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1 November 2024
Introduction
The council undertook a LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) between the 31 October and 3 November 2023, publishing the full report and action plan in-line with the expected timescales in January 2024. You can find a copy of the original report and action plan on the council’s website.
The CPC Progress Review is an integral part of the CPC process. Taking place approximately 10 to 12 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 the reflections of peers 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.
Summary of the approach
The progress review focused on each of the recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge, under the following headings:
- resident focus
- financial management and planning
- place leadership
- council leadership.
For this progress review, the following members of the original CPC team were involved:
- Sarah Norman (chief executive – Barnsley Council)
- Emma Hoddinott (former councillor – Rotherham MBC)
- Peer challenge manager – Dan Archer (LGA).
Progress review: feedback
In reflecting on the progress made against the nine recommendations from the original CPC, the council’s action plan update grades 12 of the actions taken in response to these recommendations as ‘green’, ten as ‘amber’ and two as ‘red’.
The council has made positive progress against the CPC recommendations overall. There are many examples of this, shown throughout this report. These include but are not limited to, the continued work around Creating a Better Place, the recent Ofsted ILACS ‘good’ outcome, the steps to further develop the council’s ‘resident focus’ and the new strategic plans for the council and place.
In the year since the CPC, the financial pressure the council faces have however intensified. This has happened whilst the level of financial resilience has also significantly weakened, due to a much lower level of reserves, following significant in-year usage.
Put simply, the council should not use reserves to support the budget in 2025/26, despite the need to bridge a large budget gap. The team were able to discuss this budget challenge with the council, who described in detail the work done to prepare for 2025/26. A greater level of collective ownership and a stronger financial focus at the council was identified by and demonstrated by, those the team spoke with.
Meeting this financial challenge is essential to the council’s continued ambition for operating with a consistent, locally led ‘resident focus’. Indeed the financial focus required, will present difficult decisions and dilemmas between having both a resident and financial focus at the same time.
Given the challenge this presents, the council are encouraged to recruit and appoint a permanent chief executive as soon as possible and have a process for this which is open to a wide market of both internal and external candidates.
Resident focus
This theme bears particular reference to the following recommendation:
- Resident focus needs to be embedded across everything the council does, with clarity about what that means in practice for the experience of residents, including with customer service. Establish a clear plan for this, which has a focus on the resident experience of the council at its core.
During the CPC, the peer team fed back that the drive for a ‘resident focus’ was a strong, clear message from the Leader, which was heard and recognised across the council. However, at that point, it appeared to mean slightly different things to different people.
During this progress review, the peers heard how a ‘resident focus’ was now more embedded with greater clarity around what this means in practice coming from those the team spoke with.
The council has refreshed its corporate plan, including a revised set of values and behaviours. The first of these behaviours being to ‘work with a resident focus’. The council built a resident focus into its business planning process, asking each service to identify how the resident voice could be used to better shape and influence service delivery. As referenced later in this report the council has also taken steps at a partnership level to integrate the resident voice into partnership decision making more closely. A review of the complaints service has also been completed to help improve both the timeliness and quality of responses received by local residents.
In the spirit of having ‘work with a resident focus’ as one of the behaviours within the corporate plan, the work on this theme will only and should only continue. Moving forward with this, it would help the council to consider how it might further develop a community empowerment dimension to this approach, which can then further help the council to address the financial challenge it faces. There are naturally going to be some dilemmas presented which will need to be worked through in meeting this financial challenge, whilst holding closely this resident focus, that this can help with. Finding suitable ways through these dilemmas which both deal with the financial necessity, whilst retaining a strong resident focus, will need careful, ongoing consideration, to continue to build on – not lose - the progress made.
Financial management and planning
This theme bears particular reference to the following recommendations:
- Agree and deliver a budget for 2024/25 and 2025/26 that deals with the budget deficit without relying on the continuing use of reserves. Ensuring that the plans benefit from wider collective ownership across the organisation.
- Develop a clearer line of sight between the expected deliverables of the transformation programme including the budget and the next iteration of ‘Getting to good’.
Councils across England remain under severe financial strain. If the net service spend of councils had grown in-line with inflation, wage growth, demographics and demand since 2010/11, the spend of councils across England would have been an estimated 42 per cent higher in 2022/23 than was actually the case. The challenge of operating within this context is very real and in Oldham, has meant that the council has had to make significant savings of over £175 million since 2013/14. At the time of the CPC, the council was forecasting a £12.104 million overspend for 2023/24 and had used over £10 million of reserves in each of the last two years to balance the budget, which was reflected in a reducing level of overall reserves. It was with this position in mind that the above recommendations were formed, with accompanying feedback that encouraged that a wider financial focus should be developed at the council to help deal with this challenge, with more common ownership of this position across the council.
At the time of this progress review, the financial outlook for the council was more challenging than it was last year. The 2024/25 budget was balanced using £20 million of savings and £18 million of reserves, the effect of which before any overspend in 2024/25 would reduce all available reserves to £58.5 million.
The council’s latest published budget monitoring information showed a forecast outturn overspend position of £21.865 million at month four. A forecast position that is significant, whilst showing some improvement from the position at month two. The ability of the council to make some early in-year improvements, reflects the more frequent budget monitoring the council put in place following the last CPC.
Continuing to reduce this overspend position as much as possible is essentially important, to reduce the impact on the council’s reduced reserves position. If the latest published forecast overspend position materialised (£21.865 million), then the council’s reserves would reduce to £36.635 million in April 2025. Whilst this would remain above the local policy threshold of £30 million, this would significantly weaken further the council’s financial resilience for any other challenges or burdens that may materialise.
The peer team were able to hear from colleagues of the increased level of attention that has been given to the 2025/26 budget following the CPC. Following the CPC, budget planning for 2025/26 began in earnest, with the first of over 70 hours’ worth of meetings (to date) with members and officers, starting that same month. This helped to develop in-year budget options and savings, which included £6.1 million being identified by July for 2025/26, which could then be implemented early in 2024/25 for the partial in-year benefit this brings. More detailed financial plans are being developed for 2025/26 which have been discussed in some detail up to this point with the cabinet and senior officer team through a number of sessions, over a number of months. Further work has been done on the forecast budget requirements for 2025/26 and officers the team spoke with felt more confident in the size of the budget planned in areas such as children’s social care, where the council has overspent by in excess of £10 million in each of the last two years and is currently forecasting a year-end overspend position of £13.2 million at month four.
Given the level of overspend in 2024/25 and how this will add to the significant reduction in reserves seen in recent years, the council are strongly advised to deliver a balanced budget for 2025/26 which does not rely on the use of reserves. Meeting this challenge will require a continued, strong financial focus, building on the improvements seen thus far. The gap for 2025/26 was forecast to be £21 million at the time of this progress review, with budget options developed in order to address this gap, a significant proportion of which requiring very difficult decisions for the council and its elected members. Taking those decisions and seeing them through is vitally important for dealing with the underlying issues within the budget, on a permanent basis.
In doing this, continuously breaking down any barriers to change where they are seen will be required. This will mean supporting an openness across the council for pursuing efficiency opportunities, even if this means doing things in a way that would otherwise not be more naturally preferred. This will also include where appropriate, giving people the permission to fail on select change programmes albeit in safe and properly managed ways. For example, the opportunities starting to be explored in some areas around the use of AI. Finally, it will also mean guarding against any potential optimism biases that may emerge from different parts of the council – spotting this where it presents, and robustly challenging this - continuing to work on permanent solutions, not temporary fixes, to the underlying budget challenge so that the council can continue to move forward, as it has done in a number of areas since the last CPC.
Place leadership
This theme bears particular reference to the following recommendations:
- Start to build and communicate a new reputation inside and outside the council, sharing positive local stories more.
- Commission an external review of the governance and capacity needs of managing the Creating a better place programme, to ensure it delivers everything it can for Oldham and the council.
- Refresh the Oldham plan to harness the collective power of partners to improve the borough.
The council commissioned an external review of the Creating a better place programme, following the CPC which reported back in June 2024. This review highlighted the ‘enviable pipeline of capital delivery’ at the council and against this, made recommendations to support the council to ensure delivery of the programme. Steps have been taken following this, including the level of specialist capacity available for the programme, and a process of further prioritisation.
The programme has moved on significantly since the original CPC as shown through the establishment of The Hive, the opening of the new council office, the opening of the Egyptian room as well as the imminent steps around planning for new homes within the town centre. Beyond this direct delivery, the wider social value from this programme is also evidenced in the monitoring information shared – with high numbers of apprenticeships, care leaver placements and local jobs described to the peer team, from this work.
Extensive work has also taken place to refresh the Oldham plan and associated partnership structure. This has included establishing a new set of ambitions and priorities for Oldham. Whilst the peers were not able to speak with partners directly, during the time available for this progress review, there was a clear message from the council officers involved that there is an increased ownership of this now from the partnership, following engagement with over 100 people from over 20 partner organisations over a period of nine months. This has supported the development of a new partnership structure, which includes the establishment of a new communities board, involving key community representatives from across Oldham and supporting a stronger resident voice in this partnership environment.
Members and officers the team met during this progress review, spoke with an increased confidence and positivity about the council and its work, when compared to the previous year. Examples of this came out when people reflected on the progress being seen within the town centre, and within children’s social care. This increased positivity was also reflected in the most recent all staff survey which took place between January and March and showed an improvement in 18 of the comparable measures, no measures that declined and 36 that were unchanged since the last survey in 2021.
Examples were shared with the team of positive communication campaigns locally and the number of events that were taking place, one example being the celebration of 175 years of Oldham whilst the team were onsite for this progress review, with other examples including the Tour of Britain Women, Love Your Local Market Fortnight and Festival Oldham. The council has recently appointed a new interim head of communications to further build on this work, continuing to establish and develop the profile and reputation of Oldham within the borough and further afield.
Council leadership
This theme bears particular reference to the following recommendations:
- Clarify how the changes to senior officer leadership will work in practice and review the effectiveness of this arrangement after six months alongside the other options at that point. In doing this, review now the role and involvement of statutory officers in governance arrangements and ensure clear accountability for all statutory functions is in place to support good decision making throughout this transition.
- Build on the early progress seen with overview and scrutiny with support, training and capacity as detailed throughout this report.
- Further develop the council as a member-led organisation using the examples given in this report.
The council reviewed the effectiveness of the senior officer leadership arrangements within six months as recommended. Following this, the council extended the number of days the chief executive worked from three to four days. A review of the senior officer structure was also completed alongside this. In the weeks leading into this progress review, the chief executive was seconded to a neighbouring council to provide senior leadership support and in his place, the council have internally appointed an acting chief executive, with the previous chief executive working one day per week for Oldham for an interim six month basis.
Given the significance of the financial challenge the council is seeking to overcome, it is in the interests of the council to begin the process of appointing a permanent chief executive as soon as possible, in light of the challenging recruitment market across the region for these posts. Opening this recruitment up to both internal and external candidates to enable a wide a field as possible, to help inform this decision.
At the time of the original CPC, the council were at the start of an improvement journey in regards to overview and scrutiny. The recommendation made by the peer team was to continue to build on this progress and this is what the peer team have been able to observe as part of this progress review.
Whilst this work will of course need to continue, a number of steps have already been taken since the CPC, including the bringing together of teams that play a role in supporting scrutiny, further training for officers and members as well as committee chairs. The council has appointed an additional two chairs in 2024 to distribute this work out more evenly, with the newer chairs being able to benefit from the experience of those who have been chairs previously. The committee chairs the team were able to speak with, highlighted the importance of the work of the statutory scrutiny officer and how effective this has been in supporting the impact of scrutiny, that this person has been someone with a significant level of authority within the officer cadre. Whilst this responsibility has changed more recently, it is important to highlight how beneficial having someone in this role who has authority and is a proactive champion for scrutiny, has been in making the improvements seen. It is important therefore to ensure that whoever takes on this role is supported to have a similar level of influence across the council to continue to build on the progress seen.
The work to develop overview and scrutiny is one aspect of the work to further develop the council as a member led organisation – and is why it is so important that this work continues. Further developing the council as a member led organisation is an area where progress has been made and work is ongoing.
The council has continued to support the development of the cabinet with additional training. Officers shared with the team how cabinet members have developed further in their roles, engaging more consistently, and in greater depth with the leadership of their portfolios. This has included how involved cabinet members have been with the budget planning discussions and the implications and options for their portfolios, and how they participate in overview and scrutiny. This direction of travel should continue to be encouraged and supported, as should how members work together across the chamber.
The council moved into no overall control in May which led to a challenging period whilst the leadership of the council was decided.
It is a credit to the leadership of the different political groups and their partnership, that stable political leadership has been maintained over recent months since this move to no overall control.
Following this period the council also received a ‘Good’ Ofsted ILACS outcome, which was published in July. The peer team heard from members from different parts of the chamber how relations, whilst often challenging compared to most other places, had become more settled in recent months. With the positive outcome reported by OFSTED highlighted as helping to give members some assurance in this area, which had also helped with relationships.
Members from across the chamber also spoke openly with the peers during this progress review, about their experiences of how some differences and behaviours had played out in the chamber, from all sides. Reflecting on how this had been challenging for each of them, whilst recognising that there is often more that unites members – being all there to serve Oldham and their communities – than divides them. Practical examples shared by members included the support they had received from members from across the chamber in their casework and when working across district footprints. A new training package for members has been introduced including support around the members code of conduct, the constitution, the strategic framework, the role and responsibilities of councillors and so forth.
The partnership working between political groups is likely to be tested by the difficult decisions that will be needed, to set and deliver the balanced budget the council needs for 2025/26. Ensure there are effective cross-party engagement arrangements leading into this period, including for example, through thorough engagement with overview and scrutiny as a critical step in supporting a consensus based approach. Continuing the work to support member development will also help all members to bring the accountability required for the delivery of the difficult decisions once made.
Final thoughts and steps
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 ongoing relationship with the support offer 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.
Claire Hogan (principal adviser) is the main point of contact between the authority and the Local Government Association (LGA) and her email address is [email protected]