Warwick District Council - Progress Review

Warwick District Council (WDC) undertook a LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) during July 2023 and promptly published the full report with an action plan. 

The Progress Review is an integral part of the CPC 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 peer’s 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 the council 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 WDC took place onsite on 14 May 2024. 
The Progress Review focussed on each of the recommendations from the CPC. The following members of the original CPC peer team were involved:  

• Cllr Zoe Nicholson (Leader, Lewes DC)
• Cllr Alyson Barnes (Leader, Rossendale BC)
• Edd de Coverly (CEX, Melton BC)
• Deborah Johnson (Director of Customer Services and Organisational Development, Newark and Sherwood DC) joined remotely
• James Millington (Peer Challenge Manager, Local Government Association).

Prior to returning onsite the peer team had a number of conversations with colleagues at WDC and received some pre-reading including the council’s RAG rated Action plan. This Action Plan outlined how actions associated with the CPC’s 9 recommendations were rated by WDC as either completed or in progress.

Reflections from the peer team of progress against the recommendations discussed during the Progress Review are grouped thematically below.

Recommendation: Invest time in developing the relationships and ways of working between the new administration and the senior officer team to build a shared understanding of new corporate priorities and how they will be delivered

Positive working relationships are an important foundational element for the effective working between a council’s senior officers and Members, and during the CPC in July 2023 it was recognised that WDC was at the early stage of developing these.  During the Progress Review it was clear that progress has been made, and the senior team had invested time in this. The 1:1 relationships between cabinet portfolio holders and heads of service appeared to be developing well and include: Cabinet catch-ups with the CEO, Deputy CEO, MO and s151 occurring weekly; and the LGA supported Senior Leadership Team (SLT) Awayday in February 2024 which was referenced particularly positively – with a commitment to now hold two SLT awaydays per year.

This does require a sustained focus with further time needing to be set aside for SLT to ensure there is a shared view on council priorities - as the peer team still heard mixed messages about the collective understanding of these. This remains key and the peer team encourage the whole of the Cabinet and SLT, led by the Leader, Deputy Leader, CEO and Deputy CEO to ensure there is shared collective understanding. The peer team also found there was a shared appetite at this level to bring together Members’ political vision and officers’ professional experience for tackling the challenges being faced by the council including delivering the Corporate Strategy, delivering improved outcomes and the Council’s Change Programme. This will further cement positive working relationships for the delivery of priorities and ensure that the Administration draws on the experience and skills of the officer team.

There were perceptions reflected to the peer team that although relationships may be developing well, the joint political and officer Top Team are not viewed as working closely enough together across the organisation. SLT can seek out opportunities to make this joint working more visible across WDC. The CEX’s ‘Coffee and Cake tour’ to council teams was particularly well received and opportunities such as these could be developed further – for instance if both the Leader and CEX attended together - to demonstrate the close working relationships. Further activity could also include collective Cabinet and senior officer led staff briefings; ward walks; implementing ‘top team tandoori sessions’; top team away days; and more face-to-face time.

Recommendation: Consider and set out clearly the Corporate Strategy development process, with clear timescales for completion and consideration of how the organisation’s ‘golden thread’ will be established to ensure effective delivery

During the CPC in 2023 the peer team noted that in developing the Corporate Strategy ‘investing time to do this collaboratively is vital’. The Corporate Strategy Warwick District 2030 was adopted in December 2023, and outlines the following three priorities:

• Priority 1: Delivering valued, sustainable services
• Priority 2: Low cost, low carbon energy across the district
• Priority 3: Creating vibrant, safe and healthy communities of the future

This is a positive step and the peer team heard that the Strategy was developed together at pace, and this has been well received by Members and officers across WDC. The political leadership feel that this articulates the priorities which matter to them and there is a governance structure beneath this with the Programme Groups to support delivery – although WDC does recognise that some elements are further developed than others at this stage.

The council recognises that it needs to now build upon this through the development of delivery plans at service level with clear performance measures which sit underneath the Strategy to develop the ‘golden thread’. Staff the peer team met with would welcome this and the peer team encourage the council to ensure its plans to have this in place for 2024/25 are now prioritised.

Recommendations within this theme remain critically important for WDC and the council needs to focus on addressing them as a matter of priority. The peer team recognise that there have been challenges for organisational capacity and focus since the CPC, most notably related to the self-referral to the housing regulator. However, the peer team consider the risks to WDC around governance and its level of exposure to debt to be the most significant. There is some work being delivered by the council to address this, including the development of the draft performance framework, draft project and programme management and draft risk policy - but these have not progressed quick enough thus far and progress must now be accelerated. As set out below there remains substantial work to do and the peer team recommend that given the lack of corporate visibility on key performance and financial metrics, and the inherent risks this creates, that is immediately prioritised and addressed with sufficient pace.

Recommendation: Build on the existing processes to further strengthen and ensure transparent and robust governance. Ensure that there is a clear politically-led process for identifying and delivering priorities and sufficient capacity and authority to manage the level of risk of the organisation. Review the effectiveness of the Programme Advisory Boards, and replicate good sectoral practice such as establishing formal, regular statutory officer meetings

There has been some positive progress in elements of this including: bi-monthly Statutory Officer meetings; Scrutiny reviewed by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee; and there has been a review of the Programme Advisory Boards.

Whilst the council has undertaken a process to establish new corporate priorities, and these are owned by the administration, it is still unclear how the sizeable regeneration portfolio and projects is effectively owned and overseen by the administration. Accordingly, the recommendation to implement a politically led process to establish clarity on these priorities still needs to be developed further and there remains work to articulate how this will be done in practice. This is important as once agreed it ensures that the Cabinet can focus on the strategic issues and avoid feeling that it needs to be involved in the operational detail - which can be delivered by officers. This is also linked to the CPC recommendation on developing good working relationships as a clearly aligned SLT will support this. The work being done on developing WDC’s approach to project management, the performance framework and on risk will support this and strengthen the organisation’s governance once finalised.

Recommendation: Invest in the ‘corporate core’ establishing dedicated resource for performance, risk, project management, and policy development and transformation

WDC has very recently appointed to a new Policy, Performance and Complaints Manager post to lead on some of these important aspects. This is a positive step forward, but as linked to above, this is a recent development and as the impact of this is still to be felt the peer team are unable to assess whether this will be sufficient capacity. WDC will want to keep this under review to ensure that the desired impact on culture change and the establishment of new processes across the organisation are embedded to ensure consistency, with resource in place to deliver the change. 

Recommendation: Ensure that whatever ambitions the council may have are balanced with the need to ensure sufficient focus and grip on the performance of core service delivery and “brilliance in the basics”

Recommendation: Review and further develop the Council’s Corporate Performance Framework, ensuring performance information can be used effectively to support service, corporate and public needs and as a vehicle to inform decision making, celebrate success and support risk identification and service improvement

Priority 1 of WDC’s new Corporate Strategy is ‘Delivering valued, sustainable services’, and to evaluate this the council will need to utilise a range of data. Currently the council does still not have an agreed performance framework in place which would sufficiently allow it to do this. There are Service Area Plans with performance measures, with individual measures at the team level, but there are not corporate indicators with associated reporting to SLT and Cabinet on a regular cycle. The peer team understand that due to the timing of the development of the new Corporate Strategy this was not in place for 2023/24, and there are plans to develop this for 2024/25. However, the peer team wish to highlight the imperative to have visibility on key measures in place now. This is vital to effectively manage and monitor performance against corporate governance and statutory service provision perspective, irrespective of any priorities within the Corporate Strategy, and the peer team recommend that this is established to ensure that the council has sufficient oversight and grip on the ‘basics’. Without such a mechanism in place, and an ability to corporately detect, assess and evaluate issues, there is a risk that senior Members and officers may be blind sighted and miss opportunities to intervene. 

The peer team recognise the challenges which WDC has faced during 2023/24 regarding its failure to comply with statutory housing regulations which led to its self-referral to the Regulator of Social Housing. The council found that record keeping and reporting mechanisms were not providing a clear audit trail of routine or follow-up maintenance and to address this WDC developed an action plan, alongside a new governance framework to check and monitor progress. The peer team recommend that the council will want to review carefully how this situation occurred and why corporate mechanisms were not already in place to escalate this risk ahead of the point where it had to self-refer to the regulator.

WDC can apply learning from this to its wider governance and oversight and reflect on this experience to reassure itself that it has the mechanisms in place now, or is working at pace towards putting them in place, in meeting its corporate responsibilities in other areas too. This is an example of where data and effective performance monitoring is critical and the significant implications for the council in not having suitably robust systems and processes in place.

Recommendation: Consider how to establish a clearer narrative in reports and briefings regarding the council’s financial position which aids understanding and decision making across the organisation. Clarifying the assumptions driving good financial management, decision making and determining the need for savings are particularly important

WDC has focused on addressing this recommendation through actions based on the engagement and training with key stakeholders to develop clarity of the council’s financial position. However, some Members the peer team met still felt it was challenging to access and explore some of the detail in the council’s financial reporting. There remains further work for WDC to understand the barriers to this and to address them.

The peer team again discussed how the council had a more complex financial position than other councils, including with Milverton Homes and its arrangements and relationship with WDC’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA). The peer team urge WDC to keep the balance between housing compliance and the HRA housing development aspirations under review – in maintaining the current housing stock to the required statutory standard at the same time as delivering on its aspirations for housing growth. This remains important in ensuring that the council does not over-reach in regard to the levels of debt it is exposed to, and whilst the peer team recognise that building homes to address housing availability and tackle homelessness are extremely important, the first priority has to be ensuring compliance with health and safety obligations within the existing stock.

Since the peer review WDC has worked hard negotiating the significant financial and economic growth opportunities through the proposed West Midlands Investment Zone. This could deliver some significant amounts of income for the council and economic opportunities locally, so it is right to invest time in this. WDC will want to ensure that opportunities and risks are articulated to Members so that they can take informed decisions about levels of involvement and that this time and focus is balanced with its other financial, legal and contractual responsibilities.

The CPC in 2023 highlighted the need to address the reliance on the use of reserves in meeting the council’s budget gap, however the 2024/25 budget again relied on reserves to balance. WDC has good levels of reserves, but General Fund reserves are predicted to fall from £24.4M at 1/4/2024 to £16.6M at 1/4/2028.  The council has a Change Programme in place which has an efficiency target of £2.504M (24/25 - £0.300M; 25/26 - £0.704M; 26/27 - £0.900M; and 27/28 - £0.600M). This is important to deliver and the SLT will want to ensure there is tight grip and ownership of delivering savings to ensure there is no further draw down from reserves.

In 2023 the peer team highlighted the “Council’s level of risk and exposure to debt - which is high compared to others” and the need to ensure there is a clarity and consistency of understanding of this. Following the CPC, a media article published an analysis of 2021/22 outstanding debt against General Funding spending power which showed WDC as 15.2 times – the 28th highest local authority (Core spending power was £17.08M and outstanding debt £259.616M).  WDC responded to this and the relationship with the HRA and how it has used borrowing to facilitate investment, and that it had further developed its Change Management programme. The Peer team also note debt for WDC is relatively high using: Oflog analysis (showing that WDC has high debt servicing costs relative to Core Spending Power at 32.7 per cent compared to a median figure of 18.2 per cent in the comparator group, and this is the second highest after 34.6 per cent); and CIPFA’s resilience index which shows relatively high debt and a high ratio between interest payable / net revenue expenditure at 22 per cent (excluding the HRA) the third highest of the comparator group of 14 other shire districts. WDC’s annual Treasury Management Strategy for 2024 shows debt (external and internal borrowing) increases to peak at over £400M on existing plans – with the increase in the debt position driven primarily by investment in housing - both the HRA and Milverton Homes.

The peer team again underline the importance of ensuring that the financial position and risk – particularly around debt and the need to deliver its Change Programme - is kept under review and widely understood across the council, particularly by Members. This also links to the recommendations from the peer team around governance and ensuring there are established corporate warning signals in place, including on the financial aspects. The absence of this currently presents a significant risk to WDC and without this monitoring leaves the council vulnerable.

Recommendation: Consider the standard pay rates and the influence and impact these may have on addressing workforce challenges

Recommendation: Use the move to the new offices to redefine the identity of the council, ‘the Warwick Way’ to reinvigorate the corporate ‘heart’ of the organisation. Central to this will be establishing a framework for hybrid working which provides clarity and expectations and maximises the benefits and balance of home/remote/office working

The council’s ‘Working for Warwick Scheme’ offers a number of incentives for staff which includes: enhanced health assessments; one paid day off a year volunteering; Refer a Friend payment; Cycle to Work Scheme; Christmas days (discretionary); Winter Warmer (up to £50); and treat the team (up to £10 per person). WDC acknowledges that it is too early to assess the impact of these initiatives, but the contribution to addressing workforce challenges around recruitment and retention appear to be positive.  Positively, staff turnover at WDC has reduced from 17.36 per cent (2022-23) to 12.28 per cent (2023/24) and is now at pre-pandemic levels. The council will want to keep this under review.

The legacy of the aborted merger between WDC and Stratford-on-Avon DC was still felt to be having an impact across the organisation during the CPC in 2023. This appears to have now moved on and there was no reference made to this as part of the Progress Review.

Following the CPC, the council’s move from the Riverside House office to the rented offices at Saltisford Office Park has been received positively by staff the peer team met with. The building feels welcoming, and staff note this is an improvement to the previous ‘tired, uninspiring’ office. WDC is now using the opportunity of this office move to take stock of what comes next and to consider its future needs and requirements.

WDC’s hybrid working model appears to be operating well and a move towards colleagues using the office more, without an imperative, is welcomed. Managers are working with their staff to consider what this approach looks like for their teams and service delivery utilising the Agile Working Guidelines. The peer team heard that SLT supported by the HR Team is undertaking further work on this to ensure that the choices that teams are making remain focused on customers.

The peer team did hear a view from staff that the development of WDC’s new organisational values were “imposed politically” and that officers were not involved sufficiently in the shaping of these. The values of ‘how’ the council vision is implemented should be officer owned and staff felt they were not engaged well enough in this. SLT supported by the HR Team is addressing this now by working with staff to shape the behaviours which sit beneath the values and are working now to fully engage officers in this across the organisation.

The LGA would like to thank Warwick District Council for undertaking a 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.

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