Corporate Peer Challenge London Borough of Sutton · 1 Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ T 020 7664 3000 F 020 7664 3030 E [email protected] Chief Executive: Mark

Corporate Peer Challenge London Borough of Sutton

9th to 12th February 2016

Feedback Report

Page 163 Agenda Item 9

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Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ T 020 7664 3000 F 020 7664 3030 E [email protected] www.local.gov.uk Chief Executive: Mark Lloyd

1. Executive Summary There is much for Sutton to be proud of both as a council and as a borough. This includes high levels of resident satisfaction, the addressing of the authority’s financial challenges to date, the involvement and engagement of residents in key issues facing the borough and the enthusiastic and motivated staff that the authority has. Looking ahead, there are plans for the delivery of new homes and new schools and the London Cancer Hub is being developed, whilst the council is also seen as a driving force within the South London Partnership of five outer south west London boroughs focused on strategic growth, regeneration and investment. All of this demonstrates a good track record and an authority that is ambitious and wants things to get even better. The challenge as we see it is determining how much better the organisation wants to get and how quickly. We very much see the council as being at a crossroads – with a choice to make between ‘continual improvement’ or ‘step change’ and between being ‘increasingly good’ or becoming ‘great’. Becoming ‘great’ entails moving from being the ‘managers of a council’ to ‘place leaders’ and, in doing so, puts an emphasis on the council utilising its democratic mandate to secure the best possible outcomes for the people of Sutton. Commissioning in the council has moved a long way in recent years, building on the authority’s long-held openness to alternative methods of service delivery. Through the changes that have been made, the council has shifted from ‘commissioning services’ to ‘commissioning service outcomes’. We see the challenge being in taking the next step and adopting ‘outcomes-based commissioning’ – essentially focusing on securing the outcomes key to the borough and, in doing so, thinking and working beyond organisational boundaries. This requires the council really to act as place leaders. However, a major shift is required if this is to happen. Between 2010/11 and 2014/15, the council delivered £37m of savings. There is now a further savings requirement of £27.5m. Whilst the extent of the savings challenge is still significant, it is important to move away from reflecting on the ‘unfairness of austerity’ and instead focus on the value of the ‘Sutton £’ – with public sector bodies having control of around £1.9bn in the borough – and how to achieve the best possible outcomes with it. We recognise the importance to the organisation of the ‘Sutton Way’ and that for the council the journey is as important as the destination, involving and engaging people as widely as possible. The decision-making process is deliberative, consultative and collaborative by nature. However, it is ‘fleet of foot’ where necessary. Senior officer capacity has reduced by 45% in recent years. Elected members’ expectations regarding the support they receive have not been revised accordingly. This situation is not sustainable and expectations and behaviours both of elected members and officers need to be revised. It is also important that the focus of elected members on council services, what is going on in communities and local issues is balanced with sufficient focus from enough councillors on the strategic direction of the borough and the overall business of the council. The council as a whole also needs to better understand and support the legitimate and valuable role of the Opposition.

Page 164Agenda Item 9

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The current approach in the authority sees three Directorates being supported by a corporate core. The number of Directorates has been reduced and the corporate core has been deliberately positioned to act in a way that supports and assists them. The situation that exists as a result is three very large and powerful Directorates and something of a ‘fragmented council’. There is a need to decide the extent to which the authority wishes to move away from this in order to operate much more as ‘One Council’. This is much more about the operating model, culture and approach than anything in the way of structural revision. In terms of the capacity and capability of the council, our sense is that the authority largely has what it requires. In addition, it demonstrates a willingness and ability to source additional support where the need arises. There is, though, perhaps an issue of whether what exists is working well enough together and is sufficiently focused on the right things. There is also a need for the council’s HR and Organisational Development function to develop its capacity and capability significantly in order to be able to adequately support the council’s ambitious agenda for change and transformation.

2. Key messages and the opportunity to take things to the next level The following summarises the key messages emerging from the peer challenge:

Sutton has a good track record and much to be proud of

The authority is ambitious but has the potential to be more so should it choose to

The council needs to consider its role as a place leader and seize the opportunities

Outcomes-based commissioning is a major lever to facilitate place leadership

There are some key challenges in the organisation that need to be overcome to equip the council to take on these roles

The following is an outline of the peer team’s findings and thoughts about the agenda for Sutton moving forward:

The council demonstrates good stewardship of the organisation and has a solid platform on which to build

In taking forward its ambitions, it seems to us that the council is at a crossroads - with a choice to make between ‘continual improvement’ or ‘step change’, between being ‘increasingly good’ or becoming ‘great’

Becoming ‘great’ entails moving from being the ‘managers of a council’ to ‘place leaders’

When the council has made its choice about which path to choose, it needs to articulate its strategic direction in a way that is understood by and engages all stakeholders

The detail of all of the above is contained within the main body of the report.





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3. Summary of the Peer Challenge approach

The peer team Peer challenges are delivered by experienced elected member and officer peers. The make-up of the peer team reflected your requirements and the focus of the peer challenge. Peers were selected on the basis of their relevant experience and expertise and agreed with you. The peers who delivered the peer challenge in Sutton were:

Eric Robinson, Chief Executive, Wirral MBC

Councillor Iain Roberts, Deputy Leader, Stockport MBC

Councillor David Simmonds, Deputy Leader, LB Hillingdon

Chris Wright, Chief Executive, Catch22

Dave Fergus, Independent Consultant (Commercialisation)

Kieran Timmins, until recently Deputy Chief Executive and Finance Director at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Authority

Suzanne Hudson, Senior Adviser, Local Government Association (shadowing role)

Chris Bowron, Peer Challenge Manager, Local Government Association

Scope and focus The peer team considered the following five questions which form the core components looked at by all corporate peer challenges. These are the areas we believe are critical to councils’ performance and improvement:

Understanding of the local place and priority setting: Does the council understand its local context and place and use that to inform a clear vision and set of priorities?

Leadership of place: Does the council provide effective leadership of place through its elected members, officers and constructive relationships and partnerships with external stakeholders?

Financial planning and viability: Does the council have a financial plan in place to ensure long term viability and is there evidence that it is being implemented successfully?

Organisational leadership and governance: Is there effective political and managerial leadership supported by good governance and decision-making arrangements that respond to key challenges and enable change and transformation to be implemented?

Capacity to deliver: Is organisational capacity aligned with priorities and does the council influence, enable and leverage external capacity to focus on agreed outcomes?





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As part of this, the council asked the peer team to consider the following issues:

The extent to which the council’s governance, and the way it manages its relationships with all of its stakeholders, enables it to lead the place to best effect? How effectively is the council leading the conversation with residents and other stakeholders about the changes that are necessary to ensure financial sustainability into the long-term?

Whether the council is deploying its limited resources to best effect

The extent to which the council has successfully addressed the areas for consideration identified in the 2012 Corporate Peer Challenge

The extent to which the council is appropriately and successfully adopting a commercial approach. Does the way the council makes decisions maximise the potential of this approach?

The peer challenge process

It is important to stress that this was not an inspection. Peer challenges are improvement-focussed and tailored to meet individual councils’ needs. They are designed to complement and add value to a council’s own performance and improvement focus. The peer team used their experience and knowledge of local government to reflect on the information presented to them by people they met, things they saw and material that they read. The peer team prepared for the peer challenge by reviewing a range of documents and information in order to ensure they were familiar with the council and the challenges it is facing. The team then spent 4 days onsite in Sutton. This report provides a summary of the peer team’s findings. It builds on the feedback presentation provided by the peer team at the end of their on-site visit. In presenting the feedback, they have done so as fellow local government officers and elected members, not professional consultants or inspectors. By its nature, the peer challenge is a snapshot in time. We appreciate that some of the feedback may be about things the council is already addressing and progressing.

4. Feedback

4.1 Sutton – much to be proud of There is much for Sutton to be proud of both as a council and as a borough, including:

High levels of resident satisfaction – the latest residents’ survey indicated 90% of respondents are satisfied with the area as a place to live and 79% are satisfied with council services





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The council’s Customer Services function has retained the National Customer Service Excellence award for the 18th consecutive year

Between 2010/11 and 2013/14 the council delivered savings of £32m (25% of the 2010/11 net revenue budget) through the ‘Smarter Services Sutton’ programme whilst in 2014/15 a further £5m was saved through the ‘Smarter Council’ programme of more cross-cutting and transformational activity. The current year sees over £11m of savings being progressed.

The council is in a sound financial position, with robust reserves relative to the risks it faces having being built up in recent years

The return to the committee system, implemented in 2012, is seen to have improved elected member engagement in decision-making. Local Committees also support this.

The council has revised its commissioning arrangements, including establishing a Commissioning Board and commissioning support hub and establishing ‘One Sutton Commissioning’ to deliver some joint commissioning with the Clinical Commissioning Group

An observatory has been established within the organisation, drawing together the council’s data and intelligence

The council’s ‘Sutton’s Future’ campaign is involving and engaging residents, enabling them to have their say about the future of the borough – over 8,000 people have responded to consultations on issues such as children’s centres, libraries, garden waste and council tax

The authority operates a range of service delivery models – reflecting what was described to us as ‘an agnosticism on the part of the council regarding the means of production’. Within this there are a number of shared services with neighbouring boroughs, including HR, ICT, legal and highways and transport. The South London Waste Partnership has also been created. The sharing of services is aimed both at achieving savings and increasing resilience.

A new council website has been created, resulting in a 20% increase in satisfaction with the authority’s on-line presence. A new Intranet has also been established.

The council is in the process of implementing its People Plan, which will see a revised set of grade levels established, along with a core set of role profiles and job families, a revised approach to performance-based pay progression, an increased minimum level of annual leave and a set of core behaviours and leadership behaviours

As a peer challenge team, we were impressed by the enthusiastic and motivated staff that we met





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The Leader and Chief Executive are widely held in high regard within the council, amongst partner organisations and within the South London Partnership

‘Opportunity Sutton’ is the council’s programme of activity aimed at growing and supporting the borough’s existing businesses and attracting new investment. This is credited with having secured £400m of investment and 1,700 new jobs to date. Under this banner, the council has established its own group of companies (Opportunity Sutton Ltd), including ‘Sutton Living’ (a housing development company enabling the council to build its own homes) and ‘SDEN’ (an energy company that is planned to operate a network to use waste heat to supply homes and businesses)

The borough has good schools and educational attainment – in 2015, nearly 77% of Sutton pupils obtained five or more A* to C grades at GCSE level, including English and Maths. The national average was less than 54%. Comparative performance at A-Level was also high.

The council has worked closely with partners to find ways of significantly reducing youth unemployment

The Safer Sutton Partnership is long-established and co-ordinates the borough’s approach to community safety. There are low levels of crime in Sutton – indeed the total level of crime has fallen each year for ten consecutive years.

The council is working closely with the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the Institute of Cancer Research and the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust to develop a joint vision and pathways for increased investment in, and use of, the site that they share in the borough. This will become known as the London Cancer Hub and will be the second largest site of its kind in the world.

The council has put effort in to building voluntary and community sector capacity within the borough

Some of the above is a direct response to the findings of the corporate peer challenge in early 2012. 4.2 Ambitions and moving things forward So much of what we have seen and heard about Sutton is good and the council is clearly ambitious to ensure both it and the borough get even better. There are plans being developed for the delivery of new homes, including those that ‘Sutton Living’ is looking both to deliver directly and to facilitate the development of. The Local Plan is currently being refreshed and will feature a major policy shift to favour housing growth. New schools are planned, including one as part of the London Cancer Hub site development. The council is also keen to progress the idea of an extension in to the borough of the South London Tramlink, in an aim to improve the transport infrastructure and access to the area and, through this, boost the local economy. The proposal has been shortlisted by Transport for London for consideration.





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The council, and the Leader and Chief Executive in particular, are seen as a driving force within the South London Partnership. This partnership of the five outer south west London boroughs was set up last year as part of the councils’ response to the devolution agenda and has been constituted as a formal Joint Committee. It exists to set and review sub-regional priorities for strategic growth, regeneration and investment and is seeking to re-position the area that it covers as a growth opportunity for London as a world city. The council is currently developing its next corporate plan. Central to the thinking that is emerging is an extension of the long-established vision of a community in which ‘all seek to take part and take pride’ to one that sees a more self-reliant and resilient community. The council is seeking to gear itself so that it operates in a way that is ‘Inspiring a community that takes part, takes pride and takes responsibility’ and acts as a ‘Commissioning Council’. The council has a projected funding gap of £27.5m across the three years to 2018/19. Work is underway to identify the savings options available to the council and the authority is also considering how it can best utilise the reserves it has established. At the same time, the authority recognises the opportunities that exist to pursue income generation, investment returns and growth in business rates and the council tax base to support a reducing reliance on Revenue Support Grant. The council’s ‘Digital Programme’ forms part of the savings thinking, as well as offering the chance to deliver enhanced customer service, but thus far only Phase 1 has been delivered and it is acknowledged that this agenda needs to progress more quickly. All of this demonstrates that the authority is ambitious and wants things to get even better, including how it functions as a council. The challenge as we see it is determining how much better the organisation wants to get and how quickly. Through what we have outlined above, it can be seen that the council delivers good stewardship of the organisation and has a solid platform on which to build. In taking forward its ambitions, it seems to us that the council is at a crossroads – with a choice to make between ‘continual improvement’ and ‘step change’ and between being ‘increasingly good’ or becoming ‘great’. Becoming ‘great’ entails moving from being the ‘managers of a council’ to ‘place leaders’ – a concept that we outline in the next section of this report. When the council has made its choice about which path it wishes to choose, it needs to articulate its strategic direction in a way that is understood by and engages all stakeholders.

4.3 Leadership of place

The council’s emerging corporate plan seeks to position the authority as:

An ‘enabling’ and ‘inspiring’ council that is a good steward of all Sutton’s resources and ensures that all local services, however commissioned or delivered, are efficient and effective

This places an emphasis on the council utilising its democratic mandate to secure the best possible outcomes for the people of Sutton – in other words, providing leadership of place. Integral to this is:





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Focusing on outcomes

Working in partnership within the borough across all sectors

Understanding the extent and potential of the ‘Sutton £’ – the public sector and community resource able to be called upon to achieve the desired outcomes, which goes beyond what is available just in terms of finances

Working in partnership beyond the borough in order to progress Sutton’s interests A good example of the ‘art of the possible’ in terms of focusing on outcomes is what has been achieved in relation to getting young people into employment. By focusing on a desired outcome – in this case increasing the number of young people in employment – and engaging a wide range of partners to determine and deliver the most effective actions to take between them, the number of 18 to 24 year olds claiming Job Seekers Allowance has been reduced from 715 in 2012 to 245 in the second quarter of 2015/16. People have spoken of the council being ‘marbled in communities’ – the extent to which the authority, and elected members in particular, are engaged with local people and the communities in which they live. The question for us is the extent to which the authority is similarly ‘marbled in partnerships’ within the borough. This is crucial to being able to secure improved outcomes on issues that are beyond the direct control of the council. The Safer Sutton Partnership provides an example of where the council is very well engaged. Other partnerships, for example with the voluntary and community sector and with the Clinical Commissioning Group, are improving but they are not yet at the same level. The council has an important role to play in delivering leadership of those improvements. As we have outlined already, the South London Partnership of the five outer south-west London boroughs provides a great opportunity for the council to secure benefits for Sutton through working to drive growth, investment and infrastructure improvements across a wider geography than just the borough. The scale of the potential here should not be under-estimated, with the area concerned having an economy larger than Greater Manchester, at £21.7bn Gross Value Added, and serving a population of 1.3m people, which is equal to the eight largest city in the country. The Chief Executive is leading on the growth agenda for the Partnership and the Leader is seen to be playing a very influential role overall – leading to the council being seen as ‘punching above its weight’. That said, there is work to do in clarifying the overall vision for what the Partnership is seeking to achieve across its geography. It is important that in developing this vision Sutton is clear about what its ‘offer’ to, and ‘ask’ of, the four other boroughs is.

4.4 Outcomes-based commissioning Commissioning in the council has moved a long way in recent years, building on the authority’s long-held openness to alternative methods of service delivery. Core components of the ‘Commissioning Council’ have been put in place since the corporate peer challenge in 2012. These include an officer Commissioning Board, which oversees a three year Commissioning Plan, and a commissioning support hub that draws together much of the council’s capacity in key support functions, including performance





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management, research and intelligence, consultation and procurement. In July 2015 the authority integrated its children’s and adults commissioning teams in order to, amongst other things, provide a better overview of the market and engage with potential suppliers more strategically. The Environment Directorate also now has a single commissioning function. The ‘One Sutton Commissioning Collaborative’ has also been established, joining up key aspects of the council and the Clinical Commissioning Group’s commissioning, including the procurement of a joint carers’ service for adults. There is good involvement and engagement of stakeholders in commissioning, including the ‘Young Commissioners’ who have commented on specifications, participated in market testing events and undertaken informal evaluation of bids and proposals. Central to this is the concept of ‘developmental assets’ for individuals and communities, acting as a basis for needs assessment and looking at what people need to succeed (such as social competencies, support, positive values and positive identity) and what communities require to take part and take pride (including public safety and criminal justice, health and wellbeing, culture and heritage and employment, economy and lifelong learning). Through these changes, the council has shifted from ‘commissioning services’ to ‘commissioning service outcomes’. We see the challenge being in taking the next step and adopting ‘outcomes-based commissioning’ – essentially focusing on securing the outcomes key to the borough and, in doing so, thinking and working beyond organisational boundaries. This requires the council really to act as place leaders – a theme we touched on earlier. However, a major shift is required if the move to ‘outcomes-based commissioning’ is to take place. Central to this would be engaging and involving partners in shaping the strategic direction of the borough and establishing integrated public sector commissioning. This would require partnerships that operate in a much closer way than at present. Extending partnership and resident involvement in the co-design and production of services would also be important. The council’s role wold be required to become more one of ‘market stewardship’ rather than ‘market management’ – a shift away from an emphasis on the letting and management of contracts to one of ensuring the necessary capacity is available, for example within the voluntary and community sector and the private sector, to deliver the services that are required. We also see the need for the research and intelligence capability within the council to move to the next level in order to support outcomes-based commissioning. Whilst the council has brought together much of its research and intelligence capacity, there are still key areas in the council that operate more independently, including Public Health, which means information isn’t as well shared as it might be. Thus there is a need to work truly cross-organisationally in making the best use of knowledge and information. Linked to this, the council’s research and intelligence capacity needs to be given the scope to help better inform decision-making in the council. At present, much of the capacity is dedicated to supplying performance management information. Whilst this is important, it needs to be supplemented with a greater ability to draw in thinking from other sources, including academia and the ‘best in class’, to highlight learning and opportunities. To illustrate this, it would be interesting to think about the different answers that might emerge if an outcomes-based commissioning question such as ‘how can we best support under 5s in the borough’ was posed to the research and intelligence function in the council and partners. A very different set of options might





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emerge than when asking the question of ‘what do we do with children’s centres going forward’. The council needs to identify the priority outcomes it wants to achieve for Sutton and work with stakeholders to find the required solutions. If the research and intelligence capacity amongst public sector partners within Sutton could also be linked with more closely that would offer even greater benefits. ‘Commissioning for outcomes’ and a move to being leaders of place also requires the council to review its governance and organisational arrangements, in terms of seeing how it would best operate within the committee system and the functioning of Local Committees.

4.5 Financial opportunity Between 2010/11 and 2014/15, the council delivered £37m of savings. The authority has been prudent in simultaneously building up its level of reserves. The current year sees over £11m of savings being progressed, with a further savings requirement of £27.5m in the three years from 2016/17 to 2018/19. Work is underway to identify the savings options available to the council, with Directorates modelling reductions in the region of 25%. This work is still at an early stage but overall there was a confidence in delivering the savings and balancing the books based upon the overall sound financial position. It will be important for the council to ensure a focus on cross-cutting options and to avoid any silo-based thinking coming to the fore given the Directorate-based approach being taken. Whilst the extent of the savings challenge is still significant, we were struck by the extent to which some of the people we spoke to, including elected members, are still focused on the ‘unfairness of austerity’. This way of thinking, which focuses solely on looking backwards at the position of the council now relative to how things used to be, risks missing opportunities and does not fit well with the concepts of ‘leadership of place’ and ‘outcomes-based commissioning’. We would encourage people instead to focus on the value of the ‘Sutton £’ – with public sector bodies having control of around £1.9bn in the borough – and how to achieve the best possible outcomes with it. The council has a reducing reliance on Revenue Support Grant (it is estimated to be less than £7m by 2020) and recognises the opportunity to pursue income generation, returns from investment (including developing its assets portfolio) and growth in both business rates and the council tax base to support this. The council has been pursuing a ‘commercialisation’ agenda, including creating ‘Opportunity Sutton Ltd’, but the sense is that the approach to date has been opportunistic rather than systematic. Where the council has established its own companies or ‘spin offs’ such as this, it will be important to actively manage them in order to maximise opportunities and minimise risk. There is a danger of ‘out of sight out of mind’ leading to the separate entities that are created not being driven hard enough to maximise the benefits anticipated in setting them up or even developing a reliance on council support to remain viable. They require concerted effort and attention going forward in order to ensure they flourish. The council needs a clear vision of what success would look like for each new venture. There is a measured and realistic approach to commercialism within the council. It is not seen as a 'magic bullet' and the expectation is that net income (profit) generation will play





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only a minor role in meeting the financial challenge faced by the council – a figure of 5 per cent of the gap was cited in some of our discussions. There are currently some well-defined commercial development 'hot spots' including enhancing investment portfolio returns, ‘Sutton Living’ and ‘SDEN’. Clearly there is a willingness within the council to take commercial risk and commit the necessary resources but the decision-making process very much reflects the ‘Sutton Way’. This approach helps to mitigate risk but it could also potentially result in the loss of opportunities by responding too slowly to business possibilities that present themselves. Thus, there may be benefit in further reviewing the Scheme of Delegation to ensure the council can be responsive enough, including the property function and appropriate managers within the organisation being appropriately empowered and supported to take commercial decisions in the ordinary course of business. We sensed a lack of clarity regarding the council’s risk appetite around commercialisation. Whilst the corporate programme management function that supports investment and business creation is robust, the on-going commercial governance regime seems fragmented. This needs to be addressed in order to ensure there is adequate over-sight with an appropriate drive to maximise commercial returns. Certainly we met a number of individuals who clearly have a commercial mind-set and there is a willingness on the part of the council to source additional expertise where necessary. As part of all of this, 'profit' needs to be allowed to enter the language of the organisation in a context of enabling people to see it as a positive contributor and enabler around addressing the council’s financial challenge and fulfilling the ambitions for the borough. Thus the commercialisation agenda has much to offer. However, it is the integration of health and social care that offers the greatest impact on the council’s financial challenge. However, this agenda is proving very challenging and there do not appear to be any straightforward solutions to the issue. We recognise this is not for the want of trying on the part of the council. To end this section, we would wish to re-iterate that the council is in a sound financial position. As a result, we believe the authority can afford to be more ambitious and really seize the ‘leadership of place’ agenda. 4.6 Dynamics of the organisation

We recognise the importance to the organisation of the ‘Sutton Way’ and that for the council the journey is as important as the destination, involving and engaging people as widely as possible. The decision-making process is deliberative, consultative and collaborative by nature. However, it is ‘fleet of foot’ where necessary, for example some of the decision-making around shared services arrangements has been very swift where that has been required. The recent governance review has sought to aid this further by developing greater clarity about, and streamlining of, ways the organisation operates. This has included revising the Scheme of Delegation and developing a more strategic focus for the thematic committees. Senior officer capacity has reduced by 45% in recent years. Elected members’ expectations regarding the support they receive have not been revised accordingly. There





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are still lots of instances where councillors ‘pop in for a chat’ in a way that is difficult for officers to say no to but which absorbs their time in a way that is not efficient. At the same time, there seems to be a tendency on the part of some officers to seek to maximise their engagement with, and exposure to, elected members – reflected, for example, in the flow of reports to committees simply ‘for noting’. This situation is not sustainable and expectations and behaviours need to be revised. The work of the Local Committees and the thematic committees provides the opportunity for all councillors in Sutton to focus on council services, what is going on in communities and local issues. This is of tremendous value and is fundamental to the ethos of the council. It is important, however, that this focus is balanced with the necessary attention, from sufficient councillors, on the strategic direction of the borough as a whole and the overall business of the council. As an example, what level of understanding is there amongst the wider elected membership regarding the South London Partnership, the council’s involvement in it and what the borough is seeking to gain? Similarly, how well engaged are councillors generally around the challenges of the health economy locally? The council as a whole needs to better understand and support the legitimate and valuable role of the Opposition. There is a growing recognition of the need for this, reflected for example in the delivery of training for officers on ‘operating in a political environment’. However, significant progress is still required. At present, too little consideration is given to the needs and legitimate rights of the Opposition when it comes to the sharing of appropriate information. This should happen automatically and not be incumbent on the Opposition to have to ask – something which generates frustration and tension and leads to mistrust. Whilst it is widely known that the council will become a smaller organisation in terms of staff numbers, there is a lack of clarity around what this entails. There is an anticipated reduction of 415 full-time equivalents (FTE) during the period from 2014 to 2018/19 but it is unclear whether this number of posts will be lost entirely or if some or all of them will transfer to other organisations. The potential for only a ‘corporate and democratic core and a central client function’ to remain in-house is also recognised. Whilst it is not possible for the council to provide an answer to the question every individual has – that of ‘will I still have a job?’ – it would be helpful if the organisation could look to establish as much clarity as possible for people and engage them, as is the ‘Sutton Way’, in thinking about the future. The current approach in the authority sees three Directorates being supported by a corporate core. The number of Directorates has been reduced and the corporate core has been deliberately positioned to act in a way that supports and assists them. The situation that exists as a result is three very large and powerful Directorates and something of a ‘fragmented council’. There is a need to decide the extent to which the authority wishes to move away from this in order to operate much more as ‘One Council’. This is much more about the operating model, culture and approach than anything in the way of structural revision. In taking forward its ambitions, it seems to us that the council is at a crossroads – with a choice to make between ‘continual improvement’ or ‘step change’ and between being ‘increasingly good’ or becoming ‘great’. If Sutton chooses the path at the crossroads





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marked ‘step change’ and ‘becoming great’, it will need to significantly up the pace and be willing to challenge key aspects of the established culture and ways of working. This includes being willing to sacrifice sometimes aspects of the ‘Sutton Way’, establish a truly ‘One Council’ approach and inject the necessary drive in to key projects, including the ‘Digital Programme’. 4.7 Capacity and capability In terms of the capacity and capability of the council, our sense is that the authority largely has what it requires. In addition, it demonstrates a willingness and ability to source additional support where the need arises. There is, though, perhaps an issue of whether what exists is working well enough together and is sufficiently focused on the right things. Examples here include what we have already touched on in terms of a ‘One Council’ approach, the way the research and intelligence capacity is utilised and what is required to drive the ‘Digital Programme’ forward. The council is seeking to develop a workforce strategy to ensure it has the people and skills required both in the future and during the intervening period to enable it to deliver the expected transition. Whilst there is some understanding of the types of skills that will be needed in the future, such as commercial thinking and commissioning skills, the workforce planning has yet really to move forward. This may well be linked to what we highlighted earlier regarding a lack of clarity about what the council becoming a smaller organisation entails. However, there is a wider issue here regarding the need for the council’s HR and Organisational Development function to develop its capacity and capability significantly in order to be able to adequately support the council’s ambitious agenda for change and transformation. The council has protected its training and development budget and is willing to invest in people. Officers view themselves as having good opportunities for training and development, including the ‘Frontline First’ and ‘Leadership Academy’ programmes. The council has demonstrated an increasing focus in recent months on developing officers and elected members’ understanding of key aspects of governance, including written briefings from the Executive Head of Customers, Commissioning and Governance. In a context of what we highlighted earlier regarding the need to re-balance the focus of elected members on the strategic direction of the borough as a whole and the overall business of the council, there is a requirement to fundamentally re-think the approach to identifying and meeting their training and development needs. At present, the training and development provision for councillors is focused on fairly standard stuff, such as chairing skills, IT, Planning and safeguarding. Even then, the programme is seen to have tailed off recently. The shift of responsibility for elected member development to the Democratic Services function provides the opportunity to develop a different direction and inject new impetus. With a turnover of more than 30% in the elected membership at the last election, it feels like a good opportunity nearly two years on for the council to take stock of how things are shaping up for those new members. This goes much wider than looking at training and development, although this, including the induction process, could very usefully be





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explored. It is a more general review of how they are finding things, how involved they are feeling and how effectively the council is supporting them in fulfilling their roles. Finally, we just wanted to touch on a few of the core aspects of effective management of the council. There are a wide range of internal communications mechanisms in place to aid the involvement and understanding of staff. Staff have a good understanding of the issues facing the authority and the borough. Thus communication is seen to be good in the organisation and is certainly less of an issue in Sutton than has been the experience of the peers in other councils. There are good project and programme management arrangements in place in the council. Whilst the council currently considers performance and finance together, this is achieved simply by including them in the same report when asking the Corporate Management Team and elected members to look at them. We noted the council’s intention to take this to the next level by presenting them in a more integrated way and also including workforce and customer data. This is a positive move.

Following on from the peer challenge Through the peer challenge process we have sought to highlight the positive aspects of the council and the area but we have also outlined some difficult challenges and potential ways to address them. It has been our aim to provide some detail on them through this report in order to help the council understand and consider them. The council’s senior political and managerial leadership will therefore undoubtedly want to reflect further on the findings before determining how they wish to take things forward. Members of the team would be happy to contribute to any further improvement support in the future and/or to return to the authority in due course to undertake a short progress review. Heather Wills, as the Local Government Association's Principal Adviser for the region within which the council sits, will continue to act as the main contact between the council and the Local Government Association, particularly in relation to improvement and access to the LGA’s resources and packages of support going forward. All of us connected with the peer challenge would like to wish Sutton, both as a council and a place, every success in the future. Chris Bowron Programme Manager – Peer Support Local Government Association





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Annex – Contents of the feedback presentation delivered to the council on Friday 12th February 2016 Sutton – much to be proud of

High levels of resident satisfaction

The National Customer Service Excellence award

Delivered savings of £32m since 2010 (25% of the net revenue budget)

Sound financial position

Improved elected member engagement in decision-making

Revised commissioning arrangements

Established an observatory for data and intelligence

Involving and engaging residents – ‘Sutton’s Future’

Operating a range of service delivery models

Operating a number of shared services – savings and increased resilience

Established the South London Waste Partnership

Launched a new council website and Intranet

In the process of implementing the People Plan

Enthusiastic and motivated staff

A Leader and Chief Executive who are widely held in high regard

‘Opportunity Sutton’ – secured £400m of investment and 1,700 new jobs

Good schools and educational attainment

Success in increasing youth employment

Low levels of crime

Safer Sutton Partnership

Joint commissioning with the Clinical Commissioning Group

Plans for the London Cancer Hub

Efforts to build voluntary and community sector capacity Ambitions and moving things forward

New homes, new schools – ‘Sutton Living’, ‘Energy Network’

Tramlink

Local Plan refresh – a major policy change to favour housing growth

The South London Partnership and the devolution agenda

An emerging corporate plan - ‘Inspiring a community that takes part, takes pride and takes responsibility’

A ‘Commissioning Council’

Plans for addressing the financial challenge that lies ahead

‘Smarter Council’ - £5m saved since 2014/15

The Digital Programme

So much of what we have seen about Sutton is good and it is clearly ambitious to do better – the challenge is how much better does it want to get and how quickly





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The opportunity to take things to the next level

The council demonstrates good stewardship of the organisation and has a solid platform on which to build

In taking forward its ambitions, it seems to us that the council is at a crossroads - with a choice to make between ‘continual improvement’ and ‘step change’, between being ‘increasingly good’ or becoming ‘great’

Becoming ‘great’ entails moving from being the ‘managers of a council’ to ‘place leaders’

When the council has made its choice about which path to choose, it needs to articulate its strategic direction in a way that is understood by and engages all stakeholders

Leadership of place

The emerging corporate plan seeks to position the council as an enabler

This places an emphasis on the council utilising its democratic mandate to secure the best possible outcomes for the people of Sutton

A good example of the ‘art of the possible’ is what has been achieved in relation to getting young people into employment

Integral to all of this is understanding the extent and potential of the ‘Sutton £’ – the public sector and community resource able to be called upon to achieve the desired outcomes

People have spoken of the council being ‘marbled in communities’ - the question for us is the extent to which it is similarly ‘marbled in partnerships’

The South London Partnership provides opportunity to secure benefits for Sutton through working to drive growth, investment and infrastructure improvements across a wider geography

The Leader is seen to be playing a very influential role in this – leading to the council being seen as ‘punching above its weight’

However, the overall vision for the sub-regional partnership isn’t clear Outcomes-based commissioning

Commissioning in the council has already moved a long way in recent years and core components are already in place:

• The Commissioning Board and commissioning support hub • ‘One Sutton Commissioning’ – joining up the council and the CCG • Involvement and engagement of stakeholders • Research and intelligence capacity • An openness to alternative methods of service delivery • The concept of ‘developmental assets’ – individual and community

We see the challenge for the council as one of moving from ‘commissioning services’ to ‘commissioning service outcomes’ and then to ‘outcomes-based commissioning’

Outcomes-based commissioning requires the council to act as place leaders

However, a major shift is required if the move to ‘outcomes-based commissioning’ is to take place:





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Engaging and involving partners in shaping the strategic direction of the borough

Co-design and production

‘Market stewardship’ rather than ‘market management’

Research and intelligence – utilising the available capacity to greater effect and to work truly cross-organisationally and across partners

‘Commissioning for outcomes’ and a move to being leaders of place requires the council to review its governance and organisational arrangements

Financial opportunity

The council have identified a further savings requirement of £27.5m to 2018/19

Work is underway to identify the savings options available to the council – with Directorates modelling reductions in the region of 25%

We were struck by the extent to which some of the people we spoke to, including elected members, are still focused on the ‘unfairness of austerity’ rather than the value of the ‘Sutton £’ and how to achieve the best possible outcomes with it

The council recognises the opportunity to pursue income generation, investment returns and growth in business rates and the council tax base to support a reducing reliance on RSG

The authority has also been prudent in building up its level of reserves

The council has been pursuing a ‘commercialisation’ agenda including creating ‘Opportunity Sutton Ltd’ – but the sense is that the approach has been opportunistic rather than systematic

Where the council has established its own companies or ‘spin offs’, it will be important to actively manage them in order to maximise opportunities and minimise risk

Whilst the commercialisation agenda has much to offer, it is the integration of health and social care that offers the greatest impact on the financial challenge – but this agenda is proving very challenging

The council is in a sound financial position and can afford to be more ambitious Dynamics of the organisation

We recognise the importance to the organisation of the ‘Sutton Way’ - the journey being as important as the destination

The decision-making process is deliberative and consultative by nature but ‘fleet of foot’ where necessary

Senior officer capacity has reduced by 45% in recent years. Elected members’ expectations regarding the support they receive have not been revised accordingly.

There is a need to balance the focus of elected members on services, communities and local issues with the strategic direction of the borough and business of the council

The recent governance review has sought to develop greater clarity about, and streamlining of, ways the organisation operates – including a revised Scheme of Delegation and developing a more strategic focus for the thematic committees

The council as a whole needs to better understand and support the legitimate and valuable role of the Opposition – there is a growing recognition of the need for this but significant progress is required





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Whilst it is widely known that the council will become a smaller organisation, there is a lack of clarity around what this entails

The current approach in the authority sees three Directorates being supported by a corporate core

There is a need to decide the extent to which the authority wishes to move away from this in order to operate as ‘One Council’

If Sutton chooses the path at the crossroads marked ‘step change’ and ‘becoming great’, it will need to significantly up the pace and be willing to challenge key aspects of the established culture and ways of working

Capacity and capability

The council is seeking to develop a workforce strategy to ensure it has the people and skills required in the future

Whilst there is some understanding of the types of skills that will be needed in the future, the workforce planning has yet really to move forward

The council’s HR and Organisational Development function needs to develop significantly in order to support the ambitious agenda for change and transformation

With a turnover of more than 30% in the elected membership at the last election, it feels like a good opportunity nearly two years on to take stock of how things are shaping up for those new members

The council has protected its training and development budget and is willing to invest in people

Training provision for officers includes ‘Frontline First’ and the ‘Leadership Academy’

In a context of needing to re-balance the focus of elected members, there is a requirement to fundamentally re-think the approach to identifying and meeting their training and development needs

The council has demonstrated an increasing focus in recent months on developing people’s understanding of key aspects of governance

There are a wide range of internal communications mechanisms in place to aid the involvement and understanding of staff

The council is looking to link together the reporting of performance, finance, workforce and customer data

Good project and programme management arrangements are in place

The council recognises that the ‘Digital Programme’ needs to be driven forward Key messages

Sutton has a good track record and much to be proud of

The authority is ambitious but has the potential to be more so should it choose to

The council needs to consider its role as a place leader and seize the opportunities

Outcomes-based commissioning is a major lever to facilitate place leadership

There are some key challenges in the organisation that need to be overcome to equip the council to take on these roles




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Documents

Corporate Peer Challenge London Borough of Sutton · 1 Local Government House, Smith Square, London SW1P 3HZ T 020 7664 3000 F 020 7664 3030 E [email protected] Chief Executive: Mark