The ‘Why’
Following the authority’s Best Value Inspection in 2024 and LGA peer review in 2023, the new Chief Executive and Mayor needed to redesign the corporate centre of the organisation to demonstrate grip, good governance and leadership to the incoming Ministerial Envoys. The organisation had been operating a ‘devolved’ corporate structure for policy, strategy, data analysis and insight, and transformation with all functions sitting within directorates. A small corporate team was operating a ‘command and control’ approach with little cross-organisation collaboration and significant governance risks. This model and approach needed to be phased out so that directorates could feel more empowered to deliver service improvement and change with the support and capabilities from core corporate teams. We designed a newly configured corporate centre, under the leadership of the CEO that:
Was smaller, more streamlined and focussed on supporting the organisation’s top priorities
Empowered directorates with skills and resources that meant they could deliver their priorities and better outcomes for local people
Brought innovation and different ways to working into the organisation that supports a culture of continuous improvement
What we did
As former chief officers and civil servants, we advised the CEO, Mayor and their team on our experience of government intervention including the expectations of MHCLG and how our work would fit with the Council’s response
Worked with staff across the organisation to analyse the current structures and design the future model
Produced a highly participative and agile plan with a fortnightly testing cycle with colleagues in strategy, policy, design, transformation, data, performance and partnerships; and co-designed a set of models and structures putting change at the heart of service capabilities
Created a series of models to test with staff for how the newly designed corporate centre should operate, including new governance and ways of working
Produced a fully costed implementation roadmap including structures, capabilities, relationship to other functions in the organisation and directorate-led teams
The Outcomes
Strategic advice: Enabled the CEO and Mayor to respond positively to SoS directions and ministerial envoys by addressing corporate centre structure and governance challenges
Highly engaged workforce: Through our engagement approach staff at all levels were engaged and ready to implement the recommended changes
Improved alignment: Increased trust and relationships between the corporate centre and directorates with an open and transparent plan that created alignment on strategic priorities and work as one council.
Empowered services: By creating a strong accountability framework teams felt more empowered and trusted to get on with their jobs. People felt they had more autonomy but were also better supported by the corporate centre.
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