Productivity Plan - Transformation of services to make better use of resources

The council is working toward a service offer that is sustainable and proportionate for a borough council. Alongside this, ensuring best value for the public purse in exiting from a significant number of highly complex commercial arrangements.

The council commenced a ‘Fit for the Future’ (FFtF) programme in 2022 to drive out revenue savings needed to help bridge a significant budget shortfall in the short-term. In early 2023, the council carried out a review of all services to identify the minimum viable provision for statutory services.

This was supported by benchmarking and involved Corporate Leadership Team-led panels to provide challenge. This resulted in proposals for changes to service provision and a new vision for the organisation.

Through the summer and autumn of 2023, the council carried out extensive consultation with staff and with residents on the proposed changes to services. The establishment reduced from 445 employees in April 2023 to 345 in April 2024, resulting in staffing savings of £2.3million per annum.

More work is planned for this year to support staff and residents in planning and delivering new service models.

Measuring productivity, especially in the public sector is notoriously challenging. However, we do robustly measure performance across service areas and benchmark them with our nearest neighbours. We have also reduced headcount whilst broadly maintaining services in core areas, and it is likely we have recently improved productivity (total outputs have fallen slightly, total inputs have fallen more significantly).

We are expanding the numbers of metrics monitored and building up a clearer understanding of cost per transaction (including analysis by channel) as well as expanding the number of services we benchmark. In one service area in particular - housing - it is necessary to significantly expand the level of investment in the stock of homes managed by the council and to improve service quality, not least to comply with regulatory requirements.

Productivity is closely aligned to performance. We measure and monitor progress against the council’s corporate objectives on a quarterly basis. The performance monitoring report contains key performance indicators (KPIs) covering key activity in council directorates and using directorate plans. All metrics are linked to corporate outcomes.

In May 2023, the council entered government intervention, and the following month, issued a Section 114 Notice. As a result, the council produced the IRP which brought together the FFtF programme (a programme to identify service savings) and Financial Recovery Programme (actions to address the debt issues).

The IRP has two strands to:

• resolve the previous poor investment decisions
• transform the organisation to ensure processes, systems and skills are in place to deliver the required change.

View the Improvement and Recovery Plan

View the reports to Commissioners

In order to make significant savings across the organisation, there has been, and will continue to be, much work required. Current programmes of change include:

Community Asset Transfers (CAT)

In order to keep valuable community assets open to the communities whilst extinguishing the liabilities carried by the authority, the council adopted a CAT policy which is being implemented over the coming years. The policy involves the transfer of council assets to the community.

This enables the community to take control in running assets to best meet local need and supports the voluntary and community sector to meet their ambitions. It also means the asset can be sustained and revitalised beyond the means of the council at a time of increased budget pressures.

Self serve programme

This programme will bring improvements to how services are accessed by residents by improving the information available on the public website and enabling residents to self-serve. Significant upgrades to the website, online forms, customer resource management, telephony and the contact centre will reduce volumes and costs.

Housing service improvements

Streamlining processes evidenced by 'as-is' and 'to-be' process maps. This will include upgrades to housing systems and asset modules which will enable accurate and timely regulatory and statutory reports to be provided, as well as improved data quality and availability.

Asset Review and Rationalisation Plan

This work will develop and implement a pipeline of disposals over the next three years to ensure that the council’s assets are being managed effectively. This work will be key in delivering transparent steps in the council’s financial recovery.

Building on the work to date, the Council is taking a strategic approach to identifying further savings and efficiencies as part of the development of its Medium-Term Financial Strategy.

This includes:

• strengthening the approach to property management
• a critical review of the allocation of overheads to help ensure we are fully recovering costs where we charge or deliver services which relieve pressure on other elements of the public sector
• reviewing the approach to procurement and arrangements with suppliers
• increasing transformation through process reviews and technology investment.

Housing services are undergoing significant transformation with a number of measures aligned to regulatory standards. These are broken down into:

• Consumer standards
• Economic standards

Following the Social Housing Regulation Act receiving Royal Assent, the Consumer Standards include:

• The Neighbourhood and Community Standard
• The Safety and Quality Standard
• The Tenancy Standard
• Transparency, influence and accountability (including Tenant Satisfaction Measures)

In 2023/2024 the council was able to make approximately £8.5million service savings over three years, which equates to 45% of the net budget. Significant upgrades in the future to the website, online forms, customer resource management, telephony and the contact centre will reduce volumes of customer contact and costs to the organisation, by encouraging residents to self serve.

The forecast for this project is a £750,000 saving after over years 2025/2025 to 2027/2028, whilst improving resident and employee satisfaction.

The Council has taken the opportunity to use Flexible Use of Capital Receipts to fund part of its transformation. This has enabled the council to bring in external expertise, such as commercial advice and support to ensure the companies are compliant and drive asset rationalisation. This additional capacity and capability has enabled the council to deliver change at pace.

As well as the revenue savings already delivered, it will lead to improvements in how services are accessed by residents and will also lead to significant further capital receipts. 

However, whilst capital investment is important, the revenue implications of an increasing move to cloud-based services should not be underestimated.

Arguably the biggest preventative measure would be an expansion of affordable housing, the shortage of which underpins many of the challenges faced by a significant proportion of local residents who in turn place demands on the Council and other elements of public sector. 

The council is continuously engaging with the community and undertaking Community Asset Transfers as part of locally driven changes to service delivery, supporting longer term financial sustainability.

Opportunities to take advantage of advances in technology and make better use of data to inform decision making and service design.

The Council has published a Digital Strategy 2022 to 2025 which shapes the future direction of the organisation. 

Starting from a relatively low base, we have an ambition to improve the use of data. The aims are as follows:

Informed decision-making 

Analytics convert raw data into actionable insights, helping the council and individuals make decisions based on evidence rather than intuition or assumption.

Service efficiency and optimisation 

Through analytics, processes and operations can be optimised for efficiency - data can identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies in service delivery processes and underpin process improvements and automation to streamline operations.

Predictive capability

Analytics, especially when combined with machine learning, can forecast future trends and behaviours. Predictive analytics can be used to forecast demand for services, budget requirements, and resource allocation.

Infrastructure maintenance 

Analytics can assess the condition of public infrastructure and prioritize maintenance and repairs based on data-driven assessments rather than a fixed schedule.

Compliance and reporting

Analytics can ensure compliance with regulatory requirements through monitoring and reporting on council activities.

Reduce reliance on business applications for transformation

The council is scoping the options for a modern data platform where data can be collected and consolidated from various sources within the council. Sources include resident feedback, financial records, service requests, demographic information, as well as line of business applications.

As this happens, data quality and accuracy increase through continuous data cleansing and validation. Services can become more personalised and efficient without waiting for a major system to be replaced/modernised. 

As part of the self serve programme, plans are also in train to publish much more data, especially to users, and use open data sources to improve services.