The fully subsidised Corporate Peer Challenge is offered to each council at least once every five years.
The financial peer review dovetails closely with the Corporate Peer Challenge and looks at how councils are setting the strategy, making the decisions required and implementing the changes that will give them the best chance of balancing the books in the medium and long term. The review involves financially experienced peers and focuses on five areas including leadership, strategy, decision-making, outcomes and innovation.
The peer-based finance offer relies on making use of expertise in the sector, both officer and councillor peers. It includes:
- a financial health check
- a budget challenge
- tools to allow councils to assess their own financial position and consider opportunities and threats to their financial strategy.
Our Governance Peer Challenge programme is a form of specialist peer challenge that dovetails closely with our Corporate Peer Challenge programme.
The governance peer challenge peer team involves LGA officer and Member peers from across the sector who are experienced in governance and culture including monitoring officer peers.
The peer challenge includes a focus on the following themes which are critical to council performance and improvement:
- Roles, responsibilities and relationships
- Effective governance and scrutiny
- Governance essentials
- Rick management and audit
- Organisational culture.
Adult social care preparation for assurance peer challenges are a three-day onsite peer challenge process with 7/8 peers offering their feedback on a council’s ability to deliver the best services for people and in turn prepare for the regulator’s assurance assessments. There are a number of evidence gathering activities before the peer team arrive which include:
- analysis of the council self-assessment and related documentation
- case file audit and analysis
- lived experience interviews
- conversations between the peer team and key council representatives.
The peer team offer their feedback presentation on the last day of the onsite work which is supported by a more detailed report to follow.
Evaluations from both the councils and peers involved reflect that this is a unique opportunity to reflect on how adult social care services are delivered and learn from others, particularly through the many informal conversations that occur between colleagues.
A key focus is to support councils to prepare for the arrival of the regulator.
The children’s services peer challenge supports councils within the context of the Ofsted inspection framework, and is offered alongside care and safeguarding diagnostics.
Offered as a three-day review or a one-day ‘healthcheck’, both options include a review of your communications function, strategy and capacity as well as recommendations to help you tackle key issues.
During the one-day healthcheck, the peer review team will spend time meeting staff and councillors. There is no formal feedback session, but a written report will be provided.
The three-day communications peer review provides a more in-depth assessment of your communications activity. There is time to meet more people including external partners and representatives from local media, if required. A feedback session takes place on the final day of the review and a written report follows.
The health and wellbeing peer challenge focuses on a system-wide approach to developing effective leadership to integrate and devolve health and social care.
The HMEP strategic review is part of the Highways Maintenance Efficiency Programme offer to support sector-led improvement. Delivered by the LGA it is a peer-led review of a council’s performance to help identify radical transformational opportunities and potential for improvements in operating efficiency.
The human resources / organisational development peer review seeks to help councils better understand their human resources /organisational development team’s capacity and capability to deliver and provides insights into areas needed for improvement.
A planning peer challenge offers you an in-depth look at your service and provides a critical friend's view of your weaknesses and opportunities. It can be focused on specific elements of the service or across the whole service, used as a baseline for new Heads of service and for places thinking about the long-term health of their services or facing up to a new challenge.
