Central Bedfordshire Council: LGA Corporate Peer Challenge – Progress Review

The council undertook an LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) during 19 – 22 September 2023 and promptly published the full report with an action plan. 

The Progress Review is an integral part of the Corporate Peer Challenge process.  Taking place approximately ten months after the CPC, it is designed to provide space for the council’s senior leadership to:

• Receive feedback from peers on the early progress made by the council against the CPC recommendations and the council’s RAG rated CPC Action Plan.
• Consider peers’ reflections on any new opportunities or challenges that may have arisen since the peer team were ‘on-site’ including any further support needs.
• Discuss any early impact or learning from the progress made to date. 

The LGA would like to thank Central Bedfordshire Council (CBC) for their commitment to sector led improvement. This Progress Review was the next step in an ongoing, open and close relationship that the council has with LGA sector support.

The Progress Review at Central Bedfordshire Council took place (onsite) on 17 December 2024. 

The Progress Review focussed on each of the recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge, under the following theme headings:   

• Strategic planning - Incorporating recommendations 1, 2 & 3.
• Governance - Incorporating recommendations 4 & 5.
• Transition, performance and culture - Incorporating recommendations 6, 7 & 8.

The council’s action plan maps specific targeted actions against each of the CPC’s eight recommendations. The RAG rated action plan details 32 actions and reports 21 have been completed, eight that are ongoing, two are cited as being off track mostly due to changes within the corporate management team and executive structures. 

Progress Review Context – Summary following the September 2023 Corporate Peer Challenge

The May 2023 local elections marked a significant political shift, with the Independents forming an administration (the executive) in the absence of a working majority. Over half the members were new to the council, and at the time of the corporate peer challenge (September 2023) the council was in a phase of transition and invited in the LGA peers to provide the new administration with the opportunity to reflect on the first four months of political leadership and to feed into the council’s strategic planning.  Members and officers were actively building relationships and exploring new ways of working. Peers recommended establishing clear working protocols and a comprehensive member development programme to support robust governance and decision-making.

The peer team identified ‘choppy waters ahead’ with the council experiencing financial challenges, including budget pressures due to increased service demand, national economic conditions, and the decision not to raise council tax in 2023/24. Whilst peers identified the council has a strong history of financial management, they advised that addressing budget gaps required urgent coordinated transformation and efficiency measures whilst identifying that failure to deliver cross-cutting efficiencies would lead to an unsustainable draw down on reserves. At the time, the messages around financial challenges had not consistently found their way down the organisational staff structure or with external partners. 

During the peer challenge there was an urgent need to agree the strategic priorities and develop a council plan. Peers recommended the executive finalise and communicate its strategic goals via a new council plan to ensure the council’s future vision and priorities were understood, enabling all resources, including alignment to the medium-term financial plan. Strengthened corporate governance and collaborative cross-team working were identified by peers as critical for addressing inefficiencies, cross-cutting savings, and duplication. Peers also highlighted the importance of balancing local and strategic objectives to ensure comprehensive place-shaping across Central Bedfordshire.

During the period between the peer team facilitating the CPC and returning for the progress review, the political dynamic has changed; the minority leadership of the collective of Independents has split, with the executive now being formed from a smaller refocused group. The executive reflect progress has been made and recognise the need to further embed working practices and further development of relationships where changes to portfolio holders have occurred. 

The executive has recently benefited from the leader, who was in full time employment at the time of CPC, now being a full-time leader with full focus on the council.  This was seen a positive development by peers, providing the council and leader with increased capacity to focus on the critical challenges and opportunities for place shaping.

Strategic planning - Incorporating recommendations 1, 2 & 3.

Since the peer team’s visit in September 2023, the council has developed and adopted a ‘Strategic Plan’, outlining key priorities and commitments in ways of working. The plan, endorsed by overview and scrutiny in January 2024 and adopted by full council in April, is monitored regularly by the corporate management team (CMT) and the executive. Performance measures aligned to the plan are under review and will be finalised in December 2024. Peers heard how the strategic plan is continuing to evolve, with refreshed aims and objectives being considered alongside the detailed actions required to achieve the plan outcomes. The council’s most recent staff survey indicated a lack of clarity regarding organisational direction; this was a frequently raised issue within the CPC. The council’s position statement reflects the strategic plan is providing staff with more assurance and reflected within their feedback since the survey. 

Peers met with opposition group leaders and scrutiny chairs who reflect the role they collectively play in holding the executive to account. They feel they could robustly challenge the delivery of the strategic plan if this is further developed with specific objective detail, clear accountable deliverables, alongside KPI’s that are effective in measuring if outcomes are being achieved and are appropriately benchmarked. There was positive acknowledgement by some group leaders for the engagement between their groups and the executive over discussing strategic business. 

Given the recent publishing of the governments ‘White Paper’, peers identify a need to ensure the strategic plan remains focused and responsive to the future potential opportunities, for example the impacts on place shaping, local growth, and housing. One consistent message throughout the CPC progress review was focused on the need for the council to be ambitious for place, and sharing what this looks like with staff, members, and partners. The council’s position statement reflects how the executive have committed to working with increasing transparency and to proactively engage with residents, communities, and businesses to ensure they shape and inform local policy making decisions. The results of a recent residents’ survey completed in autumn will be available to the executive in the new year.

In response to significant financial challenges highlighted by the peer challenge, the council launched an internal campaign to raise awareness and to ensure the whole organisation was engaged in working on approaches to respond to the challenges. During the progress review, there was evidence that the campaign has driven clear messages, increased the level of understanding and urgency of the financial challenges. The financial climate was well understood and now driving a stronger corporate response, including transformation activity. 

Peers were informed of examples including the reduction of agency spend from £13m to £8m, stricter recruitment controls, and a focus on organisational change. Public consultation informed decisions on £25m efficiencies in the Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP) for 2024/25, including council tax increases and garden waste charges.

The council has strong self-awareness that balancing the 2025/26 budget will be tough and many of the cost drivers and pressures appear to be understood. Peers were informed of rising inflation, increasing costs, and demand pressures, particularly in adult and children's social care. The council has experienced a 35 per cent rise in costs for older people's residential care, driven by an unprecedented increase of 100 placements and a 70 per cent cost increase in children’s residential care, with average weekly costs rising from £4,000 to over £6,000.

To address these pressures, the council has implemented stringent spending controls, paused non-essential spending, frozen recruitment for non-critical posts, and enhanced financial monitoring. The council’s earmarked reserves peaked at £106m in 2022 and, if no mitigating action taken, now forecasted to be zero by 2028/29. General fund reserves are assumed to remain at £26.4m (circa 10 per cent of net budget). The reserves position underlines the importance of delivering the council’s efficiencies including the ‘reshaping the organisation’ programme.

The 2025/26 revenue forecast shows a £32m shortfall, with adult social care and children’s services accounting for 62% of the budget. The MTFP includes proposals for permanent reductions in non-essential spending, organisational resizing, and a £13m efficiency target; peers heard how the plans to achieve these savings are in early stages of development, requiring prioritisation to ensure successful delivery of in-year savings. Peers were informed that a joint overview and scrutiny budget taskforce was scheduled the day before the progress review to engage members in shaping the council’s response and strategy for achieving a balanced budget in 2025/26 and medium-term financial plan. 

Peers were informed the council plans to reduce the council's workforce by circa 10 per cent and will be engaging staff in early January 2025 through briefings and formal consultations. The council expects the impact of changes to include slower response times and reduced capacity for new projects.

Senior managers are closely monitoring financial controls, with the draft revenue and capital budgets set for member consultation in January 2025. The council will adjust services to maintain core operations while managing financial constraints effectively. 

Governance - Incorporating recommendations 4 & 5.

Since the peer team conducted the CPC in September 2023 there have been appointments to statutory roles including a new interim monitoring officer (MO) in December 2023 and an interim deputy monitoring officer has been in place since June 2024. The roles are already having an impact and working towards a strengthened culture of governance. 

The MO meets bi-monthly (every two-months) with the chief executive and section 151 officer, for an open conversation on the council’s performance and risks, ensuring between the statutory officers there are robust governance arrangements in place and that they are regularly reviewed. The MO is now part of the corporate management team and an integral part of the council’s decision-making process. Peers recommended the governance arrangements could be further enhanced with the inclusion of the head of internal audit as part of regular governance conversations and for the statutory officer meeting to be more frequent given the challenging operational environment. 

The interim MO is actively working to improve and strengthen corporate governance arrangements including a review of the council’s constitution, code of conduct complaints, proposed changes to decision-making procedures and access to information, whilst seeking to improve the outcomes of scrutiny. The review of the council’s constitution is reported as ‘on-going’ and being driven to ensure there is clarity on decision-making procedures, ensuring references to out-of-date regulations are updated and to ensure where possible the constitution is simplified, easy to understand and applied in a consistent way. This work was seen as positive by peers, ensuring the council has clarity around its decision-making framework. 

Peers were also informed of work to strengthen the role of scrutiny, including a review of scrutiny protocols and training provision to ensure the process is delivering improved decision-making outcomes. Peers recommend the executive further reflects on the role of scrutiny in terms of improving decision-making with clarity on its role and function for policy making and post-decision scrutiny. This should be done as part of the ongoing work to review the scrutiny protocols lead by the MO. 

Since the CPC, the council have re-established the member development forum ensuring a cross section of members are informing future learning requirements. The council engages members on a development survey every two-years as part of the member development charter. Despite engaging all members to complete a survey only 7 completed responses were submitted, this is just over 10 per cent of members. Priorities were shared with the member development forum, although the sample was not fully representative to base any decision-making on. 

To ensure the action to establish and roll out a member development programme is impactful, the peers discussed with officers and members the recommendation to engage all group leaders in the review and future requirements of member development. Peers also recommend that the council rethinks its approach to member development, ensuring a prompt review takes place so that members are driving the training needs, rather than a mix of briefings and training that members are unclear of the purpose. This is important given the challenging operating environment and policies impacting local government such as the financial settlement, devolution, local government reorganisation and public service reform. Horizon scanning, looking forward at future challenges will also help to ensure the training members require is forecasted in advance and provided in a timely manner. 

The executive all has an assigned LGA member peer mentor, this was seen as positive by peers and reflect this support could be expanded to include opposition leaders.

The review would help ensure all members are supported to undertake their roles, for example specific training for committee chairs, including scrutiny chairs aligned to the revised scrutiny protocols being drafted and the role of opposition. The LGA can assist with member development, for example support with effective scrutiny and effective opposition training. Some members have already participated on the LGA’s leadership courses and provided positive feedback. The council should maximise the learning and development opportunities on offer from the LGA as part of their member development programme.

Peers were informed by officers and members of the recent positive feedback relating to training on the code of conduct. Training was delivered by an external provider and positively received with half of all members attending. Peers recommend exploring why the development was positively received to consider replicating going forward. Peers understand the current constitutional review will seek to clarify the position on mandatory development.

Transition, performance and culture - Incorporating recommendations 6, 7 & 8.

 At the time of facilitating the CPC, peers recommended establishing working protocols between officers and members given the political administration were new, requiring relationships and working practices to be formed whilst the administration was in transition and deciding upon its priorities and formalising those within a strategic plan. 

The transition period was a time of forming new relationships and working practices and peers reflected that agreeing some protocols would be helpful to ensure members and officers clearly understood new ways of working and a basis for holding each other to account on working collaboratively together in the early stages of the executive leading the council.

Peers were able to discuss with officers and members how those relationships have developed with some examples of trust and respect being grown, although this is not consistent. Where relationships have improved and trust established, these are working well and providing benefit. Peers reflected during the feedback session that more work is required to build positive working relationships, although encouraged by officers and members sharing feedback that there has been improvement over the period since the CPC was delivered. Officer and member principles and protocols can be reviewed alongside the constitutional review. 

The retirement of the director of resources, coupled with the director of children’s taking a new role outside the organisation provided the opportunity to undertake a wider review of the senior management structure. The financial challenges and need to achieve cross-cutting efficiencies informed the decision to appoint to two new roles. The council successfully appointed to a section 151 officer who has the lead for all financial functions and the director of resources and organisational change has the lead for the change programme, ensuring the council is fit for the future and the support areas of ICT, human resources, and assets. The changes reduced the senior management operational costs whilst providing resources to drive the work programmes that will support the MTPF and transformation programmes. 

Through engaging with CMT, peers heard how the structure and working relationships feel more open, with a collegiate approach to working together across the services to support efficiencies, transformation and the range of work programmes designed to deliver the budget, MTPF and residents’ needs. 

There is a strong awareness of the financial challenges across the organisation which is galvanising the council and providing the conditions to break down silos and work on a more corporate blended agenda with a greater focus on cross council working and efficiency. The next 12-months is critical to ensure the range of cross-cutting efficiencies are achieved and the planned savings delivered. 

Peers shared during the feedback session the feedback received regarding the development of KPIs (respecting they are work-in-progress) and the need to progress the implementation to ensure performance is transparent, and benchmarked so that the public, scrutiny, and opposition group leaders can hold the council to account. The council shared with peers that the KPIs have recently been subject to scrutiny and were reported on in quarter 3. Peers reminded the council of the LGA’s benchmarking tool, LG Inform as a source of comparative performance data where the council can transparently compare its performance against, for example CIPFA nearest neighbours. 

Peers reflect that a robust oversight of council performance will be critical alongside the savings, efficiency, and transformation programmes to monitor the impact of the related changes, ensuring strategic plan outcomes and operational performance are not adversely impacted outside agreed performance parameters. 

The LGA would like to thank Central Bedfordshire Council for undertaking an LGA CPC Progress Review. 

We appreciate that senior managerial and political leadership will want to reflect on these findings and suggestions in order to determine how the organisation wishes to take things forward.

Under the umbrella of LGA sector-led improvement, there is an on-going offer of support to councils. The LGA is well placed to provide additional support, advice and guidance on a number of the areas identified for development and improvement and we would be happy to discuss this. 

Rachel Litherland (Principal Adviser) is the main point of contact between the authority and the Local Government Association (LGA) and their e-mail address is [email protected]