Dragons' Den - 22 September 2009

September 2009 saw the Dragons’ Den pose a new challenge to its applicants. Taking place live at the BEST Leaders Autumn Event in Aston Hall Park in front of an audience of hundreds of colleagues, bidders in the morning pitched their ideas to a panel of dragons consisting of Councillor Alan Rudge – Cabinet Member for Equalities & Human Resources, Jason Lowther – Director of Policy & Performance, Raffaela Goodby – Employee Engagement Manager and Ashley Innis – Cabinet Support Officer.

The first brave team up on stage were the WEST Youth Offending Team. The team wanted to convert an unused outdoor area and old outbuilding into a communal staff area as their office does not have the capacity for a break room. The team started a lively presentation with an X-Factor style rendition of ‘I Will Survive’ but went on to provide a well thought out and detailed presentation including building quotes and details of fundraising activity. The dragons praised the team for their ambitious and adventurous plans that showed the team working together and in their own time to improve their environment. The team were awarded the funding on the condition that they are able to raise the additional money required and also asked the audience for volunteers to help with the work needed.

Next to enter the dragons’ lair was Stuarts Road Intake & Assessment Unit led by BEST leader Wendy Kelly. The team were looking to purchase digital pens which store and translate handwritten text into a typed format just by plugging it into a USB port. The team felt that this would save man hours and give the staff more time to work with the vulnerable children that come to them. Each child needs to have a full assessment done, which is normally completed by hand and then typed up. The time saving would be made by being able to just paste the information into the relevant forms and making it easier for the child to read their own files. The centre manager also added that he had tried other methods to induce efficiency savings such as encouraging training to improve the typing skills of staff – this has not had the desired effect. The dragons were very curious and somewhat sceptical about the technology behind this idea and quizzed the team about the performance of the devices and the suitability of the product. After some deliberation the team were awarded funding for two of the eight pens initially requested and asked to use this as a pilot and report back to the dragons on their findings on the product. The team were also asked to work collaboratively with Service Birmingham to make sure that they were using the right product.

The dragons for the afternoon session were Andy Albon – Director of Human Resources, Bella Jones – Communications Manager, Andrew Potter – Directorate Engagement Manager for Development, Environment & Culture and John Murtagh – Streetlighting Assistant Operations Manager.

Facing the dragons in the afternoon were the team from Looked After Children - Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service who had bravely stepped into the fray when their BEST leader was unable to attend. They were bidding for funding to provide a resources library and waiting area for their visiting service users. Often the children that they deal with are struggling with severe emotional problems and a resource library of appropriate material would help them learn to deal with their emotions and progress. The dragons felt that this was a very worthy idea but felt that there needed to be some caveats to the funding, these were that the team work with the library service and to look at internal sources for spare furniture.

Finally the Customer Relations Service from Children, Young People & Families approached the dragons with a very polished bid. The team who deal with, amongst other things, customer complaints and hold mediation sessions felt that their service could be provided better if they had an up to date transcription system including an electronic recording system and a digital pen. The team had put in a great deal of research and looked in detail at costings and the dragons were happy to award the funding.

If you would like to apply for Dragons’ Den or would like further information please contact Lucy L Kenny on 0121 675 1579 or email BEST, check out our inline pages or go to Dragons' Den section on this website.