Agenda item

To consider a report from the Senior Manager – LGR Programme (copy enclosed)

Members considered a report from the Senior Manager – LGR Programme which provided members with an update on the LGR Implementation Plan.

At the meeting in May 2022 the committee received a presentation on the LGR Programme Implementation Plan.  The plan set out the vision and ambition for Cumbria, and the approach to the programme, in addition, it also shared the overall timeline that the programme is working to.

The report came at the point where the programme was nearing the end of the design phase and provided an update on the approach adopted to design options and the development of the Service Baseline Blueprints.

This report focused on activity since then, including the publication of Service Baseline Blueprints, their reporting to Shadow Executives, and the shift to the implementation phase of the programme including the changes in programme governance to support this.

The Service Baseline Blueprints were produced and presented to the Shadow Executive Meeting on 22 July, along with a series of recommendations for an ‘in-principle’ agreement as the basis for further work in the implementation phase of the programme.

Currently the informal Member’s Liaison Group was being consulted on the development of the blueprints for services, with the intention of reporting back the Shadow Executive in August and September 2022.

At the same time other activity was underway across the programme to support the planning for services as these transition into the new Authority.

This activity includes:

·           Budget aggregation/ disaggregation - Work has been on-going to provide information on service budgets and staff resources based on dis-aggregation principles and current year budgets.  This will then be followed by another piece of work to correlate the budget costing with the funding available.  Over the summer, Finance officers will work with officers and Members to review service budgets.

·           Allocation of staff resources - a staff allocation decision making framework has been co designed in partnership with the Trade Unions. Preparatory work is underway to roll this out, commencing with high level all staff briefings, workshops to support managers to have the conversations with staff. It is our intention that all staff will know which Council they will work for and in what role by November.

The programme was now in its implementation phase and the focus had shifted to delivery; with an increased overview and management of the delivery of day one requirements (to be safe and legal) and associated critical milestones.

Programme governance had shifted to reflect this with the creation of new boards and processes to support .

A Day One Board had been set up and was chaired by the Programme’s Senior Responsible Officer and included all technical leads across the programme and programme managers. The board met weekly and was focused on delivery against the programme’s critical day one requirements, needed to ensure that the new council and the operation of its services were safe and legal on day one. Sixty plus delivery plans were in place and aligned to those requirements, incorporating key milestones, progress on delivery and flags where progress is at risk.

The former CLOF (Cumbria Leaders Oversight Forum), now renamed MLG (Members Liaison Group), had been reinstated with attendance from the 3 Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) and the Leaders and Deputies from each Authority. The first meeting was held on the 17 June.

Programme reporting and status updates were being reviewed to ensure that these were driven by data and met the needs of both the programme boards and the Shadow Members.

Cllr Dew said he was not yet sure how the different structures worked and interacted with each other, and he would welcome further information on this in the near future.  He was also interested to find out whether the detailed information on costing and hosting would be available by September.

The Senior Manager responded to say that decisions on the hosting of council services were being considered by the Members’ Liaison Group, and by the end of August MLG would have considered all service areas.

Work had been taking place on budgets and possible budget provisions for hosting services.  The financial workstreams had been considering this for some time and this work was almost complete.  Once available this would be fed into the budget process.

The Leader of the Council said the Shadow Authority Cabinet had raised concerns in the past about the lack of elected member involvement with the Programme Board, which was when the MKG was formed.  Discussions had now began on the scope of services suitable for hosting and discussions had also started with staff members about this.

The Leader confirmed that there was no agreed operating model yet so it was difficult to form a proposed structure, but the Interim Chief Executive would be looking at this in the near future.

Cllr Phillips asked the Senior Manager whether it would be possible to include information on risk and also key performance indicators (KPI’s) in future reports.

The Senior Manager said although the KPIs were still high level it should be possible to include these as a dashboard in future reporting.

Cllr Rathbone asked for details on the work being undertaken by KPMG on behalf of Westmorland and Furness Council.  The Senior Manager provided details.

RESOLVED, that the Shadow Authority Scrutiny Committee notes the report details and key point in section 3 of this report.