Good morning and a hugely warm welcome to this third Work Wise Summit, as we approach the end of National Work Wise Week.

I am delighted that you have been able to join us today to mark the start of our third year.

Work Wise UK as many of you will know, is a not for profit initiative, which aims to help the UK become one of the most progressive economies in the world.

Through our parent organisation, The I T Forum Foundation, we have been working with Government and Business for over 25 years to help improve competitiveness and productivity within the UK principally by promoting better use of technology.

The aim of the Work Wise UK campaign, is quite simply, to bring about a Workstyle & Work Place Revolution.

For many people, the culture of working from 9 to 5, five days a week, at a central location comes from a bygone age.

In today's 24/7 global economy and with all the technological advances we have made, a rigid work culture is unnecessary.

It is wasteful in terms of time and resources, damaging in terms of the environment, and harmful, in that it impacts upon stress levels and health.

The increasingly complex and competitive world of work, means that employers and employees have to use their resources more effectively, not just to gain increased productivity, but also to balance work life pressures.

How long can the ambiguity of working life, with boom and bust, recession and redundancy continue?

Work Wise Week is intended to show, that the implementation of smarter working practices can deliver huge benefits socially, financially and environmentally.

Wide adoption of smarter working practices, is an obvious answer to four key issues facing our economy today: so obvious that it is being missed by many in politics and business.

The four issues are, competitiveness, the environment, road congestion and quality of life.

The Stern Report published 2 years ago, warned of environmental catastrophe if we don't change our thinking and actions. Part of the answer here must be smarter working practices, to lessen the environmental impact.

Changing working patterns by compressed working hours, job sharing, 9 day fortnights, teleconferencing, working from home, working remotely, mobile and flexible working, can all help to substantially reduce the necessity to travel to work or to business meetings. 

A reduced need to travel, means less emissions. Carbon neutrality and disclosure have gained increasing importance in the Board room, but there is a long way to go before carbon reporting features substantially alongside the financials.  

The Eddington Report, also published 2 years ago, looked at the problems of road congestion, and suggested the introduction of road charging.  Again, changing working practices will reduce the volume of travel, providing a significant part of the answer to road congestion.

The adoption of more flexible attitudes across the public and private sectors could 'stagger' the rush hour, reducing peak travel, the main time when congestion occurs.

Mobile working Hot desking, Drop in centres, Tele and video conferencing are effective ways of beating congestion, saving costs and increasing productivity.

The UK has one of the longest working weeks and the longest commute times in Europe; 54mins per day or 29 working days per year. The social impact of work on all of us is considerable.

Absenteeism, stress and health costs, as well as the impact on family life, has huge impact on the nation and business efficiency.

Work Place Health is fast moving up the agenda and the Dame Carole Black report highlighted the enormous costs associated with workplace health and absenteeism.  A total of 13.8 m working days were lost to stress, anxiety and depression in 2006/07 and I am sure it wont have gone down since. 

Much of this stress and cost could have been avoided by the adoption of new working practices, which offer real solutions, enabling people to work more productively and at the same time improve their work-life balance.

The UK Skills gap is also becoming a more important strategic issue for us all. Recruitment, training, development and talent management are key issues that the WorkWise campaign can help to address.

The Leitch Review in 2006 set challenging targets to improve literacy, numeracy, education and skills in our workforce. Directors and leaders must take the initiative to ensure that we make real progress in these areas, so we can continue to thrive as a nation.

Smarter working is happening. Our partners and participants here today, see the obvious benefits of smarter working, and some are already reaping the economic benefits, as we will hear later from our speakers.

One of our key strategic partners is British Telecom and they have led the way to smarter working and have been introducing new working practices over the last decade, reshaping and developing their own business. Today they will be sharing their experiences and success with us.

Another key strategic partner, Transport for London, have not only supported the Work Wise programme, but they also commissioned  WorkWise UK to  produce The Guide to Smarter Working, which is in your packs and is available to everyone on the web.  This is an authorative and practical guide, which I hope you will find useful as you develop new practices for yourselves.

Smarter working can take many forms, and apply to any size or type of organisation. Some changes to working practices are simple with few cost implications, others involve huge programmes of reorganisation and workflow review. We will be discussing the different approaches during the day.

Following the national launch of WorkWise UK in May 2006, we have now fully established WorkWise in 5 vanguard Regions, North East, London, South East, East, and South West who are working with a wide range of partners to deliver the Workwise campaign at a local level. They will be sharing their ideas on working practices later today in a panel session.

The final phase of the regional role out will hopefully happen this year and will include East & West Midlands, Scotland & Wales, Yorkshire and The Humber and Northern Ireland to fully join up the UK in this initiative

This last week has focussed on the hugely beneficial impact that smarter working can have on organisations and explored many case studies through the press, radio and television.

Employers and Employees across the UK have been sharing their experiences this week, developing the concepts of flexible and smarter working, helping everyone to benefit, from staff to customers,

Focus last week was on Environmental issues, (less travel, lower emissions). Work life balance, for a happier more contented staff and healthier workplace.

The 3rd National Work from home day last Thursday, was a huge success and it is estimated that there are now over 3.5 million people undertaking work from home, a number that is increasing year on year.

Last Monday developed the benefits of working smarter around the Transport issues and studied the impact on business economics.

We were looking at the environment, congestion, pollution, changes to working practices and importantly the future infrastructure needed to support our growing economy.

Yesterday concentrated on the social benefits of smarter working; we discussed issues of social inclusion and work life balance and we heard from the carers and sharers in our society.

The Governments recent announcements outline stronger rights for agency workers and will potentially allow millions more to consider and request the right to flexible working. The agenda is moving forward very fast and employers and employees will need help guidance and information, all of which is available from the Work Wise UK web site.

We really do want your input and involvement today and as our keynote speakers develop the themes, we would like you to discuss, challenge and explore the ideas.

I know from last year's summit that Declan is a master at creating involvement, so get your questions and comments ready.

All of you in this room represent companies large and small and a wide variety of industries and associations and both  public and private sectors. 

As individuals, You have a huge capacity to influence, structure and develop the themes and ideas flowing from today.

These changes often impact on organisational culture and leadership styles. Shaping Change needs clear planning and dedicated programme management to be effectively introduced.

Our task at WorkWise UK is to help others see these benefits and help them to change the way they work......

We invite organisations anywhere in the UK to sign up to the objectives outlined in the Concordat, which is on our website where you can read and sign up. The Concordat has already been signed by all our key partners who are helping to shaping the future of the Workplace.

We encourage all of you here to think about adopting the Work Wise and Quality Work Standard. The standard is supported by a UK wide network of accredited advisors and I encourage you all to become envoys yourselves, by taking the standard into your own companies.

We would like more public and private organisations to pick up and run with the challenge of Working Smarter by supporting Work Wise UK and working towards achieving this new standard, which we will be outlining to you later.
This year is going to be very busy, with Work Wise pushing the boundaries again.
When British summer Time ends, Commute Smart Week begins. This year this will be from, 26th Oct to 1st November. This is call to action supported by our Partners and the TUC, who welcome the call for employers to get "Commute Smart", as journey times to work hit all time high.
Londoners are suffering particularly,  but The Welsh have been the hardest hit by longer commutes as the number of commuters traveling for over an hour each day has risen by 43 per cent, closely followed by Northern Ireland (up 42.2 per cent) and the South West (risen by 41.4 per cent).
Run by Work Wise UK. National Commute Smart Week is encouraging employers to introduce measures, such as home-working, flexible working, condensed hours and nine-day fortnights, to reduce the stress of the daily journey for the UK's 25 million commuters.
In November we will be launching a brand new Awards programme, which will allow organisations of all sizes from all sectors to enter the awards from across the UK.
We will be looking for innovative ways of how organisations have introduced Smarter Working Practices to improve Productivity, Competitiveness, Skills and Workplace Health.

Judging will take place in April 2009 and we will hold a glittering Awards Gala Dinner in London during Work Wise Week next May.

So there is much for you all to become involved with, that will have impact for you, your organisations and all your Regions. This underpins the importance of all UK countries and Regions on getting involved with the WorkWise UK initiative this year.

This year also sees the development of the UK's first "Centre of Excellence for Smarter Working". This centre will serve as a comprehensive and definitive repository of strategic, tactical and operational tools coupled with case studies, guides and data. There are also algorithms for calculating the tangible benefits of smarter working practices, helping your organisations be more competitive. 

Through the establishment of this Centre, Work Wise UK will engage in a far reaching programme of research involving the deployment of Smarter Working Practices and act as an independent evaluator, to assess the benefits of technological change and people development.

As Britain grows and develops we are surprised that we still allow our Economy, Workforce, Skills and Talents to remain vulnerable to the vagaries of boom and bust cycles.

We are ill equipped and slow to react to economic changes and can only do so with tired old redundancy programmes, that hurt our prosperity and our people.

To help counter this WorkWise UK will, later this year, be supporting a month long programme to demonstrate how Work Wise can help to reshape the workforce paradigm and begin to change the way we retain and develop our staff.

Following this summit we will be talking to several major organisations, who we feel will want to be involved in these developments and be in the vanguard of change within the UK workforce and  begin to shift the  current working practices and processes.

Just as Great Britain led the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century, Work Wise partners, want Great Britain to lead the WORKSTYLE REVOLUTION in the 21st Century, helping  to improve our productivity, competitiveness and remain prosperous and influential nation in the world economy.

The economic prizes alone are well worth claiming for our country. 

We can all watch and be passive observers, or we can rise to the challenges we face and help shape the future of our business landscape.

To conclude, I would like to thank very sincerely our National and Regional partners  for the support , energy and foresight that they have shown in being at the forefront of change and helping to establish a Smarter Working Britain.

I hope you enjoy the day and take away lots of new thoughts and ideas. Thank you for being with us and giving Work Wise week such a great final event.

Speech by David Lennan on 16 May 2007