rising to the challenge
DESCRIPTION
ÂTRANSCRIPT
London Borough of Croydon
Rising to the Challenge
August 2014
Rising to the Challenge Rising to the Challenge
Foreword We are Croydon - An Ambitious Borough led by an Ambitious Council
Having agreed our vision and ambition for Croydon with our communities and partners, we must
bring it to life in times of unprecedented challenge. We need to redefine our purpose and role.
The challenge for all councils is uncertain but in Croydon our belief is ‘The best way to predict the
future is to create it’.
As a leadership team we set out on a journey to review our purpose and have agreed that our role
as an organisation is to lead and shape the future of our borough by enabling growth,
independence and liveability. Together, these three strategic pillars will provide a framework
through which we will prioritise the services that have the most positive outcomes for the people
and partners of Croydon.
In the connected world in which we operate the only certainty is change. We must be able to
adapt and react to face rapidly changing, growing and complex demands while dealing with
almost certain contraction in Government funding. By 2018 we expect to be half the size that we
were at the start of the decade. For many councils this equation simply does not add up and they
are exploring how to manage withdrawal and retreat to core and statutory services.
We are taking an alternative approach. We set out on our journey to explore what we want to
achieve, assessing everything we do through an equation testing outcomes against needs to
foster ideas, innovation and new thinking about our future delivery model. As a leadership team
we have used this process to look not just at efficiencies and economy, but at how we become
more effective in achieving our outcomes and strengthening our collective leadership as a result.
Our efficiency drive over the last four years has successfully reduced our net operating costs by
£100m but we cannot keep doing more with less. Cutting services is not the right starting point, it
should be the point of last resort. Instead we need to look strategically at the challenge we face,
rebuild the council from the bottom up, and think radically, creatively and pragmatically about how
we deliver value for money in everything we do. The agenda detailed here sets out how we are
proposing to transform our council again by 2018.
The resulting range and level of innovation in the solutions identified provide very real options and
opportunities that can move us a considerable way to meeting our financial challenge whilst
critically continuing to support the key needs of the people of our borough.
“The best way to
predict the future
is to create it…the
best way to deliver
the future is in
partnership.”
2
Rising to the Challenge Rising to the Challenge
Over the next three years we will complete our journey to becoming a more efficient and effective
council. There is no blueprint for what we are about to embark on: we will be creating a new local
government for Croydon.
We will be a strategic enabling body; smaller but more effective, able to leverage our resources for
maximum outcome impact. We will set ambitious goals, use data to create insight and use insight to
reduce demand and enhance the impact of our interventions. Smart choices on how to influence
the future will be supported by structures, governance and reporting that support a flexible and agile
organisation focused on delivering outcomes.
This will require tough choices. We need to stop activities that are not core to the borough’s key
outcomes. Some services will be delivered in partnership with other organisations and the
community. Others we may stop delivering altogether. We need to clarify where we add value and
where we don’t. If others can do it better, they will. We will help partners, providers and residents to
secure shared outcomes and support each other whatever the model of delivery.
We will be digital by design both for customers and staff: enabling us not just to automate more of
what we do and improve engagement, but to support new ways of working and applying disruptive
innovation to public service markets.
We know the challenge ahead is going to require us to think much more radically but as the
Council’s leadership team, we recognise that we are excellent at managing services but have found
change harder to achieve. As a result of the Croydon Challenge programme, we have agreed an
agenda and the need to support change and provide the visible mandate to push forward the
culture and actions necessary to achieve our goals consistent with our values. If we harness the
talents of our staff, our communities and our partners, we will create a council for the future and our
borough will prosper and thrive.
Foreword
3
Tony Newman
Leader,
on behalf of the
Cabinet
Nathan Elvery
Chief Executive,
on behalf of the
Corporate
Leadership Team
“We will have 70% of our
existing resources to affect
positive outcomes for the
People of Croydon”
Rising to the Challenge Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Introducing the Croydon Challenge
Local Government is facing an unprecedented set of challenges with significant financial
reductions and increasing service demands generated by growing needs of some of the
most vulnerable communities it supports. There is also growing public pressure to maintain
and improve services and Croydon is no different to any other authority in this regard.
Having absorbed a funding reduction of 31% over the last three years and despite the upturn
in the economy as a whole, Croydon is expecting at a minimum to have a further reduction
over the period 2015/18 due to the Government deficit reduction, which coupled with
growing demand pressure, will result in a budget gap of £36.56m in 2015/16, £34.57m for
2016/17 and 32.96m in 2017/18 – therefore a total of £104m over the next three years
represents the ‘Croydon Challenge’. For many authorities their response to this situation is
to plan for service cuts and managed withdrawal from service provision, to manage decline.
Our strategy will be different. As an ambitious borough we have approached the ‘challenge’
in what we believe is a unique and necessary way. We have come together to embark on a
fundamental review of our purpose and priorities. We have worked as a team to understand
our shared challenge and explored collectively where we can best add value to Croydon as
a place and to the people who live and work here by assessing everything we do through the
lens of a ‘Challenge Equation’ .
Before jumping to solutions we tested our understanding of local need and the impact of our
current approach against outcomes we want to achieve for our Borough and prepared the
foundations for fostering ideas, innovation and new thinking about our future delivery model.
We’ve landed as a team on a clear purpose for the Council being to lead and shape the
future of our borough, which we can do best through enabling growth, independence and
liveability across a number of themed areas. This matrix provided a framework through
which we were able to prioritise interventions with the greatest impact on what matters.
Over the following sections we set out the journey we undertook to agree as a team what we
needed to achieve, the interventions to make it happen and how to structure our approach to
implementation.
“Through the savings we
have already made over the
last four years, we have
delivered major levels of
efficiencies. Our focus as
we move forward will now
need to be both efficiency
and effectiveness” Budget 14/15 Cabinet Report
4
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary The Challenge Equation
Purpose of the Challenge programme
This document provides an overview of the challenge facing Croydon
Council. It describes the approach that was taken to work together to
redefine the role and purpose of the authority and develop a three
year programme to create an agile and sustainable organisation fit
for the future and for the residents we serve.
We are clear on the political ambition to respond to the challenges
we face and to determine early the programme of transformation.
The greater certainty this provides will empower our leadership to
work together in delivering a coherent strategic agenda, shared by
the leadership, that focuses on the using the resources we have
available most effectively.
As a result of reaching this shared agreement we are much better
placed to close the budget gap. Over the next three years we have a
common understanding of:
• Why we need to change;
• The outcomes on which we will focus;
• The building blocks of an agile organisation; and
• An implementation pathway to make it happen.
5
Approach
Underlying the approach and framing conversations on solutions has
been a ‘Challenge Equation’, illustrated below and explained
overleaf, which will form the core challenge and framework for
everything we do and decision we take over the next three years.
We started by considering the wider context and mega trends
affecting the operating environment, prior to reviewing and identifying
future strategic outcomes and the indicators of success. This meant
when we undertook work to understand the current need and the
cost drivers in the current service model we had an outcome to aim
for. Thematic group discussions, involving 100+ colleagues, then
focussed on what this meant for a future efficient and effective
delivery model.
The process has evolved but the iteration and development of ideas,
switching between needs and outcomes, using equation helped
recognise the relationship between needs and outcomes. The
resulting range and level of innovation in the solutions identified
provide very real options and opportunities that can move us a
considerable way to meeting our financial challenge whilst continuing
to support the key needs and deliver effective outcomes for the
residents of our Borough.
We will continue to use this equation to challenge everything that we
do, in developing policies and programmes. The approach provides a
baseline way of thinking for our organisation that we will revisit
regularly as we adapt to the pressures facing local government and
our Borough to make the most effective use of the resources
available to us.
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary The Challenge Equation
6
Need
New Delivery
Model Outcome Indicator
Building the council
from the bottom up
Partners Community
Current Service
Model
Design Principles
Politicians
Key questions
• How is the cost
driver changing?
• Can we influence
the cost driver?
• Can we change
demand?
• Can we intervene
early?
• Can we change
eligibility / access?
Key questions
• Can we change
quality standards?
• What is the
statutory
minimum?
• Can we negotiate
lower rates?
• Can we change
providers?
Key questions
• What is a digital
version of this
service?
• Who can we
collaborate with?
• Can we charge or
trade?
• Are there alternative
providers?
• Are there alternative
services?
Key questions
• Are our interventions
effective in changing
outcomes?
• What would be the
consequence of not
intervening?
• Should we intervene
more?
Key questions
• In what direction are
we travelling?
• How do we compare
to others?
• Do we have timely
and accurate
indications of what is
happening?
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Overcoming the Challenge
In seeking to redefine our core purpose we landed
on a simplified framework of three holistic
ambitions which underpin every aspect of our role.
These are enabling:
• growth
• independence
• liveability
Enabling in these areas leads us to strategic
outcomes which describe our ambition for
Croydon. We believe those outcomes describes a
positive, enterprising and deliverable agenda for
the Council to lead.
It is an ambition which every politician, leader,
member of staff, partner organisation and
resident can be passionate about. They describes
areas in which we can and should take the lead
and which will drive success.
Our proposition is that this positive agenda, and
our enterprising collaborative values, will energise
everyone to be more effective with the resources
available. It is however, also part of the equation
that we have had to make trade offs, and that
some things we do today will no longer be
considered core to achieving our ambition. In
these areas we will look to exit our involvement,
by stopping or spinning out of the Council
activities without adversely affecting outcomes.
7
Croydon Challenge Strategic Outcomes
Rising to the Challenge
We considered and agreed a limited number of core design principles.
These were our guiding principles informing the development of solutions.
Croydon
Challenge
Design Principles
We are efficient We are effective
We do what
works
We lead
together
We share
accountability We adapt
Less Cost
We continually drive
forward the efficiency of
everything we do
One Croydon We focus on what we can do best.
If others do it better we let them.
We only compete if we could
better achieve our outcomes by
doing so.
We encourage shared
approaches through co-creation
and market making for public
goods
One Council We take a holistic approach to
consider the impact of what we do in
one area on other Council functions.
We have a shared agenda and
collective accountability for each
others responsibilities
We harness all of the talent available
to tackle our challenges together
More Value
We constantly drive to improve
the effectiveness of what we do
Pragmatic Creativity Our approach is pragmatic. We ask first
what best serves the best interests of our
community irrespective of provider.
Our approach is creative. We are open to
different ideas, models and methods that
have potential for measurable benefit.
We prefer evidence but will prototype and
pilot where necessary to test ideas.
Resilient Enterprise We encourage and facilitate independence,
adaptability and enterprising solutions.
We help people, communities and business
to help themselves and help each other
We protect and support people who need
help
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Design Principles
8
Rising to the Challenge 9
Vulnerable
Adults Environment
Vulnerable
Children Housing
Economy
Education
& Skills
Enabling
Core
Health Crime &
safety
Croydon
Challenge
Themes
Crime & safety Developing reassurance and support within local
communities by a greater focus on local places,
based on the principle that perceptions about place
are linked to neighbourhoods more intrinsically than
the Borough as a whole.
Environment Moving to more localised and intelligence
led approaches to managing the public
realm and special investment projects to
secure longer term benefit
Vulnerable Adults Reframing our approach to focus on the
assets of individuals and communities,
mobilising community support and
prioritising Reablement, early
interventions and integration to maximise
opportunities to maintain independence
and reduce reliance.
Health Public health outcomes should be built into all
solutions rather than be stand alone, repositioning as
an integrated function and releasing resources.
Vulnerable Children Creating a ‘Family orientated care system’
underpinned by data analysis and
intelligence and integrated in a way that
prevents progression towards greater
levels of need delivering better outcomes
for those in and on the edge of care and
reducing volumes.
Economy, education & skills Playing a leadership role in messaging, advocating and enabling
strategic change to help make changes happen by leveraging our
position and networks. In some cases that also means handing control
over to others and lending them our support to thrive outside of the
council.
Housing Tackling the failure of the market to
provide enough supply of stable and
secure accommodation, affordable and
effective in meeting local needs through
greater intervention both directly and
indirectly in the market.
Enabling Core Interrelated and interdependent changes with
significant potential to put in place the foundations of a
future agile council, primarily in the middle and back
office for further simplification and sharing of support.
Executive Summary Theme group focus
The outcomes and design principles identified informed work to
understand what drives our costs and opportunities for different
interventions. Reaching beyond our leadership and engaging head of
services in thematic groups we broke into groups to develop
solutions for the future
Rising to the Challenge
Eyes &
Ears
Health
Integration Asset
Management
People
‘Think
Family’
Integration
Places
Cultural
Development
Trust
Commercial
Croydon
Phase II
Procurement
Digital by design
Enabling
Challenge
Programme
Health &
Social Care
Integration
Eyes &
Ears
Needs and assets
assessment
Single Assessment
Model CWD & SEN
Adult Social Care /
Social Capital
Smart citizens
Data analytics
Council a
s a
develo
per
Priv
ate
La
nd
lord
Sch
em
e
10
Executive Summary Fifty solutions connecting our strategic direction
Family based early intervention
Fostering – alternative delivery model
Project
Key
Building block
GROWTH
INDEPENDENCE
LIVEABILITY
CORPORATE
Strategy
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Forming the building blocks of the future council
11
From the wide range of solutions we have
drawn out ten building blocks for the future
council forming the basis of our case for
change, collated in four strategies.
We need to first establish a strong enabling
spine to the organisation which is flexible and
adaptable for the future. That means having the
insights to make smart decisions and
understand our business. Such a model must
be fit for the digital age, which means
fundamental change to many of our processes
and procedures.
To be successful in our change, we need
liveable places where communities have local
capability to act and influence successful
interventions.
We also need to align structures behind
delivering our goals for the Borough – meaning
we will shift resources into enabling growth,
independence and liveability and out of areas
that do not contribute to these goals.
Finally, we need to enable activities which are
not core to our role in delivering the goals of the
Borough to spin out into sustainable models
that can thrive outside of the council.
This building block will support community assets and talent to design, deliver and improve services; to help themselves with services shaped at a community scale.
This building block will support development of sustainable future business models for discretionary services.
This building block will focus on creating a platform for growth through the key levers of skills, infrastructure, investment and innovation to accelerate delivery of jobs and homes for our residents.
This building block will maximise the impact of our visible presence, with multi-skilled teams focused on the entire Challenge not single silos
This building block will apply agile digital solutions to help reduce the cost and way in which we do business, transforming both the customer experience and our internal services so we are fit for the digital age
This building block will consolidate, rationalise and digitalise enabling support helping automate, eliminate and streamline processes.
This building block will consolidate expertise in commercial approaches to commercial opportunities and achieve multiple policy objectives, raising money while promoting positive outcomes.
This building block will explore further potential for building on cost reduction in our third party spend to adding value through supplier relationships.
This building block will put people and families at the heart of our approach, taking the opportunity to create a family centred and networked approach to care and wider support services
This building block will reset and reshape our relationship across the health economy to determine the right delivery models for effectively supporting healthy communities.
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Building blocks – a strong enabling spine
12
Our first strategy is to establish a strong enabling spine to the organisation which enables the Council to be flexible and adaptable for the
future. That means having the insights to make smart decisions based on understanding gained from our business intelligence and the
predictive analytics of how our markets are changing. It also means being fit for the digital age, fundamentally changing many of our processes
and procedures both for the customer experience and our internal business experience. The building blocks of this strategy are:
This building block will
consolidate, rationalise and
digitalise enabling support
helping automate, eliminate
and streamline processes.
By adopting a more aggressive
approach to simplify, standardise
and share support resulting in a
more agile and resilient function
with an ambition to secure
significant savings and process
improvements. This will impact
on every service area of our
organisation.
Enabling
This building block will apply
agile digital solutions to help
reduce the cost and way in
which we do business,
transforming both the
customer experience and our
internal services so we are fit
for the digital age
This will support implementation
of agile enabling services and
customer interactions,
disrupting, transforming and
reshaping our operations.
This will affect every service
area as well as service design
and business insight using
analytical capability to create a
shared understanding using the
challenge equation.
.
Digital by
Design
This building block will
consolidate expertise in
commercial approaches to
commercial opportunities and
achieve multiple policy
objectives, raising money
while promoting positive
outcomes.
The programme will potentially
impact on every service area
with an income or investment
need as it develops.
Commercial
This building block will
explore further potential for
building on cost reduction in
our third party spend to
adding value through supplier
relationships.
The programme will impact on
every service area with third
party spend and supplier
relationships.
Early projects will focus on
contract management & risk
appetite. Utilising different
approaches, levels of risk and
markets the project will ensure
the best return.
Procurement
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Building blocks – local capability
13
Our second strategy is to ensure we are able to better responding to the need for different places to improve local responsiveness to divergent
needs and increase the liveability of all parts of the Borough. This will include expanding our community development support and through
better utilisation of assets to achieve policy outcomes, as well as assessing and implementing the right delivery model in secure a sustainable
future for non-core activities outside of the council. The building blocks under this strategy are:
This building block will support
community assets and talent within
communities to design, deliver and
improve services; to help themselves
with services shaped at a community
scale.
There is significant capacity and capability
in local communities and if we are to
maximise the effectiveness of our
resources we have to engage and
empower local people.
A range of options from local delivery
through to resident engagement to shape
services will define the optimum service
approach for individual communities.
Places
This building block will maximise the
impact of our visible presence, with
multi-skilled teams focused on the entire
Challenge not single silos
Across our business many teams and
functions are operating in communities and
with businesses. We need to make the
most of our presence, by being more visible
and having greater positive impact. We will
do this by taking shared ownership of
Borough outcomes, multi-skilling operatives
and empowering teams to generate and
utilise operational insight and intelligence to
improve outcomes in their own service and
that of others.
Eyes & Ears
This building block will support
development of sustainable future
business models for discretionary
services relating the environmental and
cultural services.
The initial focus will be on taking forward an
assessment of the potential for a Cultural
Development Trust.
These are service areas which are under
pressure within the Council structure yet
have the potential to thrive from
empowering their managers and leaders to
delivery in new ways for the people they
service.
Cultural
Development
Trust
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Building blocks – aligned structures
14
Our third aim will to align structures behind our outcome goals and operational excellence – meaning we will shift accountability and resources
to enabling co-ordinated approaches to promoting growth and independence. This will help align us to support people and families more
holistically and result in greater independence, and to focus on stimulating and enabling growth that benefits the whole Borough. The building
blocks of these strategies include:
This building block will put people and
families at the heart of our approach,
taking the opportunity to create a family
centred and networked approach to care
and wider support services.
Ensuring we are clear on the key outcomes
for people and families our approach will
consolidate and align process to maximise
their effectiveness towards independence.
Aligning our services with key partners and
utilising data to ensure we are pro-active in
our approach and manage key transitions
through life.
.
People
‘Think
Family’
Integration
This building block will reset and
reshape our relationship across the
health economy to determine the right
delivery models for effectively
supporting healthy communities.
The approach will maximise the
effectiveness of our resources by aligning
effort to our key outcomes and wherever
appropriate integrating the approach with
other council and partner services and
assets.
The focus will be on proactive
interventions, using data and insight to
shape and monitor outcomes.
Health & Social
Care Integration
This building block will focus on
creating a platform for growth through
the key levers of skills, infrastructure,
investment and innovation to accelerate
delivery of jobs and homes for our
residents.
The approach will shape, develop and
stimulate the best environment for
Croydon.
Different methods will be developed for the
various market sectors, including council
assets.
Asset
Management
Rising to the Challenge
Which solutions matter?
Executive Summary Building blocks – summary of the potential benefits
The building blocks of our strategy
are mutually reinforcing in
contributing to the £55m potential off
the baseline currently identified.
Collectively the identified solutions
mean that we have identified the
means to cover local pressures on
our budget over the next three
years.
As a result we have positioned the
Council to be more resilient in
responding as the need to find
additional savings as a result of the
loss of Government funding arises.
15
Challenge Building
Blocks
% share of savings identified
£12.8m 23%
£4.5m 8%
£4m 7%
£5.9m 11%
£0.6m 1%
£5.1m 9%
£8.1m 15%
£12m 22%
£1.9m 4%
£0.1m 0%
Enable
Digital
Commercial
Procurement
Health
People
Asset Management
Places
Culture
Eyes & Ears
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary Building blocks – summary of potential benefits
The Croydon Challenge will require us to plan for and invest in change across our operations over the next three years, as we seek to identify
and implement savings of over £30m each year. The scoping through this phase of work has provided the basis for a three year plan setting
the direction of travel through which we will secure benefits through a range of initiatives, and as a result of becoming more flexible and agile,
be better able to identify additional opportunities.
We have identified net savings after anticipated investment costs equivalent to the local pressures we face, accounting for 53% of the
challenge requirement, and meaning the remaining budget gap is equivalent to the cut in government grant. To achieve these savings there is
a need to maintain momentum and undertake further analysis to inform the implementation planning and budget setting. While further savings
need to be identified the Challenge process has shown how we can prepare the organisation and use the challenge equation to continually
challenge our current approach and find further opportunities.
Our work together will continue to develop the financial case of the projects identified and additional departmental initiatives to add to and
complement the savings identified in the challenge process.
-40
-30
-20
-10
02015/16 2016/17 2017/18£
m
Budget gap Identified Savings Remaining Gap
£36.56m £32.96m £34.57m £23.77m £12.78m £20.14m £11.12m £14.43m £21.84m
16
Rising to the Challenge
Executive Summary A future blueprint
17
The blueprint diagram builds
represents a draft to inform
development of an operating
model design – it should not be
regarded as complete.
Our operating model design will
ultimately lead to the new
structure of the Council.
The Challenge programme should
lead the co-ordination and
enabling core and change pillars,
with departmental leads on the
three goals. However it is
important that the whole
programme operates in an
integrated manner to avoid
duplication and divergence.
This scale of transformation
needs a strong engine to provide
the drive and co-ordination
across multiple programmes and
projects, including work in flight
and business as usual.
Delivery
partners
Challenge
Leadership DMT
Extended Leadership
CABINET
CLT
Engagement &
Communication
LSP Leadership LSP Leadership
Challenge
Management
Office
Enabling
Digital by design
Eyes &
Ears
Health
Integration Asset
Management
People
‘Think
Family’
Integration
Places
Cultural
Development
Trust
Commercial
Croydon
Phase II
Procurement
Digital by design
Enabling
Health &
social care
Integration
Eyes &
Ears