West Northamptonshire Council publishes action plan to address recommendations made by peer review
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
The council was subject to a peer review in March this year. A report from the peers was published following the visit and in it inspectors said “much had been achieved at pace” but there is “more to do”.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe peers set out a list of eight recommendation, which the council were told to focus on.
The eight recommendations made to the council
- Work with partners to shape the future, including developing a long-term vision, developing ownership of the housing strategy and exploring the ambition for the children’s services.
- Develop a strategic engagement plan for partnership working, as partners want to work more extensively with the council.
- Process map high traffic customer transactions to back-office functions.
- Review and overhaul the council’s website. The peers say the website can be “difficult to navigate”.
- Review the council’s appetite for risk and delivery, linked to ambition.
- Continue to develop overview and scrutiny.
- Raise the profile of the council both within and beyond WNC’s borders.
- Develop a plan to manage medium to long term budget pressures, linked to corporate priorities.
Now the council has developed and published an action plan on how it plans to progress. Each of the eight points are covered. The council is says work is now under way.
How the council plans to address the recommendations
- The action plan states: “We will be bringing them together to create a new five-year business plan that sets out how we will achieve the vision our stakeholders agreed when we started “making West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive” and the actions we will be taking with our partners to deliver this vision.”” Target date: September 2024.
- The action plan states: “WNC to prepare and produce corporate Strategic Engagement Plan for Partnership Working, including a comprehensive stakeholder map, setting out corporate approach, principles and future actions to further strengthening partner relationships and improving stakeholder management. Target date: January 2025.
- The action plan states: “Work is ongoing on addressing these issues and a broader programme is being established that will further improve process mapping and review the end-to-end customer journey.” Target date: ‘Ongoing’.
- The action plan states: “The new WNC single website went live on April 1 after the peer review and saw the four legacy council sites replaced with an improved single site for all online information and transactions. Work will continue to improve the website following on from the completion of the initial phase.” Target date: ‘Ongoing’.
- The action plan states: “The council already uses external borrowing to fund its capital programme and is always keen to consider on a case-by-case basis any invest to save initiatives that will benefit the authority in the long term. The Council will continue to focus on this approach.” Target date: ‘Ongoing’.
- The action plan states: “The council will further embed the recommendations of Centre for Governance and Scrutiny’s independent review into its scrutiny functions, which have already led to significant improvements. It will also explore opportunities for increasing promotion of O&S issues among members via internal communications channels.” Target date: ‘Ongoing’.
- The action plan states: “This will include further active participation by lead members, senior management and their teams at future local government industry and LGA events and conferences alongside national sector-led conferences and events promoting West Northamptonshire as a place to invest attracting new businesses and investors (eg. Attendance at UKREiiF).” Target date: ‘Ongoing’.
- The action plan states: “The council will prepare a Medium-Term Financial Strategy as part of its future budget setting process, thereby continuing to further embed within the organisation the need to address the medium-term financial deficits.” Target date: February 2025.
Councillor Adam Brown, leader of West Northamptonshire Council, said: “The peer review was an excellent opportunity for us to invite in independent assessors as "critical friends" who could look into detail at how we work and let us know where we’re doing well and where we can improve.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad“They rightfully highlighted key challenges that we need to confront in the months and years ahead, such as improving some of our strategic relationships and developing "a compelling long-term vision for the area" – and I'm delighted to say work is already underway on these issues, as we seek to build on the foundations we've laid over the past three years as a new unitary council.
“Three years in and after creating key joint strategies working with partners and residents, we will be bringing them together to create a new five-year business plan that sets out how we will achieve the vision our stakeholders agreed when we started, to “make West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive” and the actions we will be taking with our partners to deliver this vision.
"We will set out an area-wide strategic approach to housing and economic growth alongside partnership ambitions for improving services for children to help them get the best start in life and ensuring older residents age and live well.”
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe peers are due to return to the council later this year with a follow-up visit to measure WNC’s progress against the recommendations it has been set.
The review saw a team of senior officers and members from other councils across the country visit WNC offices. They looked at how effective the organisation is at providing services, measuring its own ability to deliver upon its plans and vision for improving West Northamptonshire, in terms of governance and leadership. The process is designed to be “problem-solving" and does not rank or score the council.
Comment Guidelines
National World encourages reader discussion on our stories. User feedback, insights and back-and-forth exchanges add a rich layer of context to reporting. Please review our Community Guidelines before commenting.