Smarter internal working

What is smarter internal working?

Transformation through changing existing or creating new service delivery models, or making changes to the organisation structure, roles, processes or technology. It might include sharing services with another council, outsourcing or insourcing services, creating new commercial services to generate revenue or to address specific needs, merging services or merging organisations, or considering different organisational models through which existing or new services might be delivered. Council transformation often involves other types of transformation including digital, service model and organisational human resources (HR) change.

It can involve re-structuring teams and/or roles and supporting the introduction and development of new skills and capabilities. Most typically this is done to improve outcomes, as a result of introducing new ways of working, and/or to reduce the costs of services.
It can also involve buying, designing and implementing new technology. Some technology can be just internally focused, such as new finance or HR systems which enable the council to run efficiently and meet statutory reporting requirements.

For all types of smarter internal working, what does good look like?

• It has a clear and shared vision and objectives, aligned to the council’s strategic goals, including specific, measurable ways of understanding impact.
• It is evidence led. Changes are made based on evidence, and appraisal of all of the available options, including considering costs, risks, benefits, timescales and effort to deliver the change.
• It involves key stakeholders from the start. Ensuring that capacity and skills are in place to properly impact assess the change and plan for it.
• Roles and responsibilities are clear, with solid governance in place. To ensure everyone understands who is responsible and accountable for key aspects of the change, and the services during and after transition.
• Engagement around the change is meaningful, regular and supported by clear and transparent communication. Regular, open, two-way communication is established at the appropriate point and relationships developed and maintained through the change.
• Risks are well managed – acknowledging, recording and managing risks actively throughout the change and ongoing. This includes understanding of employment law and legislation, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other relevant law.
• Benefit realisation and performance is monitored. Using agreed key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure periodic review of progress, enabling adjustments to be made where required.
• Continual feedback is encouraged both during implementation and by monitoring afterwards – so that the impact of the change is understood and adaptations and adjustments can be made as needed.

For organisational HR change, what does good look like?

• It involves HR and workforce development teams from the outset. Ensuring that changes are well planned, aligned to overall workforce planning and that risks are appropriately managed.
• People impacts are properly understood. This might involve carrying out a change impact assessment comparing current ways of working to new ways of working to assess the changes to roles that are needed, equality impact assessments to understand any equality impacts and also considering wider impacts like demand and capacity requirements, the impact on information and communication technology (ICT) access, reporting, spans of control and training needs.
• Engagement with staff is meaningful, supported by clear and transparent communication.  This means that employees impacted by change understand what is happening, why, and how they can influence changes that are proposed.
• It considers skillsets, knowledge, behaviours and wider factors such as alignment with other teams and diversity – to ensure that organisational design is not done in a silo. Sometimes councils will have organisation wide design principles that help to guide decisions about organisational design.
• It is supported by appropriate training and development. Using a Learning Needs Analysis to understand the training and support needed and investing appropriately in enabling the people element of change.
• Continual feedback is encouraged both during implementation and by monitoring afterwards – so that the impact of the change is understood and adaptations and adjustments can be made as needed.

Additional resources

• Workforce and HR support
• LGA solutions hub: Workforce

For service model changes, what does good look like?

• There is cultural alignment and a partnership mindset. This is particularly important when entering a shared, merged or outsourced service arrangements.
• There are clear commercial arrangements in place. This could include partnership agreements, contracts for outsourced services with service level agreements, key performance indicators, and a clear pricing model.
• Legal services have been involved in shaping the service model and agreements. Ensuring there is the right considerations around legality of models for outsourcing of service delivery, income generation parameters and necessary contract clauses in place for different scenarios.
• An ongoing contract management framework is in place. This includes process for reporting against the service level agreements and KPIs set as part of the contract, and relationship management to ensure ongoing service provision is to standard and achieves the outcomes defined as part of the options appraisal.
• There is an exit strategy – so that if the intended outcomes are not achieved, there is a smooth transition to either cease the service, or to change it to a different model.

Additional resources

• Local government: alternative models of service delivery (gov.uk)
• Alternative delivery models explained gov.uk
• New models of service delivery and creative councils

Typical roles and responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities associated with council transformation can vary, but typically involve executive and senior leadership and may include transformation teams, legal, HR, organisational development teams, finance and procurement teams, digital and ICT teams, communication teams, project or programme managers, relationship and contract managers, business change managers, business and data analysts.

The role of councillors in organisational restructuring activity is one of oversight, direction setting and scrutiny. Many councils have a portfolio holder with responsibility for corporate services including HR and / or for transformation.

Questions to ask

As a councillor, you might wear one or more hats at a time, including representing people in your ward, in a leadership role (for example as part of a Cabinet), or on a committee. The questions below are designed as prompts to help those who play a role in scrutinising or making decisions about change:

• Why are the changes needed and how do the changes link back to, and enable council strategy?
• What are the council’s core objectives and measures for success? How will we know we have achieved them, and what are the key indicators along the way?
• What are the main risks and what actions are being taken to mitigate them?
• What are the different options available and how are options being assessed? Including considering costs, risks, benefits, timescales and effort to deliver the change.
• Who is involved in assessing the potential impact of the changes? Does this include relevant stakeholders to enable assurance that impacts are properly and comprehensively understood.
• Have the council assessed how this change might affect our staff and communities from an equalities, diversity and inclusion perspective? What are we doing to ensure there are no unintended consequences?
• How is consideration being given to the wider impacts of the change such as IT access, reporting requirements, capacity and impacts on other teams?
• How are the council planning to engage anyone affected by the change, in the change? So that there are opportunities for feedback and meaningful engagement.
• Is there the right capacity to deliver and sustain the change? What evidence do we have from others who have done this about lessons they have learned?
• How will benefits be measured? What KPIs will we be able to see and what happens if these are not achieved?

Specific questions for organisational HR change

• What are the plans for engagement with employees and with union colleagues? Is the engagement meaningful and to what extent have colleagues already been engaged in shaping the proposed changes?
• Does the change proposed enable the skillsets, knowledge, behaviours the council needs for the future?
• Is there understanding of the learning and development needs associated with the change? Has a Learning Needs Analysis been done and is the council investing appropriately in enabling the workforce?
• What level of resistance to the change is expected – and how will this be managed?

Specific questions for service model change

• If considering shared or merged services, or outsourcing, how is cultural alignment being assessed? Is this considered sufficiently important to warrant specific scrutiny, or what are the risks if we don’t do this?
• Is there a plan for the transition of services to a partner/change to existing model? Does it include considerations on IT access, access to data, contract novation, TUPE, and so on.
• Are roles and responsibilities clear, with solid governance in place? To ensure everyone understands who is responsible and accountable for key aspects of the change, and the services during and after transition.
• Is there a robust contract management framework in place? Does it include a contract and relationship owner within the council who is responsible for ensuring the service is delivered to set standards, governance is in place to address any disputes and ongoing continuous improvement is driven for resident facing services.
• Is there an exit strategy and what does this look like in the event outcomes are not met?