In 2020, when LCRIG began its official journey to becoming a Community Interest Company (CIC), part of the journey included the very real need to demonstrate that collaboration was a key part of our DNA. Of course, LCRIG has existed for a lot longer than our official CIC status, and we’d always talked about “collaboration” being a key tenet at the very early board meetings, which I used to attend but in a very different capacity. But, demonstrating our official intentions in our early fledgling days was very important to us.
At the time, LCRIG was becoming a CIC and our relationship with DfT began to flourish firstly with Steve Berry, OBE and Matt Eglington, then with Darren Capes and the Transport Technology Forum. Those DfT relationships have continued to grow, strengthen, and flourish. It was also during this time that councils were required to undertake self-assessments, part of the self-assessment included a remit to demonstrate collaboration. Martin Duffy, former CEO LCRIG, rightly felt that ISO 44001 would demonstrate to DfT, Councils and Suppliers that we were serious about encouraging collaboration. Gaining ISO 44001 accreditation also allowed anyone who was an LCRIG Member the opportunity to demonstrate that they were part of this community of collaborators.
We were thrilled when we received our accreditation in 2021, and we are the only community interest company in our sector to achieve this. It was no mean feat given our size and early status as a micro-organisation. Fast forward to now, we are a team of ten, running two big flagship events for ourselves, programmes of activity for DfT including the successful Transport Technology Forum, working at national and with European partners, with more to come from us over the next few years.
Things have moved on (a lot) since the early DfT self-assessment days, but one of our four pillars remains “Collaboration”. This year, I have been reviewing all of our documentation, reviewing our systems and reconfiguring our ISO systems with our external ISO support. Whilst everyone takes a breather after the upcoming Innovation & Learning Festival, I will be anxiously doing the final preparations for our full reinspection. I hope we are recertified, but nothing is certain. What is certain, however (and whatever the outcome), is that collaboration will always be at the heart of LCRIG, it will be in our corporate veins and will always be the thing we do at our events, regional groups, meetings, and relationships with our members.
Paula Claytonsmith, CEO