Last updated: 24 July 2024
Next review: 24 July 2025
As part of the final local government finance settlement announcement in February 2024, Councils were told by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) that they would need to develop productivity plans, outlining how they are working to “improve service performance and reduce wasteful expenditure”.
Further communication was sent out on the 16 April 2024, outlining the main themes that should be covered:
- Transformation of services to make better use of resources
- Opportunities to take advantage of advances in technology and make better use of data to inform decision-making and service design
- Ways to reduce wasteful spend within our organisation and systems
- Barriers preventing activity that government can help reduce or remove.
A productivity review panel will be established by DLUHC to review productivity plans and advise the government on best practice, which will be monitored to inform funding settlements in the future. The panel will be made up of internal and external “sector experts”, including the Office for Local Government and the Local Government Association.
How you have transformed the way you design and deliver services to make better use of resources.
You have asked us how we have transformed the way we design and deliver services to make better use of resources.
For the last few years, there has been a particular emphasis on resident engagement and service design to understand user journeys and design impactful services. This has been especially important during the pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis. As a Council, we have been one of the first ports of call for residents, who often needed immediate support.
Like many councils, we are under more pressure than ever before. We are confronted with unprecedented levels of demand and complexity within our services which are compounded by stark real-term funding cuts and a perfect storm as the price of providing some services is rising dramatically. Since 2010, our core spending power has decreased by 17% in real terms, and by 24% in real terms per capita. While recent funding settlements may have increased in cash terms, they have not kept pace with the pressures on demand-led services, such as social care, that has in turn increased pressure on Council spending. This has been compounded by external challenges in the shape of soaring inflationary pressures and the cost-of-living crisis, or our growing and ageing population. In the past year, we have built on previous achievements and a culture of delivering to set up for deeper transformation and deliver long term change.
The Council’s new Corporate Plan, Mission Waltham Forest, and the Transformation Programme are further transforming the way services are designed and delivered. Mission Waltham Forest sets out the Council’s plan for a more equal borough by 2030. It is our commitment to all our residents to tackle the fundamental challenges facing them, to be resolutely focused on tackling inequality, and to drive the change within the Council that is needed to achieve this.
The ten transformation workstreams will allow the organisation to fundamentally improve the end-to-end experience for residents that live in the Borough. These changes will modernise the Council, ensuring robust finance and resource management to meet savings challenges, and ensuring individual service planning and improvement is aligned to the change. We are planning to measure the effects of those changes through a strong assurance framework. This includes regular scrutiny by the leadership team and Members of determined metrics, including financial metrics to ensure savings targets are met, and highlight reports to follow progress of transformation. A new corporate performance framework has also been designed to reflect the Council’s priorities and impact. A set of 76 KPIs, reflecting the Missions of the corporate plan, is being updated every month, with a dashboard accessible to relevant staff and decision-makers at all times. For most KPIs, benchmarking with other relevant local authorities will be available, allowing the organisation to set ambitious but realistic targets.
To deliver this large-scale transformation programme and the associated assurance, the Strategy & Change team now sits directly under the Chief Executive, and is focused on transformation as a priority. In this team, assurance and PMO are taking a larger role.
The Council’s structure also changed to reflect a larger emphasis on equality, on designing strengths-based services and using preventative approaches, and to underline the importance of residents’ experience. A new directorate, Stronger Communities, was created to pull on collective skills, experience and resource to fundamentally change the way we operate as a Council, and hardwire prevention and early intervention in everything we do. This builds on successful preventative approaches, such as in Early Help or the Housing Sustainment Team. This team receives referrals for people who are at risk of homelessness, and practically supports them to avoid this. It was launched in Summer 2023. As of the end of April 2024, they received 266 referrals, and completed 230 assessments. As a result, 110 households received income maximisation support, and over 40 referrals were made to the property licensing team.
You have asked what role capital spending could play in transforming existing services or unlocking new opportunities. Our Capital Investment Strategy sets out how we will invest £749.2m over the next ten years in Waltham Forest. We will build 3,017 homes (over half of them affordable), and at the same time create 1,116 new jobs alongside 638 apprenticeships and work placements. Capital investment has already been successful in 2023. Juniper House, a new building, is now part of the University of Portsmouth London campus, which will welcome its first students next year. Another flagship example is the Phase 2 of Fellowship Square, where a new neighbourhood is being created in the heart of the Borough, using the Council’s assets to create high-quality new community spaces and drive local regeneration and growth.
How do you plan to take advantage of technology and make better use of data to improve decision-making, service design and use of resources
You have asked how we plan to take advantage of technology and make better use of data to improve decision-making, service design and use of resources.
We are improving the quality of data that we collect by ensuring that our systems are designed and configured in a way that makes them easy to use for front-line officers, including for example ensuring that there are logical flows to our recording processes.
We are also driving a data transformation across the organisation, developing and adopting a data strategy that allows all of our staff and partners to understand how important data is and what standards we expect. As part of this, we are changing our data culture and ensuring that all officers understand that they are individually and collectively accountable for the quality of data that we collect. We currently use data to monitor performance and compliance and identify strengths and weaknesses in our services. The new corporate performance framework mentioned in the previous question shows further ambition in that area, with closer and more timely monitoring. We are developing programmes of work to improve our use of data so that we can forecast and predict and take a more proactive data-driven approach. Our data strategy will support us to change the way we make data available to our residents, we have a vision to be more open and transparent.
There are always ongoing challenges with legacy systems however we are using modern technology to ensure that we find solutions to bring data into use where valuable.
We often share data with other organisations and partners where there is benefit/value to citizens and where the sharing can be justified in accordance with relevant legislation. This is useful but can often be a bureaucratic process.
There are many opportunities to improve workflows. The challenge is ensuring that officers are trained and given the skills needed to take advantage of this new technology. The technology/data environment is changing rapidly so these skills need to be kept up to date. New technology will continue to help us to improve efficiency across our workflows and enable us to expose and utilise data in much better ways for predictive analysis amongst other things.
Your plans to reduce wasteful spend within your organisation and systems
You have asked how we approach identifying and reducing waste in the organisation, and how we monitor progress, as well as about the governance structures we use to ensure accountability of spend.
The Council’s work on finding savings in the context of producing the latest Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) has led to £18 million of savings to be delivered, by reducing expenditure and making services more efficient. Savings are comprised of actions to reduce overspends (such as re-commissioning of services, reduction of agency staff, review of high-cost packages) and budget savings (such as restructuring of services, review of the Council’s strategic assets, re-alignment of offers to residents).
A robust process of appropriate challenge and monitoring for the MTFS savings is being led by Finance, supported by Strategy and Change. Senior Leadership is receiving a monthly progress update via a Savings Tracker report, containing exception reporting on any risks or issues for the delivery of savings, and proposed mitigating actions, as well as a RAG-rated assessment of confidence in the delivery of each individual saving, with an accompanying narrative.
You have asked about EDI. We do not consider this area to be an area of wasteful spend. We are proud that inclusion and equality is a priority of our organisation. Through our Equalities Objectives (2022-2026), the Council has publicly committed to building an inclusive workplace where our workforce, from the frontline to senior management, reflects the communities we serve, and all staff feel confident to be their authentic selves at work. We think that by creating this positive environment will empower staff to be productive and meet their full potential. It will also help our staff retention.
Our Inclusion Action Plan sets out the actions the organisation will take to achieve our EDI goals. This is based on workforce data, which was used to decide on priorities. The action plan comes with an evaluation framework, with a defined set of KPIs that will be monitored over the course of the plan. This includes quantitative measures, but also qualitative measures which will be collected through regular focus groups.
You have asked about the use of agency staff and consultants. Agency costs for the year 2023/24 amounted to 9.9% of our total staff budget. As of March 2024, just over one-third of agency staff had been in place for over a year. As part of our Workforce and Culture Transformation programme, work is underway to deliver a commitment of a reduction in total agency spending by 10% in 2024/25, through a range of measures including the introduction of an approval gateway, a recruitment improvement pilot in Childrens Social Care, enhanced recruitment support and job posting visibility, and in the medium term, a potential moratorium on agency recruitment in selected disciplines. Especially for Social Care recruitment, it is important to recognise the range of systemic recruitment pressures that are affecting the wider sector.
The barriers preventing progress that the government can help to reduce or remove
One of the main barriers to long-term increase in productivity is the need for initial investment. Substantial changes to ways of working and operating models require resources to scope, analyse and deliver transformation. Funding formulas for all major grants that Councils receive from the government should be reviewed to reflect local needs and tackle structural underfunding.
Another barrier to productivity and effective management of resources, is the lack of certainty that comes with yearly funding settlements, as opposed to multi-year settlements. Those would provide more clarity and flexibility for Councils. Fundamental reform of local government finance is required for Councils to be able to sustainably deliver services that meet needs and demand. As a Council, we are aware of the additional financial burden we place on residents when increasing Council Tax levels, especially in the current context of a cost-of-living crisis.
Finally, reform is needed to address national, entrenched challenges that weigh heavily on Councils, such as Housing and Social Care.
For Housing, we are clear that we need to increase housing supply and that local government has a key role in building affordable housing. We believe that we could play a greater role if given the right support, especially at a time when private developers are struggling to build. We already have one of the best records delivering homes for social rent in the country, with the second-highest number of completions in 2022; yet there are still thousands waiting on our housing waiting list. Removing barriers preventing Councils from combining Right to Buy receipts with grant funding, as well as removing the cap on the proportion of individual sites that can be funded through those receipts, would help Councils deliver more affordable housing.
We are also asking that the increase in LHA rates from Autumn Statement 2023 should be made a permanent measure. The Local Housing Allowance rate should cover at a minimum the bottom 30 percent of rents. The Homelessness Prevention Grant should also be increased so we can buy more Temporary Accommodation properties. One of the biggest problems we face when trying to help local people who approach us at risk of being made homeless is the benefits cap. As it currently stands, the cap is arbitrary and does not reflect the cost of living in Waltham Forest.
Regarding Social Care, we want to underline the need for Adult Social Care funding reforms, which are crucial to providing long-term financial certainty for the sector. Although the Government has allowed councils to add 2 per cent to Council Tax bills for ASC, the cost of the demand in Waltham Forest is 13 per cent in the year alone. We now provide adult social care for 1,000 more people since 2019. Overall, client numbers increased by 22 per cent and average weekly costs by 24 per cent over this period.
Social Care Grant should also reflect children’s social care needs. The number of looked-after children has risen from 303 in March 2020 to 342 by August 2023, an increase of 13 per cent. We have also seen an increase in the number of local children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) up from just over 1,800 in 2018/19 to in excess of 3,000 this year.