LGA Corporate Peer Challenge: London Borough of Lambeth

Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) is a highly valued improvement and assurance tool that is delivered by the sector for the sector. It involves a team of senior local government councillors and officers undertaking a comprehensive review of key finance, performance and governance information and then spending four days at the London Borough of Lambeth (Lambeth) to provide robust, strategic, and credible challenge and support.

CPC forms a key part of the improvement and assurance framework for local government. It is underpinned by the principles of Sector-led Improvement (SLI) put in place by councils and the Local Government Association (LGA) to support continuous improvement and assurance across the sector. These state that local authorities are: Responsible for their own performance, Accountable locally not nationally and have a collective responsibility for the performance of the sector.

CPC assists councils in meeting part of their Best Value duty, with the UK Government expecting all local authorities to have a CPC at least every five years.

Peers remain at the heart of the peer challenge process and provide a ‘practitioner perspective’ and ‘critical friend’ challenge.

This report outlines the key findings of the peer team and the recommendations that the council are required to action.

The London Borough of Lambeth (Lambeth / the council hereafter) has a clear and ambitious borough plan, Lambeth 2030, in which equity and justice shines through. The vision is well-understood by members, staff and key partners alike, and is underpinned by a new performance framework which the recently established Communities, Governance and Change (CGC) directorate is working with service directorates to embed.

The peer team heard of solid political leadership and stability at the council and of good relationships between officers and members. Though the previous chief executive left Lambeth suddenly in summer 2024, the council’s political leadership (particularly the leader of the council), acting chief executive and senior management team have worked hard to provide reassurance to staff, partners and community groups and create stability while the organisation recruits a new permanent chief executive.

The peer team similarly heard positive feedback about partnership working across the borough, and of the council’s role in convening partners and providing a constant presence in multiple different partnerships. This is a key strength for the council. Lambeth is seen to have shown strong leadership on climate change and net zero and is involved in innovative practice in this area.

Lambeth has taken clear steps recently to address historic challenges and service issues it has been grappling with for many years. Through these efforts, the review team saw evidence that the council has strengthened its organisational culture (with more work to do), managed a substantial compensation scheme for historic child sexual abuse (CSA) in its children’s homes, and is showing evidence of service improvements in children’s services and housing. While there is a need to maintain momentum in these areas, the council can reflect positively on the steps it has taken in the past couple of years and should consider how to share its learning with other councils.

There is widespread understanding that the council needs to change in order to meet the challenges of the future. The One Lambeth transformation has had some early successes, for example developing and embedding the One Lambeth values. Work is now underway to develop a full transformation programme with priorities including the use of digital tools and technology and reducing demand through early intervention and prevention. However, greater clarity is needed – quickly – about the respective roles and responsibilities of the corporate centre and services in relation to transformation, to ensure that duplication of effort is avoided and the organisation knows where accountability lies.

While the review team heard from a number of sources that the council ‘needs to change’, there was less clarity about what transformation means for the council. The council has an ambitious vision for the borough by 2030 but it is not yet clear how the council itself will need to change to meet its challenges and achieve this wider vision. There is an opportunity here for the council to work with members, staff, partners and residents to shape the future vision for the authority and identify a future target operating model, building on its strong local partnerships and transformation priorities to integrate services, improve residents’ experiences and reduce demand.

As it works through the process of transformation and embeds the new CGC directorate, the council should as noted review and clarify the balance of responsibilities and integration between its corporate centre and service directorates. It should also strengthen corporate governance structures by taking a consistent approach across different Boards and reviewing its member development programme to support members to fulfil their roles during a period of change, and challenge, for the organisation.

As with most councils, the backdrop to the One Lambeth programme is the significant financial pressure the council is under. While Lambeth has some unique financial pressures (it has previously secured an exceptional financial support agreement in relation to the CSA compensation scheme and is working through the close down and associated revenue implications of Homes for Lambeth, its former housing development company), the council is also dealing with a set of financial challenges facing other London Boroughs and councils nationally. Temporary accommodation is a huge and growing pressure, accounting for an unprecedented £28m of a projected £34.3m overspend on its 2024/25 budget; the council is also far from unique in experiencing significant pressure on its housing revenue account (HRA).

The council, like the sector, faces an extremely challenging financial future and must focus on transformation, going faster and further to identify where it can make savings. Tough decisions will be needed and the council will need to be open and transparent about this, ensuring all councillors, staff and communities are aware of and understand the implications of the organisation’s financial position. Despite Lambeth having a strong track record on identifying and delivering savings, the measures it has put in place to control spending, and some evidence of the council being willing to take difficult decisions, there is a clear and immediate risk that the pressures it is facing could overwhelm its finances and mean it is unable to set a balanced budget in the very near future.

All options and routes through the financial challenges must remain on the table and be explored and Lambeth needs to work quickly to ensure clarity about all the different revenue pressures it is facing. The council will need to think collectively about the severe pressures it faces across the general fund and HRA, considering all the options open to it in its discussions with Government. The peer team urges the council to be upfront about these challenges and how it is responding, enabling it to own the narrative on the systemic nature of its financial issues, and to work with London councils, the Local Government Association, and other councils to make the case on shared challenges and the need for long term sustainable funding for councils.

There are a number of observations and suggestions within the main section of the report. The following are the peer team’s key recommendations to the council:

1. Work quickly to provide clarity on the full revenue implications of the HRA and the winding down of Homes for Lambeth.

The council should quickly finalise the accounting treatment and any revenue implications of closing down Homes for Lambeth alongside robust forecasts for wider pressures on the HRA for maintenance and repairs of existing stock and clarity about the future costs of social housing which has been marked for regeneration. Until the council has identified the full scale of its HRA pressures, and the interplay with general fund pressures, it will not have a clear idea of the scale of its financial challenge, the size of the task needed to address it and the decisions it will need to take to become financial sustainable over the short to medium-term.

2. Take a collective and transparent approach to the organisation’s financial challenges; building on difficult decisions taken already, go further and faster on savings and transformation and consider all options in the ongoing discussions with Government.

As part of this, it is likely that the council will need to consider which services it needs to scale back and perhaps stop entirely to deal with the financial challenges it faces. While continuing to focus on transformation and taking difficult decisions where required, the council should ensure it is approaching the financial challenges in its general fund and HRA in a joined up way with a full view of future pressures across both, including in the options it discusses with Government.

3. Maintain pace on developing the One Lambeth transformation approach and work to clarify roles and responsibilities across the corporate centre and services.

The council should work quickly to map out the next phase of its transformation programme, developing detailed plans for each of the priorities identified, and working through the balance of responsibility between the CGC directorate and service areas in designing and implementing these. It will be important for the council to be clear who is accountable for delivering transformation, with the corporate centre enabling transformation to be led by services. In working to clarify roles and responsibilities, the council should look to reduce duplication and ensure the correct governance is in place.

4. Be clear on how the organisation needs to change and what that means for services and organisational structure, working towards a new target operating model. The council should use this as an opportunity to take members, staff, partners and residents with it in creating a vision for the future of the organisation.

As a critical strand of the transformation programme, the council should work with members, staff, partners and residents to identify how the organisation needs to change to meet future challenges and what the new target operating model looks like.

5. Building on the success of health integration and broader partnership working, consider how you integrate people focused services to manage demand more effectively and drive improvements in resident experience.

The council has a strong track record of working collaboratively across health and social care, and with other partners, and has consciously linked up its housing and adult social care services. As part of the One Lambeth transformation approach, the council should focus on joining up all of its people facing services, supporting the focus on early intervention and prevention and improving the services that residents receive.

6. Ensure the improved governance put in place to oversee improvement in children’s services and housing is replicated in corporate committees – consider external representation on your Housing Improvement Board and a Centre for Governance and Scrutiny review of scrutiny.

The council could strengthen key areas of corporate governance through replicating the external representation already on the Children’s Improvement Board on the Housing Improvement Board, considering a Centre for Governance and Scrutiny review of scrutiny, and providing support for the corporate committee following the appointment of a new chair and independent members.

7. Refresh the member development offer to support members and committee to deliver their roles in increasingly challenging circumstances.

The council would benefit from reviewing its current member development programme to ensure the training and support provided both to individual councillors and committees collectively enables them to fulfil their roles at a period of increasing challenge for the organisation.

8. Maintain strong leadership on climate justice but prioritise the actions that will have the greatest impact on climate change and net zero and ensure costs are reflected in the Medium-Term Financial Plan.

To enhance its good work on climate change and net zero, the council should consider targeting its work with suppliers, participating in an external audit / benchmark of its activity and taking steps to raise awareness across frontline staff.

9. Continue to embed significant progress made in strengthening organisational culture.

The council has made progress in improving organisational culture since an external report in 2019, including the recent adoption of the new One Lambeth values: it should focus on maintaining momentum on this despite the difficult financial context the council is operating in.

The peer team

Peer challenges are delivered by experienced elected member and officer peers. The make-up of the peer team reflected the focus of the peer challenge and peers were selected by the LGA on the basis of their relevant expertise. The peers were:

• Lead officer peer: Stephen Evans, chief executive, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
• Lead member peer: Cllr Shantanu Rajawat, leader, London Borough of Hounslow
• David Hodgkinson, corporate director of resources, London Borough of Islington
• Polly Cook, chief officer climate, energy and green spaces, Leeds City Council
• Sajda Nawaz-Bhatti, head of policy and performance, Newcastle City Council
• Ama Goulden, assistant regional programme manager One Public Estate Programme, Local Government Association (LGA Shadow Peer)
• Ellie Greenwood, LGA peer challenge manager

Scope and focus

The peer team considered the following five themes which form the core components of all Corporate Peer Challenges. These areas are critical to councils’ performance and improvement.

1. Local priorities and outcomes - Are the council’s priorities clear and informed by the local context? Is the council delivering effectively on its priorities? Is there an organisational-wide approach to continuous improvement, with frequent monitoring, reporting on and updating of performance and improvement plans?
2. Organisational and place leadership - Does the council provide effective local leadership? Are there good relationships with partner organisations and local communities?
3. Governance and culture - Are there clear and robust governance arrangements? Is there a culture of challenge and scrutiny?
4. Financial planning and management - Does the council have a grip on its current financial position? Does the council have a strategy and a plan to address its financial challenges? What is the relative financial resilience of the council like?
5. Capacity for improvement - Is the organisation able to bring about the improvements it needs, including delivering on locally identified priorities? Does the council have the capacity to improve?

As part of the five core elements outlined above, every Corporate Peer Challenge includes a strong focus on financial sustainability, performance, governance, and assurance.

In addition to these themes, the council asked the peer team to provide feedback on its corporate strategy, planning and performance and its approach to climate change and net zero.

The peer challenge process

Peer challenges are improvement focused; it is important to stress that this was not an inspection. The process is not designed to provide an in-depth or technical assessment of plans and proposals. 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 by reviewing a range of documents and information in order to ensure they were familiar with the council and the challenges it is facing. This included a position statement prepared by the council in advance of the peer team’s time on site. This provided a clear steer to the peer team on the local context at Lambeth and what the peer team should focus on. It also included a comprehensive LGA Finance briefing (prepared using public reports from the council’s website) and a LGA performance report outlining benchmarking data for the council across a range of metrics. The latter was produced using the LGA’s local area benchmarking tool called LG Inform.

The peer team then spent four days onsite at Lambeth, during which they:

• Gathered evidence, information, and views from more than 45 meetings, in addition to further research and reading.
• Spoke to more than 90 people including a range of council staff together with members and external stakeholders.

This report provides a summary of the peer team’s findings. In presenting feedback, they have done so as fellow local government officers and members.

About Lambeth

Lambeth is a highly diverse and vibrant borough – in terms of both its population and its place. The home of the Windrush Generation, almost 40 per cent of the borough’s population of 317,000 (the ninth largest in London) were born outside the UK, with 130 languages spoken by its residents; the borough also has the largest LGBTQ+ population in London. It is a comparatively young borough, with a high concentration of people aged between 20 and 40, although in common with other parts of London it has a declining number of children and an increasing number of older adults. The borough has five distinct main neighbourhoods - Brixton, Clapham, Norwood, Streatham and Waterloo; in Waterloo, it includes a prominent part of central London attracting large numbers of tourists and visitors, and is home to world-renowned cultural, educational and health institutions. Clearly, there are opportunities that come with this; few councils have the benefit of receiving a £34m community infrastructure levy payment linked to the development of central London real estate, for example. But there are challenges, too, in terms of knitting together a cohesive narrative for a diverse place, and in the clear differentials in residents’ life experiences across the borough, something that is not uncommon in London but nevertheless stark and visible. 

The council’s vision and priorities

The council’s priorities for Lambeth are set out in its borough plan, Lambeth 2030, published in 2023. It is through this document that the council has developed a shared vision for its diverse areas and population. Lambeth 2030 is based on the administration’s political manifesto and builds on the previous borough plan as well as input from residents, partners and staff. It sets out ambitious objectives under the headings of making Lambeth neighbourhoods fit for the future, making Lambeth a place we can all call home, and making Lambeth one of the safest boroughs in London. 

The council undertook various engagement activity to help shape the plan in the later months of 2022. The findings from a staff design week, 17 borough workshops, Cabinet-led partnership roundtables, and a public survey are summarised in a detailed Lambeth 2030 engagement report. The council has developed a One Lambeth engagement toolkit to support community engagement activity for other purposes.

The peer team found that there is good awareness and understanding of the vision and ambitions of Lambeth 2030 amongst members, staff and key partners. Despite the engagement activity, there appeared to be less consistent awareness amongst the residents and voluntary and community sector (VCS) groups the peer team engaged with, and a clear desire amongst many of those who hadn’t been engaged to be involved in future discussions – the council could consider how it taps into this resource in its future work.

Equity and justice

Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) is a core focus for the council. Alongside its three headline priorities, Lambeth 2030 includes a golden thread of equity and justice, with ambitions to reduce deprivation and child poverty, tackle the structural inequalities adversely impacting Black, Asian and Multi-Ethnic residents, and working with LGBTQ+ and disabled residents to tackle the biggest challenges they face. The plan also speaks explicitly about climate justice, with a clear recognition of how the impacts of climate change are often experienced by the poorest members of society. This has led the council to take some difficult political decisions on measures such as low traffic neighbourhoods and lead campaigns on potentially polarising issues such as domestic fuel consumption (wood burners). There is a strong sense of the council’s political leadership on climate change and net zero.

Alongside the outward focus of the Lambeth 2030 objectives, and a newly established Equality and Inclusion partnership, the council has a Corporate Workforce EDI Strategy and Action Plan 2023-26 setting out a range of internally focused objectives and supporting actions. The corporate EDI action plan is supported by individual directorate EDI action plans, with; progress against plans is reported quarterly. In 2024, the council moved up from 166^th to 79^th in Stonewall’s workplace equality index.

Lambeth has had more success than many councils in ensuring that its staff base reflects its local population: over 60 per cent of the council’s staff are Black, Asian or Multi-ethnic, and it has the highest proportion of black staff (at 45 per cent) of any London borough. As one person observed, ‘Lambeth’s greatest strength is the diversity of its workforce.’ The council is also trialling including EDI panellists for interviews, although the peer team heard that there is work to do to ensure this is used consistently.

The council has an Equality Impact Assessment Panel, chaired by the lead Cabinet Members for Equalities, Governance & Change, to quality assure the assessments produced across the council in support of its public sector equality duty. The council can also highlight good examples of using data through its ‘equity and justice data toolkit’ to support the EIA process in Lambeth, enabling the organisation to identify where decisions might disproportionately impact certain groups, and also where interventions can advance equality of opportunity for residents. 

Funding awarded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to develop Lambeth HEART is a key asset that the council can use to support their ambitions. Transforming the organisation’s approach to research and data will support the development of evidence-based responses both within the council and across place-based systems to both tackle the wider determinants of health and improve outcomes for residents. 

Performance

Lambeth has had long standing issues in children services (which since 2015 has been judged by Ofsted to be inadequate or require improvement), and significant challenges in its housing services, with well-documented engagement with the Housing Ombudsman and former Secretary of State and public criticism in the media.

Both services have new officers in senior positions, and steps have been taken to strengthen governance and oversight of these key areas, with a Children’s Improvement Board and Housing Improvement Board established. The council has shown willingness to bring in external expertise to help advise on issues, with an independent adviser on children’s services appointed, and a recent LGA SEND peer challenge. The Children’s Improvement Board is independently chaired by Lambeth’s independent adviser on children’s improvement. The Housing Improvement Board is chaired by the Leader to highlight political leadership in this area; the peer team recommend that the council also seeks to bring some external representation on its Housing Improvement Board to draw in expertise from outside the council. 

In children’s services, a revisit from Ofsted is likely soon. The council’s quarter one data for 2024/25 indicates improved performance in key performance indicators. Good progress has also been made in reducing the service’s overspend with work to reduce the number of agency staff and introduce care package review meetings. Good progress has been made in recruiting to permanent roles at senior level in children’s services which has provided stability and drive.

In housing, there is a clear focus on safety and ensuring legal compliance, with multiple initiatives and improvement projects underway, including Pathway for Repairs (a new integrated repairs and neighbourhood housing service) a Disrepairs Programme, and a Responsive Repairs programme focusing on process, training, technology and communication. Evidence suggests things are improving, with the non-decency rate for the council’s stock reducing from 22 per cent to 11 per cent, and improved responses to complaints handling, although there is clearly far more to do. The council has also updated its Corporate Complaints Policy in April 2024, in line with a recommendation from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to improve its complaints handling process. 

The council has updated its homelessness strategy. A Temporary Accommodation Recovery Board and action plan are in place, with measures including support for rent deposits, working with landlords and converting council assets into temporary accommodation. In recognition of the scale of the financial challenge, the issue is also being considered by the council’s Corporate Delivery Board to ensure corporate-wide input and awareness of the issue.

It appeared to the peer team that Lambeth is making progress in tackling issues in children’s services and housing, and that the council can reflect positively on the changes implemented and work that is underway. Ultimately, however, it is for Ofsted and the Regulator of Social Housing to provide a judgement on the council’s progress based on their more detailed investigations; at the end of November, the Regulator of Social Housing published a C2 regulatory judgement for Lambeth, the second highest grading available, following their inspection earlier in the month.

In other services, the council has yet to receive an inspection of its adult social care services by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). As this will be the council’s first CQC inspection, adult social care service will be able to draw on learning from children’s and housing services experience of preparing for inspection. Data from the LGA’s LG Inform database indicates that the council is typically in line with its CIPFA near neighbours in most other service areas, with good comparative performance on waste and recycling statistics. 

The peer team heard examples of great practice by Lambeth in different service areas, but also that the council could do more to promote – both locally and more widely – some of the good work it does so that residents and others are aware of this. 

The work the council has led as part of its Green Economy and Growth Strategy is innovative and impressive, and a good example of the council utilising the opportunities afforded through the institutions on its patch, or ‘sweating the assets of the borough.’ The strategy has five strands: space, funding and investment, partnership and advocacy, business support and employment and skills. As part of the space theme, the £8m Future Workspace Fund has provided grants and loans to businesses to set up in the borough, leveraging in £7 of match funding for each £1 invested by Lambeth and supporting clustering of enterprises in the green economy, one of three priority growth sectors for the council alongside health and life sciences and creative and cultural.

Lambeth, alongside the Greater London Authority, Lewisham and Southwark councils, is taking part in impressive work to develop retrofit skills in the borough, working through the LSBU (London South Bank University) green skills hub and South Bank Technical College. The council is also connecting with a local further education college to develop ‘micro-credentials’ green courses intended to provide learners in the borough with a basic understanding of the green economy and climate economic literacy, as well as working with Lambeth Adult Learning to embed the development of green skills/climate literacy in their offer.

The peer team also heard positive reflections on the council’s community safety work, for example the multi-agency response to young people, its proactive approach to rapidly convening local partners following critical incidents in the borough and implementing an innovative approach providing trauma informed support in the community.

Corporate strategy, planning and performance

The council’s Lambeth 2030 document sets out a strong strategic vision for the borough. To help achieve the ambition of Lambeth 2030, it has created a new framework to track and monitor delivery:

• the Lambeth 2030 outcomes framework, which includes a range of indicators measuring resident experience, based on analysis of over fifty strategies and plans delivered by council services
• an annual corporate delivery plan setting out the ‘magic nine’ key corporate priorities for that year
• a standardised business plan template for individual directorates.

Collectively this is linked to the four year medium term financial strategy. 

This framework is being overseen by the new strategy, communications and change team within the CGC directorate. The framework is comprehensive and impressive, but is still in its early stages, with links between the new directorate and service directorates being worked through, for example in relation to the data held by different parts of the organisation. The council should continue this early work to develop the connections between its corporate centre and service-based data and insight functions, to help drive better decision making, avoid duplication and add value. More generally, as the new framework becomes embedded, it should take a flexible approach to tweaking and adapting the approach to ensure it meets the organisation’s needs and is proportionate to this.

There is good evidence of corporate performance conversations across the organisation. To oversee the delivery of Lambeth 2030 and corporate initiatives, the council has established a Corporate Delivery Board, comprising the management board (corporate directors) and directors. This meets monthly to assess performance, review progress against the corporate delivery plan and review the budget; management board also holds detailed discussions about performance, as well as receiving regular assurance reports on key organisational health indicators such as statutory reporting, complaints data etc. Progress against the outcomes framework is reported to management board and the Cabinet as part of quarterly performance and budget reporting.

To strengthen performance reporting, and transparency around this, the peer team recommends the council consider the following additions to the new framework:

• Incorporating assurance reporting on organisational health measures (eg complaints, freedom of information, workforce data) into quarterly performance monitoring, alongside the outcomes framework and budget update.
• Enabling further internal scrutiny of performance through taking the expanded quarterly performance reports to Overview and Scrutiny.
• Publishing the corporate delivery plan and annual reporting against it.

Areas for continued focus

To further strengthen performance and local outcomes, Lambeth should continue to focus on core service delivery, addressing the challenges in children’s services and housing to ensure that residents consistently receive the standard of service the council sets.

Lambeth should also focus on ensuring a consistent level of responsiveness across the organisation. Staff, partners and the VCS alike recognised that the ability to get things done sometimes depends on knowing the right person within the council, and that despite the good work to foster a One Lambeth approach, there remain examples of siloed working and an inconsistency of experience from different teams. Tackling this is difficult for any large organisation and will require an ongoing focus on joining up different services and breaking down silos between different teams. The cross-cutting priorities led by the One Lambeth transformation programme provides scope to drive this, with the early intervention and prevention workstream an opportunity to better integrate people facing services.

In relation to Lambeth 2030, there is a need to ensure that all teams are clear about how the vision can be operationalised in their areas; feedback suggested that some teams had been more engaged on this than others. The council should also recognise concerns amongst some staff about the extent to which they can fully deliver an ambitious vision at a time of financial challenge, with a perception of teams being asked to do more and more with less. As 2030 approaches, the council will need to take a realistic approach, including being clear about what it is not going to do, and keep progress under review. 

Effective leadership

Organisational and place leadership is an area of strength for Lambeth. The council was noted to have strong political stability and the Leader and Cabinet were widely praised, with Cabinet members described as ‘having a keen interest, in-depth understanding of their areas, and supportive.’

There was personal praise for the efforts of the organisation’s senior political and officer leadership to manage the organisation through the departure of the previous chief executive. The council’s leader worked effectively to quickly establish interim arrangements, ensuring transparency and visibility through staff messaging and briefings that offered both support and reassurance. This meant the organisation was able to successfully navigate very difficult circumstances and ensure a resolute focus on maintaining business as usual.

There appears to be good collaborative working between the council’s politicians and officers, with a clear sense of joint endeavour. Relationships between members and officers appear to be good overall, and there is regular engagement and briefing at senior levels, with weekly meetings between Cabinet and Management Board and bi-weekly briefings between Cabinet members and senior officer leads.

The council structure and Management Board has undergone a number of changes in recent years, with the integration of adult social care and housing, changes to senior roles and a new directorate established to provide additional corporate capacity. There is a clear sense that some of the more recent changes (notably the new directorate) are still being embedded, with further change in the months to come with a new section 151 officer and a new permanent Chief Executive from outside the organisation starting.

Externally, the peer team heard praise from the council’s key partners about the role it plays in convening different partners and anchoring local partnerships, providing continuity amidst churn elsewhere and successfully managing the complexity of the borough and the big hitting nature of some of its partner institutions. Partners noted that there is a ‘real interest in partnership working’ and that ‘the council plays an important role in building and fostering relationships, bringing us altogether.’ Partnerships are seen as ‘places where people can have difficult conversations and bring challenge’, demonstrating a maturity in relationships not always seen elsewhere.

The council is rightly proud of its partnership working on health and social care, with a number of integrated posts (from Corporate Director level to more operational roles) and a well-established health and social care partnership, Lambeth Together, in place. The council is recognised externally to have been strong in this area for many years, providing a foundation for similar approaches across the wider South East London Integrated Care System. Lambeth HEART, one of just thirty national and four London Health Determinants Research Collaborations (HDRCs), is working with local VCS and academic partners to use a race and equity lens, combined with data and community research, to reduce health inequalities in the borough.

The role the council has played in helping to strengthen local safeguarding partnerships was noted, with work to ensure the right internal and external partners are around the table, strong council leadership backed up by resourcing and a clear focus on what needs to be done.

To support the delivery of Lambeth 2030, the council has established a new Lambeth Strategic Partnership (LSP) to bring together local partners. Although embryonic, with just a few meetings held to date, partners welcome the potential of this development. There is a clear appetite within the LSP to work with the council; amongst both major partner agencies and institutions, as well as smaller grassroots organisations, the peer team heard a desire to work jointly on tackling the difficult issues Lambeth has to grapple with, and an ask to be involved in the earliest discussions to help shape responses.

The peer team was impressed by the council’s innovative partnership working with the private sector and with local education institutions on green skills and the economy. The close working with Sustainable Ventures to develop Europe’s largest climate tech cluster has supported 123 businesses and 1,200 green economy jobs, creating a model that Sustainable Ventures is now looking to replicate elsewhere in the UK, as well as revitalising a long disused part of the historic County Hall building.

The Lambeth Climate Partnership, supported by the council and its officers, was reported by partners to have significantly strengthened partnership working on climate change and net zero over the past few years; the peer team felt that the council is demonstrating strong political leadership on this issue.

Finally, the peer team were impressed by their meeting with Lambeth’s Youth Council, which comprises local 11-25 year olds. In October 2024, around 450 young people attended the council’s annual youth summit, which is coordinated by the Youth Council. The council has also actively involved young people in key issues, for example commissioning Young Creators UK to work with young people in the borough to develop ‘It’s not that deep’, a campaign targeting violence against women and girls amongst those aged 16-25.

Areas to focus on

An important and urgent organisational – and place – leadership priority for the council in the coming months and years is to take members, staff and partners with it on the One Lambeth transformation journey, developing clarity about the changes needed to respond to the council’s financial challenges, and deliver the ambition of Lambeth 2030. As already highlighted, internally the work should continue to break down silos between different parts of the organisation and join up services, ensuring a consistency of responsiveness and approach between different parts of the organisation. Clearly, there will also be external implications, in terms of what the council does or funds currently and what it can sustain in future, and how this impacts partners and residents. This will need to be managed carefully, drawing on the council’s existing strong partnership mechanisms.

Within this context, the peer team encourages the council to ensure it maintains momentum on its effective partnership working to date, with ongoing impetus both in areas where it has a long standing track record, such as health and social care, as well as those where there has been more recent progress, such as in its safeguarding partnerships. Leveraging the council’s partnerships and newer assets such as Lambeth HEART will help it to continually drive its place leadership; the council should focus on establishing strong links between Lambeth HEART and the whole council to enable research, data and evidence to support the organisation’s strategy and equity ambitions.

New external partnerships and council structures provide an opportunity for the council to further enhance its partnership working. The council should work with partners on the Lambeth Strategic Partnership to collectively develop how the partnership functions, ensuring shared input into meeting agendas, allowing sufficient time for interactive partner discussions including on the biggest issues facing the borough, and reflecting on what happens in between meetings to move things forward. As the LSP becomes established, there will need to be clarity on how it connects up with wider partnership working across the borough, and work to ensure that it reflects the diversity of the borough and is effective in bringing in the voice of local residents.

The peer team’s discussions with the VCS indicated an interest in the sector having a greater awareness of other grassroots organisations working in the borough, and annual opportunities for them to meet, discuss shared interests and collaborate, while also reflecting the difficulty for smaller organisations in being invited to multiple meetings. There was some uncertainty amongst the VCS about the current status of Integrate, the local umbrella organisation for the sector, and frustration at the different experience that organisations felt they had of the council depending on which team they engaged with.

The newly established Community Partnerships Unit in the CGC directorate, is responsible for community engagement and participation, tackling poverty, and equity and justice, including how the council should work with its large local network of around 1,500 local voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations in future. The peer team’s conversation with partners from the VCS was very helpful, with clear views expressed about what the council does well and less well, and how the VCS would like to work with the council. The peer team encourages the Community Partnership team to convene a similar session with VCS organisations across Lambeth to hear these thoughts first-hand and use such a conversation as a foundation to identify new opportunities to work together and maintain an ongoing conversation between the council and the VCS.

Organisational resilience and culture

The peer team heard evidence of a positive organisational culture at Lambeth, with clear steps taken in recent years. The stable transition to interim arrangements following the departure of the previous chief executive in summer 2024 were noted by both staff and external partners and demonstrate a good level of organisational resilience as well as capable handling.

Senior politicians are considered to be engaged, visible and supportive, as well as willing to ‘face into challenges and take difficult decisions.’ Senior management are seen to be visible, available and open, with monthly One Lambeth Roundtables, staff Q&As, and engagement events on specific issues, such as Lambeth 2030 and the new council values.

There is a shared view that members and officers collaborate well together, but some confusion among both staff and non-executive members about how they should engage on specific issues and the involvement of senior officers within that process. The council should ensure clarity about its processes and communicate these to all members and officers. Alongside these positive relationships, the peer team heard that there is a culture of check and challenge across and between members and officers, but no blame culture.

Through its One Lambeth programme, the council has put significant emphasis in recent years on listening to staff and developing and promoting the council’s corporate values and behaviours: accountability, ambition, equity, and kindness. These are broadly considered by staff and partners to be well-embedded within the organisation, alongside there being a good level of understanding of and buy in to the Lambeth 2030 vision. However, as already noted, the peer team heard both externally and internally that there is more to do to create a One Lambeth culture, ensure consistency of experience for both staff and residents/partners, and break down silos between different parts of the council. Feedback from staff indicated variations in engaging with corporate communications and the ability to prioritise workloads across different directorates, while external partners commented on different rates of responsiveness, flexibility and dynamism depending on which parts of the council they were working with.

Partners praised Lambeth staff for their commitment and passion for their work – ‘there is a strong sense of purpose from Lambeth staff; public service is important to them’ – with a view that people ‘live and breathe what they are doing.’ Staff morale appeared to the peer team to be good, and the recent (September / October 2024) workforce opinion survey included some positive results; 86 per cent of staff agree they have the skills to do their job effectively; 76 per cent of staff agree they feel included in their team, and 75 per cent of staff agree their manager keeps them informed on the information they need to do their job. Responses to questions about whether staff agree they have the resources they need to do their jobs effectively, feel valued for the work they do, or feel supported with their wellbeing were however less positive, and consideration needs to be given to how the organisation and managers can support staff in these areas.

Lambeth benefits from a diverse staff and councillor base which reflects its community more closely than in many organisations: this is a significant strength and asset for the organisation to draw on. The council has operated targeted programmes to ensure that diversity runs throughout the organisation, with a Black on Board and Black, Asian and Multi-Ethnic Senior Leadership Programmes for BAME staff and Be You and Women’s Senior Leadership Programmes supporting female employees. The council’s adults and children’s directorates have introduced reverse mentoring, an initiative the council could look to scale up across the wider organisation.

The council has five active staff networks: these have wide reach across the organisation with two forums having in excess of 300 members. Staff forum leads are allocated two hours per month to support their work, with each forum allocated a budget of £2,000: each forum has a corporate director lead. Work by staff forums has already influenced policies and practice around maternity/paternity leave and the menopause; the organisation should proactively consider how the networks can be supported in future, as well as drawing on them as it undertakes important work to review its staff policies.

Looking ahead

Overall, feedback to the peer team suggested that, at the same time as taking steps to tackle long standing service challenges and manage the CSA compensation scheme, the council has made progress in strengthening its organisational culture and embedding its new values. This is to the credit of the council’s leadership, particularly in the context of the Leader’s roles regionally and nationally. It is crucial that this continues.

The peer team recommend that the council seeks to maintain momentum in its work to strengthen the organisational culture and embed the One Lambeth values. As part of this work, the council should focus on ensuring a consistent approach to staff engagement in corporate issues, with feedback that this was more mixed in some parts of the organisation. In line with the recommendation to ensure clarity about what Lambeth 2030 means for the organisation, the council should also focus on ensuring that Lambeth 2030 and One Lambeth translate for staff at an operational level, with clarity on what these mean for services and staff alike.

Finally on organisational culture, it would be understandable for a council in Lambeth’s position – dealing simultaneously with sensitive, historic issues and significant financial challenges – to be less open about its challenges due to past criticism it has received. Lambeth’s leadership should continue to be upfront about the council’s challenges and the work it is leading to manage them. This will enable it to own the narrative about the unprecedented and systemic issues it is at the forefront of and demonstrate confidence about the good work it is doing, in relation to which it should proactively share its learning with others.

Governance mechanisms

The council has shown willingness to undertake external reviews across a range of services and in 2024 commissioned a review by an experienced monitoring officer of its governance processes, schemes of delegation, and member decision making. The review found Lambeth’s financial delegations to be in line with other London boroughs, consistency of key decision-making and delegations, and that processes allowed for formal decisions to be taken relatively quickly with appropriate oversight. Work to take forward recommendations around forward planning for decision making, and governance of investment decisions, the capital programme and transition of Homes for Lambeth, is being taken forward in the coming months. It is important that this continues and that Lambeth keeps its governance arrangements under ongoing review.

The council’s Code of Governance is updated each year, with evidence collated and assessed for compliance. Its constitution was last reviewed and reported to full council in April 2023, while the whistleblowing policy was last updated in January 2023. An Annual Governance Statement has been approved for 2023/24, structured around the principles of good governance included within CIPFA/Solace’s 2016 Delivering Good Governance guide. The document summarises the council’s governance structures and recent activity, as well as providing a high level overview of key risks for the council, although unlike statements produced by other councils does not include a report on previous actions or include actions for 2024/25: the council could consider incorporating this into future statements.

The council has previously taken steps to strengthen governance relating to key service challenges, with Housing and Children’s Improvement Boards established involving the council’s leader and lead cabinet members. These are good developments, and the council could think about how it can embed consistently strong governance across other cross-cutting corporate issues – for example, sharing quarterly performance, budget and organisational health data with overview and scrutiny as well as cabinet.

The council’s corporate committee, which meets five times a year, operates as its audit committee. The committee is going through a phase of transition, with a relatively new committee chair and new independent members currently being recruited, but there is a clear desire by the new chair to ensure an effective committee. Given the importance of the committee at a time of financial challenge, the council should put in place support for the refreshed committee, for example training and mentoring, and / or external advice on work programming, and ensure it is promptly providing information requested by the committee.

Scrutiny

The peer team heard good feedback about members’ commitment to scrutiny. Cabinet members spoke positively about scrutiny in the council, and the peer team heard of good relationships between senior officers and scrutiny chairs, who are responsible for developing work plans for their thematic areas. The council has taken steps to strengthen scrutiny since the recommendations in the 2016 LGA peer challenge, with new scrutiny sub-committees established; it cites numerous examples of how scrutiny has influenced decisions and performance relating to leisure services, skills and employment strategy, housing delivery and the MTFS and notes that opportunities to build in pre-decision scrutiny are being built in where practicable.

The peer team believes that there is scope to strengthen scrutiny further. As noted above, the overarching overview and scrutiny committee could be given the opportunity to review quarterly performance information in line with its broad corporate remit. The team also heard that more could be done to ensure that scrutiny committees are producing targeted recommendations, with greater clarity about how these are then progressed through officers and Cabinet and a ‘you said, we did’ feedback process.

The council may find it helpful to commission a short review from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny to assess the impact of the changes made since the 2016 CPC and consider further recommendations going forward. This could look at scrutiny resourcing, which could be reviewed in the context of the review of the Legal and Governance team and new Corporate Directorate, as well as training: there is an appetite among members for refreshed training in scrutiny. The peer team supported a new training programme for scrutiny chairs and committee members.

With a similar recommendation about training for the council’s Corporate committee, the peer team believe it would be useful for the council to review the support its member development programme overall is providing for both individual councillors and committees, to ensure the programme meets members’ needs as the context in which they are operating becomes increasingly challenging financially and more generally.

Internal and external audit and risk

Challenges in the local audit system mean that, in common with other councils, Lambeth’s most recent statement of accounts to be signed off dates back to 2021/22. The council received an unqualified opinion on the financial statement, but the external auditors identified significant weaknesses in relation to governance, and improving economy, efficiency and effectiveness, linked to Homes for Lambeth, the council’s wholly owned subsidiary company established in 2018 as a vehicle to deliver its affordable housing strategy. Following an independent review of the council’s management of Homes for Lambeth, the council took the decision to bring the function back in house in 2023.

At the time of the corporate peer challenge in early November, the council was working with external auditors to close down its 2022/23 accounts ahead of the December 2024 backstop date.

Internally, the council’s internal audit report for 2023/24 highlighted a positive picture on the overall balance of internal audit assurance opinions. 71 per cent of reports provided reasonable or substantial assurance, while 29 per cent concluded that limited or no assurance could be provided on the governance, risk management and / or internal controls of the area audited; this was a significant improvement on 2022/23, when 35 per cent of opinions provided reasonable or substantial assurance and 65 per cent limited or no assurance. Based on this activity and sources of external assurance, the council’s assistant director for Internal Audit and Counter Fraud concluded that the council has adequate systems of governance, risk management and internal control, with required improvements isolated to specific systems, or processes and management having agreed actions to resolve them.

On risk, the council reports quarterly to management board via two risk summaries focusing separately on corporate, and strategic risks. The reports are clearly presented and provide the current risk score, previous risk score, direction of travel and date of next review, using colour coding to highlight the greatest risks facing the council.

Context

Lambeth is facing extremely significant, and immediate, financial challenges. In February 2024, the council set a total budget of £412.8m for 2024/25; however, by October, the council’s quarter one budget report was projecting a £34.3m overspend, driven by demand pressures for adult social care (£7.5m), children’s social care (£4.6m) and, most significantly, temporary accommodation (£28.2m).

Lambeth is not alone in facing these specific financial challenges; all social care and housing authorities are facing some level of pressure. However, housing issues are particularly acute in London, and in terms of both temporary accommodation and the HRA, Lambeth is one of the councils at the forefront of these London-wide and national challenges. The council is one of the country’s largest landlords, with 33,000 homes. This amplifies the financial issues caused by recent HRA policies and requirements yet doesn’t nearly satisfy demand for social housing in the area, with 40,000 people on the council’s waiting list. A combination of the cost of living, high housing / rent costs, high levels of deprivation and Lambeth’s ability to attract people to the area mean that the council has 4,600 people in temporary accommodation, an increase of 1,300 in the last two years, far exceeding local supply and forcing the council to resort to costly solutions instead.

The implications of these pressures are stark. In its approved budget for 2024/25, the council forecasts reserves of just under £84m by the end of 2024/25. The current overspends could mean general fund reserves of around £50m at the end of the financial year if pressures cannot be mitigated. In light of the scale of the pressures, and the fact that demand for temporary accommodation has been on a consistently upward trend in recent years, this could mean the council’s financial standing is at significant risk.

Given the risk that pressures may significantly diminish the council’s general fund reserves further, it will be vital that the incoming S151 officer presents to key council committees a transparent view of the adequacy of reserves, the adequacy and robustness of savings proposals for future years as they are delivered, the extent of financial risks and potential one off pressures facing the council, and other relevant matters.

It is worth keeping in mind that at the time of the peer team visit the 2022/23 accounts were in the process of being finalised. As future years’ accounts’ audits are finalised, notably 2023/24, it may be that accounting adjustments could change the council’s financial position. As such, appropriate updates should be brought to the corporate (audit) committee as things progress, particularly in respect of accounting adjustments in respect of Homes for Lambeth and relating to any exceptional financial support from Government.

The council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) faces similar problems, with a current in-year projected overspend of £13m and a risk of reserves dropping to around £5m by the end of 2024/25, leaving the council minimal room to manage ongoing pressures in future. In the event that the HRA is unable to contain pressures within projected income increases ahead of budget setting for 2024/25, it will be necessary for a range of options to be considered to allow the council to set a balanced option for the HRA. This will need to be a top priority for the new S151 officer immediately upon starting in the post, supported by the wider senior management team and new Chief Executive once he takes up the role.

In terms of the general fund and HRA, the council will need to think collectively about the severe pressures it faces and how it can ensure financial sustainability, considering all options open to it in its discussions with Government.

What Lambeth is doing to tackle the challenge

The peer team found widespread organisational awareness of the financial challenge and associated need for transformation among members, senior officers and other staff (as well external partners), with a recent staff roadshow having highlighted the issue. Corporately, the council is working to scope out the next phase of the One Lambeth transformation programme with the aim of identifying savings in a number of key focus areas, outlined in the next section of this report.

Previous external reviews suggest the council’s financial management systems are in a broadly positive place as it grapples with its financial challenges. A CIPFA external assurance review, undertaken in 2023 in relation to its exceptional financial support for the CSA compensation scheme, concluded that it has ‘well-defined and appropriate financial management and risk assessment processes [and] a transparent planning cycle and reporting timetable.’ An external assessment of the council’s self-assessment against the CIPFA financial management code concluded that ‘Lambeth’s approach is in line with that used by others both inside and outside of London’ and that ‘there was sufficient evidence to confirm that the judgements made by the authority were within a range that might reasonably be expected.’

Having brought housing development back in house and opted to wind up Homes for Lambeth, the council is taking a pragmatic and risk aware approach to new build development, for example seeking development partners rather than solely building out themselves. The peer team were able to visit a development site in Oval and heard about the positive nature of the work between the council and private sector, as well as about the political direction for the provision of affordable housing. It was especially pleasing to learn that the council had negotiated a number of apprenticeships and placement for local people on site.

The July 2024 medium term financial strategy (MTFS) identified a budget gap of £68.9m over four years: work is underway to identify savings to meet the gap. The council has a track record of delivering savings, with CIPFA commenting on its ‘established approach to identifying and delivering savings, with strong accountability at Director and Lead Member levels.’ At the time of the peer team’s visit, £48m indicative savings had been identified, with organisational confidence that these are deliverable.

The council has proactively put in place expenditure control measures to help manage spending. There is also evidence of action to stabilise the financial position in key services having an impact; although the children’s services budget is currently showing a £3.6m projected overspend for 2024/25, this is significantly lower than the final £11m overspend in 2023/24, and follows steps including targeted work to reduce agency staff (which has reduced from around 60 to 50 per cent) the introduction of care package review meetings, and re-introducing a brokerage system for placements separate to the social work function.

Politically, the council has demonstrated willingness to take the type of tough decisions that are inevitable given its financial challenges; in early November, despite significant local opposition, the Cabinet agreed a recommendation to close two local primary schools, and amalgamate four others into two, as falling pupil numbers and funding undermined their financial viability. It is highly likely that further tough decisions will be needed.

The council is working to clarify the accounting treatment of the closure of Homes for Lambeth, and any revenue implications linked to outstanding capital loans in the company, and working through the capitalisation of the CSA redress scheme via exceptional financial support. Similar clarity is needed about the revenue implications for the HRA both in terms of repairs and maintenance of its existing estate and the costs of a refreshed estate regeneration programme once agreed. This work is critical not only to enable the council to sign off its outstanding accounts, but also to ensure a clear understanding of any impact on its reserves and the council’s overall financial position.

Next steps

Looking ahead, the council will need to continue to identify savings, control spending and make difficult decisions, going further and faster to transform the council. The scale of the challenge Lambeth is facing requires urgency, pace, leadership and good governance.

There is a substantial risk that the challenges facing Lambeth – the demand for temporary accommodation and the management of its housing stock – could mean that despite its efforts, the council is unable to set a balanced budget in the near future – potentially in either, or both, its general fund and HRA.

In its approach to managing these, the peer team encourages the council to consider these ostensibly separate, but ultimately linked, financial challenges collectively and to ensure that all possible options are on the table in its ongoing dialogue Government.

Recognising the sector-wide nature of the challenge, Lambeth should also continue to work with London Councils, the Local Government Association and councils facing similar challenges to help highlight the systemic causes of the issues impacting councils’ financial viability and the critical measures – a sustainable funding model for both the HRA and wider local government– that are urgently required to start to address them.

Strengths to build on

Lambeth has demonstrated a number of positive features it can draw on as it seeks to continually improve its services and respond to the challenges that all councils are facing.

Particularly in recent years, there is evidence of the council gripping difficult legacy and financial issues and making progress in tackling long-term service challenges. While these challenges are by no means resolved, there is a clear impetus from the political leadership, and new leadership teams in core services, backed up by strengthened corporate governance for key areas, which will provide a firm basis to continue to build from.

The council’s willingness to bring in external expertise to provide challenge and assurance – seen in the late Lord Kerslake’s review into Homes for Lambeth and an independent review of its HR service, as well as examples mentioned earlier in this report – is a positive indicator. Senior officers were also clear about their willingness to learn from other councils and organisations. The council should continue to be outward-facing in this regard, utilising its officer and member networks to learn from the experiences of others, as well as sharing Lambeth’s own experience and expertise.

The council identified a need to strengthen its HR service and, following the independent review of the service noted above, has developed an improvement plan and recruited an interim director to oversee this. Additional capacity is being recruited to help the backlog of casework, undertake a review of workforce policies and how these are applied consistently, and provide a business partnering service to the wider organisation. There are early examples of the impact strengthening the HR service has had, with HR staff supporting children’s services to develop a children’s workforce strategy and active work to target international recruitment and reduce spend on agency staff.

The bolstered HR service will be important as the council works through the implications of transformation, and is part of the new CGC directorate. The wider, dedicated capacity within this directorate for transformation will clearly help to drive cross-cutting work across the organisation, overseen by the new Corporate Delivery Board. It is encouraging that the council has already identified broad transformation priorities around reviewing statutory/ non-statutory services, focusing on digital tools and technologies, shifting demand-led services to focus on early intervention and prevention, and redesigning services around the needs of residents and a single view of customers.

While there is clearly an inward-facing aspect to these priorities, fundamentally they relate to borough-wide challenges that no council could solve on its own. In focusing on transformation, Lambeth will need to work with its partners and communities to identify joined-up responses to residents’ needs. Lambeth’s strong existing partnerships, in particular in health and social care, provide a good basis for future partnership work in support of transformation approaches and the Lambeth 2030 ambitions, while the new Community Partnerships unit provides an opportunity to forge stronger relationships with community organisations and residents.

Issues to focus on

This is a good foundation, but the scale of its financial challenges means the council needs to work very quickly to design and implement its transformation programme including maintaining full momentum on this during the transition to the new section 151, who will be in post from December 2024, and to the recently announced new chief executive once he starts at Lambeth. It will also need to be adept in designing the programme at the same time as it works through how roles and responsibilities for transformation work in practice between the new change directorate and wider organisation, ensuring that duplication is avoided and the corporate centre adds value to the knowledge and expertise in service directorates.

As highlighted earlier in this report, the work to fully design the transformation programme must involve members, senior management and staff (and their representatives) to provide a clear and shared view on how the organisation needs to change. Currently, there is a widely shared understanding that the council needs to change, and a view that Lambeth can do change, but far less clarity on what this means in practice. This is not unusual for councils at the current time, but is something that the council needs quickly to get to grips with, drawing on the strengths outlined above to help develop a future target operating model for the council.

In designing, and subsequently implementing, its transformation approach, Lambeth should ensure a keen focus on how it achieves consistent approaches across the organisation; not just to address some of the differentials between teams already highlighted in this report but positively, to help consider how it can scale up great practice in one area across the organisation as a whole. Ensuring consistency across large organisations doing very diverse things is again a common challenge for many councils, but designing and implementing the One Lambeth transformation programme in a leaner organisation provides an opportunity to think creatively about how the council can achieve this.

Climate leadership and innovative practice

The peer team was impressed with the political leadership Lambeth’s Cabinet has shown on climate change and net zero. The council has followed up being the first London local authority to declare a climate emergency (in 2019) with a Corporate Carbon Reduction Plan (refreshed in August 2024), holding a Citizen’s Assembly on the Climate Crisis in 2021, developing a borough wide Climate Action Plan launched in 2022, and producing annually updated Air Quality Annual Status Reports.

The council has explicitly linked equity and climate justice within the Lambeth 2030 plan, recognising that it is often the poorest communities that experience the consequences of pollution and climate inaction. It has shown willingness to take contentious and politically difficult decisions in support of its ambitions, for example the creation of healthy (low traffic) neighbourhoods in five air quality focus areas, trading a potential loss in parking income for a kerbside strategy that prioritises pavement infrastructure and makes areas safer for pedestrians and cyclists, and running communications campaigns highlighting the pollution impacts of domestic solid fuel burning, which the council describes as a significant justice issue for the borough. Through this work, the council has recognised the value of co-badging its work in terms of health benefits, or the link with creating child friendly places, as well as climate change.

Partners praised the efforts of the council, particularly given its financial constraints, commenting that it has taken an open approach and built a very strong local partnership. The council takes the lead on supporting the Lambeth Climate Partnership, which provides a forum to share ideas, learning and resources and helps to facilitate joint projects, and is seen to provide an effective route to engaging with the council on climate issues.

Internally, the Climate Change and Sustainability team, in the Climate and Inclusive Growth directorate, lead on policy and programme overseeing the climate action plan and the Corporate Carbon Reduction Plan; they are also responsible for seeking grant funding to support activity in other parts of the council. Progress against the action plan is reviewed annually. Lambeth’s recently refreshed Corporate Carbon Reduction Plan 2024 is well presented and provides a good roadmap for delivery: progress will be reported via an annual Corporate Carbon Emissions Report presented to Lambeth’s Climate Change Board. The council’s new outcomes framework includes indicators linked to climate change and net zero and will be monitored quarterly.

The council has made efforts to embed consideration of climate change and net zero across the organisation and in its decision making processes. Suppliers tendering in any procurement process worth more than £100,000 must report on their carbon emissions. Environmental considerations and alignment with net zero and reporting requirements are highlighted in decision reports to council and cabinet.  Council partners noted that understanding of net zero is embedded beyond the climate change team, with planning cited as having a strong focus on net zero and biodiversity: the climate change team has supported planning committee members to provide a more robust challenge on these themes during committee meetings through training on whole life cycle, carbon assessments and new technology and materials. Beyond planning, carbon literacy training has been delivered to all members as part of their mandatory training packages.

The green economy is one of the council’s priority growth areas, articulated in the council’s Green Economy and Growth Strategy. As noted elsewhere in this report, the council has undertaken innovative work in this area, working collaboratively with Sustainable Ventures on the development of a clean tech hub based in the borough, working with further and higher education institutions on green skills training and launching the Lambeth Innovation Challenge (subsequently scaled up across the whole of the capital by the Mayor of London) to pair up major borough institutions with new clean tech businesses to tackle net zero. The peer team were impressed with how the council is taking advantage of some of its key assets – being home to heritage buildings, central London estate and major institutions in a range of different sectors – to drive benefit for both the borough and wider London economy in this area.

Next steps: effective use of data and organisational awareness

The peer team had a number of recommendations for how Lambeth can build on its good work to date, intended to help it focus on where it can have the most impact and further embed consideration of climate change and net zero across the organisation.

In terms of its own emissions, the council should aim to report data on this in a more timely manner. In August 2024 data was only published up to 2021/22 for the Annual Emissions for assets under full council control (figure 3 of the Carbon Corporate Reduction Plan). As this data is under the council’s control, it should be feasible to have reported up to 23/24 in August’s report. In this same chart it is evident that there was a significant reduction from 2018/19 to 2019/20 but for the following two years, there has been no real reduction. To help it understand how to achieve the most impact in further reducing emissions, the council could also consider tracking carbon for its top fifty polluting buildings. 

In its work with its suppliers, the council should continually assess the measures it is putting in place. While it is positive that the council requests carbon dioxide reporting data in all contracts over £100,000, the council should consider how the data will be used, and most of all, how it can achieve the most impact through its procurement processes. Continuing to focus on the largest emitters, or those where there is otherwise more room to impact emissions, through targeted approaches and monitoring may have a greater effect than a blanket approach across all contracts. Alternatively, the council could consider asking suppliers for an audited way of supplying data, to provide assurance and encourage further action to reduce emissions. 

The council could also consider submitting an application to the Carbon Disclosure Project, a climate reporting platform and accountability mechanism for local authorities and their areas which helps organisations to understand their impact and take action. Already used by a number of other councils, this would provide an external audit of Lambeth’s climate work as well as a benchmark against other international cities. 

While Lambeth has made progress in embedding consideration of climate change and net zero into areas such as planning and procurement, there is more to do to promote this in other operational areas of service and with staff. To do so, the council should consider a frontline communications campaign, or establish climate champions and / or a climate change staff network; it could also think about how the theme can be integrated into the corporate transformation programme and One Lambeth values. The council could liaise with other councils to learn what they have found most effective in promoting this issue with their staff.

Finally, as the Lambeth Climate Partnership attracts a senior presence from across partners, there is an opportunity for the group to be more strategic in lobbying and lining up multiple partners behind a shared agenda, as well as engaging the public: it could also seek to bring in more private sector involvement into the group. At a more tactical level, funding and other opportunities should consistently be shared across the partnership. The council should also consider how it can make best use of the partners involved to reduce some of the pressure on its own staff to support this.

It is recognised that senior political and managerial leadership will want to consider, discuss and reflect on these findings. The LGA will continue to provide on-going support to the council. Following publication of CPC report (due by 8 February 2025) you need to produce and publish an Action Plan within 5 months of the time on site, that is by 8 April 2025. As part of the CPC, the council are also required to have a progress review and publish the findings from this within twelve months of the CPC. The LGA will also publish the progress review report on their website.

The progress review will provide space for a council’s senior leadership to report to peers on the progress made against each of the CPC’s recommendations, discuss early impact or learning and receive feedback on the implementation of the CPC action plan. The progress review will usually be delivered on-site over one day.

The date for the progress review at Lambeth will be confirmed shortly but is expected to take place by the end of September 2025.

In the meantime, Kate Herbert, Principal Adviser for London, is the main contact between your authority and the Local Government Association. As outlined above, Kate is available to discuss any further support the council requires ([email protected], 07867 632404).