Service reviews
We have begun a series of service reviews which incorporate a deep-dive into how each service is currently delivered and how that service could be redesigned to increase efficiency and improve outcomes. Some of these reviews are part of the council’s Transformation Plan and some are being carried out as part of our strategic planning processes. The outputs of these reviews will then drive further improvement activities over the coming months.
Additional review activity is also underway. For example, fees and charges income had broadly been less in the legacy councils than their statistical neighbouring authorities, Recognising that those benchmarking comparisons are now unhelpful following local government reorganisation, the council has now harmonised policies in respect of fees and charges and moved to a full cost recovery of care model relating to in-house adult social care service delivery. Further work to assess the council’s position in relation to comparable authorities is to be carried out.
Governance
We have established a robust governance structure to enable effective decision-making, assurance, and risk and performance management. This includes quarterly budget and performance reporting in public to the council’s Executive, the scrutiny function which includes the Business and Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee with a specific responsibility for scrutiny of budget and performance, and the Audit Committee (including an independent person within its membership) with responsibility for providing independent assurance of the adequacy of the risk management framework and the associated control environment and independent scrutiny of the Council’s financial and non-financial performance.
Member accountability and review in relation to the Transformation Plan sits with the council’s Executive, Overview and Scrutiny and full Council ensuring strategic decision-making, monitoring and review of this vital work is carried out with transparency and public accountability. Our Senior Leadership Team is the Strategic Programme Panel providing officer-level strategic oversight and decision-making for the delivery of our ambitious Transformation Plan. The work to deliver transformation is carried out by staff from across the organisation (and in some cases from partner organisations) through a range of Programme Boards and Project Delivery Groups, supported by a well-resourced Programme Management Office and underpinned by robust programme and project management methodologies.
Our Transformation Plan incorporates invest to save approaches with the investment required for each Programme to realise the intended benefits outlined in the table above. A new capital investment strategy is now in place to support delivery of these approaches and programmes.
Workforce planning
Our workforce is our greatest asset. Through our strategic planning processes and delivery of our Transformation Plan we are working to ensure our workforce, our assets and our finances are focused fully on delivering our priorities.
Our workforce and recruitment challenges include difficulties in recruitment and retention of staff in some service areas which results in use of externally provided workforce (for example - agency staff), often at high cost to the council. Reducing the number of externally provided workforce used by us and ensuring we have the permanent workforce in place to deliver our services is a priority project within our Transformation Plan.
Significant progress has already been made to lower in increasing levels of the permanent workforce in Children’s Services.
Our workforce challenges include high levels of long-term sickness in some parts of the council. We are using a range of interventions to reduce these levels, investing substantially where we need to address these issues and support people back into work, to achieve productivity gains in the future.
We are developing a robust understanding of the capacity we will need to deliver transformation plans over the coming years and are using externally-commissioned specialist services where we need to in order to achieve savings and deliver on our objectives.
Engaging with our workforce is a vital part of creating our new council for Cumberland and to delivering our transformation plans. An empowered, skilled and motivated workforce is critical to future productivity. We are using a range of ways to engage with our staff and support them through change. Effective engagement with Trade Unions is an important element of our work in this area. The proportion of the council’s pay bill spent on Trade Union Facility Time in 2023/24 was 0.1559%. The expectation in our medium term financial planning is that this proportion will reduce by 2026/27.
Performance Management
We have a Performance Management Framework in place which sets out how we manage performance. This includes quarterly performance and finance reports made to the Executive on the current position – including progress against the Medium Term Financial Plan, Key Performance Indicators and activity milestones aligned to the programmes of work set out in the Council Plan and Council Plan Delivery Plan.
Addressing inequalities
Improving the health and wellbeing of our residents is the central aim of our vision for Cumberland as set out in our Council Plan. This is supported by four strategic priorities which are key to making an impact on the factors that affect health and wellbeing:
- addressing inequalities
- local economies that work for local people
- environmental resilience and the climate emergenc
- delivering excellent public services.
Addressing inequalities is integral to the delivery of our Vision for Cumberland and is mainstreamed throughout the whole council – through policy, processes, transformation programmes and delivery activity. We have agreed our Equality Objectives for the next four years and are currently developing an implementation plan which will be delivered through existing or planned programmes of activity across the council.
Meaningful engagement with all our communities is central to our vision and we have put a community engagement framework in place to embed the importance of engagement across all services. The council currently provides two small grants of £1,250 a year to two local infrastructure groups to support engagement with people with specific protected characteristics.
Equalities training is one of a number of mandatory online training packages for all staff to be completed at a time of their choosing through our online learning portal. We also have a number of staff networks across the organisation as part of our staff engagement approach.
Barriers to increasing productivity
We have ambitious plans for transforming services and creating a single, integrated Cumberland Council fit for the future. This is a long-term plan requiring long-term investment and long-term decision-making.
To do this we need the government to provide certainty – certainty of funding and certainty of reform – including:
- the certainty of multi-year funding settlements which enables us to make long-term investment decisions in order to realise significant improvements in productivity and enables us to plan service improvement resulting in better outcomes for our residents
- the certainty of long-term investment in local place with a shift away from multiple bidding rounds for multiple funding streams towards strategic investment in a place, and increased flexibility of use of ring-fenced grants
- the certainty of a devolution approach which enables flexibility of local governance arrangements to meet local need rather than the current prescriptive mayoral model to secure the most significant devolution deals
- clarity of SEND reform recognising increasing demand – fully funding councils so that they can ensure the needs of those eligible can be fully met
- clarity of home-to-school transport entitlement and funding arrangements recognising increased costs – to ensure affordability for councils
- clarity of adult social care reforms and funding arrangements recognising ageing populations and increasing complexity of demand – to ensure sustainability of support for some of the most vulnerable in our communities
- action across government departments, including DWP in particular, to ensure better data-sharing with councils to enable more automated and better support for residents, including those on benefits.