The following section is a summary of the most frequent and common feedback messages from corporate peer challenge teams (including progress reviews) during 2022/2023. It is structured in line with the five core components of all corporate peer challenges.
1. Local priorities and outcomes
1.1 Corporate plan/council plan: CPCs clearly demonstrated that most councils effectively translate their understanding of resident engagement feedback, quantitative and qualitative data into a clear vision and priorities through a council/corporate plan. The importance of bringing focus to fewer priorities and of engaging staff, members and partners to ensure these priorities are fully understood and embedded is a common theme. Many councils have a need to update and revise their Corporate Plans to reflect the current financial and changing policy landscape.
1.2 Partnership/collaborative working: Within a challenging economic context, councils are clearly committed to partnership working to help them draw on shared resources and assets to enable the delivery of their place-based priorities. A common theme is that councils are seen as a highly regarded and respected ‘proactive convener’ bringing together partners and resources from a wide range of sectors. This was articulated in one Corporate Peer Challenge recommendation as changing the council mindset from “how can we deliver this” to think more about “how can this be delivered”.
1.3 Performance management: Most councils are able to demonstrate the ‘golden thread’ which links all key strategies together but for some this needed to be strengthened. Many peer teams cited the importance of managing the interdependencies and relationships across key strategies and ensuring performance management frameworks clearly align to key corporate priorities and financial plans. This was captured in one Corporate Peer Challenge as “the need for a ‘golden rope’ linking all the council’s strategies and operations together” and that “this is critical if all staff and councillors are to be enabled to buy-in to the future direction and decisions regarding resourcing.”
1.4 COVID-19: Response and recovery has encouraged councils to rethink how they deliver services to and engage with communities including agile working and better use of assets and technology. A common theme is how councils can harness and drive forward new ways of working developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly working alongside the voluntary sector and business community. The issue of asset prioritisation is also flagged as many councils decide the future of their asset portfolio.
1.5 Prioritisation: Councils are able to demonstrate progress against a number of stated priorities. These commonly include economic growth (including tourism, employment and education), people and place shaping, housing, health and wellbeing (including children and older people), health and social care integration, climate change, digitalisation, transformation and equalities. Maintaining focus on the outcomes expected through effective performance management is a key theme with some councils encouraged to strengthen approaches in order to demonstrate measurable difference and impact for local communities.
1.6 Understanding local communities: A common theme is the importance of evidence-led approaches to ensure an understanding of communities and provide insight for prioritisation. Councils are the best placed public sector organisations to engage with communities and reports made recommendations relating to co-production and locality working arrangements to inform prioritisation that has the greatest impact on citizen experience and outcomes.
2. Organisational and place leadership
2.1 Leadership of place: CPCs consistently recognise the role councils play in providing strong and effective leadership of place. Strong partnerships have been developed and there are good examples of place-based strategies which are jointly owned and delivered. A number of feedback reports recommended that councils should seek earlier involvement and engagement from partners to strengthen a clearer place-based narrative, vision and brand.
2.2 Partnership landscape: Many of the feedback reports highlight how partnership landscapes can be complex and evolving including Integrated Care Systems, combined authorities, regional partnerships, sub-regional partnerships, Towns Deal Boards, and other placed based regeneration partnerships. Many CPC reports recommended that councils should review their partnership landscape and structures to ensure arrangements are best serving the place, are widely owned, properly resourced and align to council priorities.
2.3 Devolution and local government reorganisation: Reports highlight how councils are seeking to capitalise on the potential to secure devolution deals and influence discussions on LGR (where applicable). A key theme is around councils maximising opportunities, advocating for a deal that works for their communities and ensuring opportunities are not missed.
2.4 Cost of living and increased demand: There were many examples of where councils are working with partners to deliver services and support to protect people against rising costs of fuel, food and other essentials. Peer teams found that they are continuing to take a collaborative approach, working closely with the voluntary sector, to target help at those facing the most complex challenges. Councils are also seeing increased demand across priority services and managing this demand is proving challenging and costly.
3. Governance and culture
3.1 Member and officer relationships: A common theme is how senior leaders, particularly council leaders and chief executives, work together and with others both inside and outside the council to influence and build trusted relationships in support of council priorities. Feedback reports also reference the importance of managerial and political leaders modelling appropriate relationships to support a positive workplace culture. They also reference the importance of investing time to develop healthy member to member and member to officer working relationships and behaviours.
3.2 Roles and responsibilities: CPCs have identified the need to strengthen and improve the understanding and application of the key roles and responsibilities of statutory officers. It was felt that some councils need to ensure that there is a better, shared understanding, amongst senior members and officers, of these roles. Some CPCs also found a blurring of roles and responsibilities of officers and members and a need to undertake engagement and development work to address this.
3.3 Overview and scrutiny: Linked to the above, the role of overview and scrutiny in adding value to local decision making is a common development theme. A common area for improvement is around strengthening overview and scrutiny’s focus on key strategic issues and priorities and also the potential to strengthen pre-decision scrutiny.
3.4 Member development, engagement and briefings: Reports highlight the importance of good communication and engagement with all members, including opposition members, so that they feel well briefed. This includes building effective systems for dealing with member queries and case management. Strengthening member development programmes was also a common theme.
3.5 Governance and assurance: Ensuring there is sufficient organisational rigour to key governance processes including financial management systems and reporting, procurement, role of statutory officers, role of internal and external audit and reporting of corporate risk are common improvement themes. A number of reports make recommendations relating to council constitutions and the need for governance reviews to improve decision making. This includes engaging both officers and members in work to improve governance and assurance processes, further develop/embed member code of conducts to protect the democratic role of members and to build positive culture change.
4. Financial planning and management
4.1 Financial sustainability: Reports continue to highlight the significant financial challenges associated with increasing costs and demand in services particularly social care (adults and children’s). They also highlight financial challenges in services such as leisure which have been severely impacted by the pandemic, sharpening of complexity (leading to increased placement and agency costs), rising costs, pay awards, inflation and cost of living pressures for local communities. Reports indicate that, in most cases, these challenges are well understood and planned for but in some cases, there is an urgent need to strengthen approaches to achieve savings and meet the challenges ahead. Approaches to addressing the challenges include transformation programmes, partnership working, income generation and service reviews. But there are variances in how equipped councils are to respond to these challenges (see also: 5. Capacity for improvement).
4.2 Financial management and oversight: Recommendations around strengthening collective ownership, understanding and responsibility of financial management and oversight is a common theme. This includes ensuring wider senior officers and members are engaged in both the budget setting process and financial monitoring and ensuring the approach to budget setting is collaborative and inclusive.
4.3 Commercialisation and investment: Some CPCs highlight how councils have established companies and made commercial purchases and/or commercial investments to generate income. Ensuring these are effectively managed and have the appropriate governance and oversight to ensure they are realising the benefits they were established to deliver and that the relevant risks are managed is a recurring theme. Recommendations have also been made around the need to review capital programmes through commercial risk assessments in the light of the external economic environment.
5. Capacity for improvement
5.1 Workforce: CPC reports highlight challenges around recruitment and retention – particularly in relation to children services, adult social care and planning. Whilst these issues are complex and subject to wider market and labour forces, some reports highlight opportunities for councils to explore shared services and/or to work with partners as a route to look strategically at the issues. Councils are also responding through the development of people strategies which focus on staff engagement, learning and development, upskilling, mandated appraisals and celebration of achievements. Councils were also encouraged to explore further avenues such as apprenticeships, graduate schemes and internships.
5.2 Agile working: Following the pandemic councils recognise that agile and flexible working is needed to deliver services in a climate of ongoing financial challenges. The importance of building clarity about what agile and hybrid working will mean for councils moving forward is a common theme. This includes ensuring councils develop clear definitions of hybrid and agile working and engage customers, staff, councillors and partners on this and what this means for services.
5.3 Digitalisation: Exploring new, innovative approaches to service delivery to help build capacity and resilience is a common theme. Peers made recommendations around fully harnessing the potential of digital and data insight to drive service improvement.
5.4 Transformation: A number of reports made recommendations relating to council transformation plans and the need for these to be robust with key milestones for delivery. Building capacity to lead, co-ordinate and drive transformation through a strong corporate core of services (human resources, ICT, communications, procurement etc) is also a common theme. Ensuring wider staff, member and stakeholder engagement in the delivery of transformation plans to ensure they are jointly owned and understood and seen as the responsibility of all members and officers is also a common theme.