Birmingham City Council - Restructure

22 October 2013

22 October 2013

Changing the structure of the Council

Three key factors have led to a review of the Council’s Structure:

1) Financial Position - Local Government continues to face very severe pressures leading to fundamental decisions regarding how and what services we deliver. Core FTE is down from 21,000 to 14,000 and still reducing. Spend has reduced by £275m in the last two financial years, there are £100m savings this year and a further £450m by 2017/18

2) Children’s Services – Birmingham’s Children’s Services have been under an improvement notice since 2009 and the right leadership is vital in order to improve performance. There is a critical national shortage of experienced and credible candidates with a high percentages of interims in Director of Children’s Services roles across the country. We have a credible internal interim appointment who is providing confidence to our partners who could be appointed longer term.

3) The current Chief Executive is retiring

Proposals – Directorate Structure

It is proposed to create three Directorates that closely align to Members’ priorities:

1. People Directorate – looking after education needs, protecting young people, supporting people and families, housing allocation, tackling domestic violence, substance misuse and troubled families, helping disabled people and those with mental health or learning disabilities, public health and looking after older people all in one place.

2. Place Directorate – delivering localisation, clean green and safe neighbourhoods and the range of public facilities the public value most highly.

3. Economy Directorate – delivering a successful and inclusive economy by bringing jobs to the City through internal investment and helping local people access these jobs, because it is believed that is the route to self sufficiency and the best antidote to poverty and disadvantage.

Senior management proposals

• The new Chief Executive and Director of Economy role is not stand alone but embedded in the Economy Directorate, giving support to the strategic direction of travel for the City itself.

• There is a statutory requirement to have a ‘Head of Paid Service’ which will be part of the Chief Executive’s role.

• In addition, the Economy Directorate will have a significant role in supporting Elected Councillors in the development and delivery of priorities and services. It will include support services, therefore there will also be a Deputy Chief Executive and a Deputy Director of Economy role

• Merging the Children, Young People and Families Directorate with Adults and Communities Directorate to create the ‘People’ Directorate, enables significant advantages in bringing together most commissioning of services for vulnerable people and it will better enable the transition of supported children to adulthood.

• Peter Hay has been appointed as Strategic Director for People stabilising the leadership of this critical area.

• The Place Directorate is a redesignation of the current Local Services

Impact – Structure

Current Structure

ChiefExecutive

Children, Young People and Families

Strategic Director

CorporateResources

Strategic Director

Developmentand Culture

Strategic Director

Adults and Communities

Strategic Director

Local ServicesStrategic Director

Proposed Structure

EconomyChief Executive and Director of Economy

Deputy Chief Executive and Deputy Director of Economy

PlaceStrategic Director of Place

PeopleStrategic Director of People

£1,854m£1,399m

£1,904m

10,100

3300

7000

Sizing based on current proposals

Sources:

Headcount including casuals from Workforce Dashboard August 2013 (excludes Schools)

Financial Responsibility includes revenue expenditure, income and capital from Budget Book 2013/14

Estimated sizing prior to any movement of individual service areas