|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Report of the Chief Executive
and Town Clerk
|
|
||
|
to |
|
||
|
Cabinet
|
|
||
|
on |
|
||
|
6
March 2007 |
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
Report prepared by: Tracy Harris |
|
||
Inspiring - Organisational
Development Programme
|
||||
All Scrutiny Committees –
Executive Councillor: Councillor Foster
|
||||
A Part 1 Public Agenda Item
|
||||
1. Purpose of Report
1.1 This report introduces the Inspiring Organisational
Development Programme of Intervention, which has been designed to focus on the
people needs required to move the organisation towards its vision of Creating a
Better Southend. The Programme of
intervention, noting progress to end January 2007 is attached.
2. Recommendation
2.1 It is recommended that the Organisational Development
Programme of Intervention is approved to support delivery of the Corporate
Plan, corporate risk management and financial arrangements.
3. Background
3.1 Initiating an Organisational Development Programme to embed a high performing culture
across our Council was agreed as a Critical Corporate Priority for
2006/07. The objective is to bring
about significant improvements in organisational effectiveness and service
performance through planned intervention.
A participative approach
to designing the programme
3.2 A participative approach was taken to establishing the
culture within the organisation and aspirations towards an excellent
authority. A series of “Inspiring”
workshops were conducted during the autumn of 2006 with over 180 officers,
councillors and key partners participating.
Together
we have been uncovering different perspectives on the way the Council works,
coming to an understanding of what makes the Council successful and the things
that must change to significantly improve performance. The Programme of Intervention draws together many hundreds of
suggestions made at these workshops.
3.3 The Inspiring workshops revealed that people right across
the organisation hold very strong aspirations for the Council. Some examples are:
·
An organisation that aspires to be excellent
·
A flagship, proud and respected organisation
·
A positive influence in the lives of all who live, work or visit
Southend.
·
Determined to achieve maximum benefits for the people of Southend
·
A modern, dynamic and innovative organisation
·
An organisation that values, supports, empowers, challenges and
motivates staff to provide excellence.
·
An organisation that values diversity
·
An attractive employer that people are proud to work for
·
An organisation that is responsive, listening and recognises success
This begs the question, verbalised
at one workshop, that if we all hold similar strong aspirations for our
Council, what is holding us back? An important aspect in our understanding of
this is the information retrieved about the current culture of the Council,
providing powerful insights into the causes of the blockages to significant
improvements. Information on the
current culture demonstrates that the underlying beliefs about the organisation
do not support our goal of a high performing organisation.
Key findings from the
workshops
3.4 The Inspiring workshops demonstrated an energy and
readiness within the organisation to make significant improvements. However, there is still much work to be done
to engender an ownership of the Council.
This is essential to embed the improvements required right across the
Council.
3.5 Information from
the workshops has been analysed and grouped according to theme by each group
that participated in the workshops.
The themes are:
·
One Council (Leadership/Ambition, Strategy/Priorities and Resources)
·
Capacity: Our People
·
Working with the community
Some key messages are given below and in
brackets it is indicated which particular group raised the issue or whether it
was raised by all groups.
One Council
There are powerful aspirations held for leadership,
the Council’s ambitions, strategy and priorities. Examples are set out below:
o
A flagship and proud organisation, celebrating success at all levels,
recognising and rewarding achievement of goals (all groups)
o
Providing a positive influence and maximum benefits for all who live
work and visit Southend (councillors and front line staff)
o
Modern, dynamic, proactive, innovative and surprising, learning from
change and taking appropriate risks (all groups)
o
Aspiring to be excellent / a 4 star authority and wanting to succeed
(all groups)
o
An organisation with a “we team” approach to leadership, that is
inspirational with a positive attitude (Cabinet)
o
An organisation that has a strategy for longer term budgets (Directors
and Assistant Directors)
o
An organisation that uses finance as a strategic tool (Directors and
Assistant Directors)
There are also some significant gaps between
aspirations and our current culture in terms of leadership, ambition and
priorities. Examples include
o
Working as one team, instead of distinct separate businesses.
o
Setting and sticking to priorities, instead of trying to tackle all new
initiatives
Capacity: Our People
There are powerful aspirations held for our
people:
o
An organisation that values staff and councillors (all groups)
o
An organisation that rewards performance, success and ideas (all groups)
o
An organisation that recognises and values diversity (all groups)
o
An organisation that offers incentives to achieve (front line staff)
o
A listening organisation (Councillors)
o
An attractive employer (Managers)
o
An organisation where people are empowered (Cabinet)
However, there are also some significant gaps
between aspirations and our current culture in terms of our people. For example:
o
Demonstrating trust in staff, instead of acting as if all staff are
untrustworthy.
o
Prioritising developing people, rather than acting as if staff don’t
need development.
Working with the
community
There are strong aspirations, but also some
significant gaps between those and our current culture in terms of our views on
the community. Examples of issues
raised at the workshops – mainly by our external partners are:
o
An organisation that runs the town for its residents, rather than the
perception that we are not sufficiently customer focused.
o
An organisation that understands its client needs and acts on them,
rather than the perception that we do not sufficiently understand or act on
these needs.
o
An organisation that listens, communicates and is fully inclusive,
rather than the perception that we do not listen fully.
Programme of Intervention
3.5 The Programme of Intervention brings together suggestions
from all those officers, councillors and partners who have contributed to the
Inspiring programme and given their honest views to help drive forward a
programme of change and improvement. The
interventions recommended have been broken down into the themes as set out
above, and further broken down into Short term, Medium Term and Long Term
Actions. The Programme of Intervention,
noting progress to January 2007 is attached at Appendix 1.
Monitoring arrangements
- The Programme of Intervention will be
constantly reviewed to ensure that it continues to provide for the needs
of the organisation, driving and sustaining the breakthrough to
significant improvement. We will
review the effectiveness of the programme on a monthly basis and the
Organisational Development Programme Board will agree quarterly updates to
the Programme.
4. Corporate Implications
4.1 Resource
Implications (Finance, People, Property).
We are grateful
for the support of Building Capacity East in contributing £232,400 for 2006/07
and 2007/08 towards a significant proportion of the Programme. This includes a contribution towards
one-third of programme management costs for the organisational development
team. £90,000 was also allocated from
Council resources for 2006/07.
To maintain the
Organisational Development team in 2007/08 to deliver the Programme of
Intervention and to meet the new Critical Corporate Priority, it is estimated
that the Council would need to contribute approximately £130,000 (this includes
an estimated allocation for a second employee opinion survey, similar to that
last conducted in October 2005). The
position will be reviewed by the Organisational Development Programme Board in
summer 2007.
The Director of
Community Services is currently in discussion with the Department of Health,
who may contribute between £50,000 and £70,000 (match funded) towards the
Inspiring programme, targeted at the Adult and Community Services Department. This work is expected to commence from April
2007 for up to nine months.
The Chief
Executive has also arranged for The Leadership Centre to support the Council by
funding the time of a leadership adviser to work with all the main political
groups and CMT to build their capacity for leadership. This work should commence in April 2007.
4.2 Contribution
to Council’s Vision & Critical Priorities
Organisational
Development provides an approach to transform organisations to make significant
improvements. It provides tools and
techniques to take a whole organisation perspective to understanding issues,
then planning and implementing improvements.
This approach is being used to help achieve a cultural shift and deliver
improvements aligned to our vision of Creating a Better Southend. This can help to improve the use of our
resources – particularly people – our greatest asset and give a common sense of
purpose to the success we are striving for.
Initiating an Organisational Development
Programme to embed a high performing culture across our Council was agreed as a
Critical Corporate Priority for 2006/07.
The cultural self assessment and the programme of intervention meet the
first two of the agreed targets.
4.3 Consultation
The establishment of the
Organisational Development approach was largely based on feedback from the
initial employee opinion survey in October 2005. The participative approach to
designing the programme meant that over 180 people within the Council, or key
partners working with the council attended Inspiring workshops to give their
views. A further employee and
councillor opinion survey is recommended in 2007/08 as part of the Programme of
Intervention.
In 2007/08 we propose, with the
assistance of The Leadership Centre, to undertake a project to address the
question of “what is the leadership role of Southend-on-Sea Borough Council in
determining what sort of town we want to be?”
This will include consultation with the public. Limited consultation on the organisation we
are perceived to be was undertaken through the Southend Consultation Panel in
November 2006. The issues raised have
been taken into account in designing the Organisational Development Programme
and in developing the Corporate Customer Care Charter.
4.4 Equalities
Impact Assessment
The Inspiring Programme is
supporting the organisation to achieve Level 2 of the Equality Standard, led by
the Corporate Equality Steering Group.
This is integral to achieving culture change in the organisation. The training and development programme for
equalities aspects of organisational development is currently being considered
by the Corporate Equality Steering Group.
The Organisational Development
Team is currently undertaking an Equality Impact Assessment on the Programme of
Intervention. This is to be reported to
the Corporate Equality Steering Group and will be reviewed and agreed by the
Organisational Development Programme Board.
4.5 Risk
Assessment
This Programme is intended to
support the Corporate Risk Management arrangements. A risk assessment was conducted at the start of the
Organisational Development approach, and is reviewed on a monthly basis, with
the reporting of the Critical Corporate Priority monitoring.
4.6 Value
for Money
So far the investment by the
Council of £90,000 in 2006/07 has repaid the investment by other agencies – see
resources above. Through the people
development aspects this programme will also raise skills and awareness of
value for money issues within the Council.
4.7 Community
Safety Implications
None
identified.
4.8 Environmental
Impact
None
identified.
5. Background Papers
6. Appendices
Appendix 1: Achieving culture change in our Council: An
Organisational Development Programme of Intervention for Southend-on-Sea
Borough Council. Progress report to end January 2007.
