LGA Corporate Peer Challenge: Fareham Borough Council

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 three days at Fareham Borough Council 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.   

Fareham is an attractive and prosperous area located between Portsmouth and Southampton on the Solent and neighbouring districts Gosport, Eastleigh and Winchester. The corporate peer challenge came at a pivotal point for Fareham Borough Council (Fareham / the council). With recent changes to its long standing political and managerial leadership, this is a good time for the organisation to reflect on its priorities, practices and processes. It is to the council’s credit that it continued with the peer challenge regardless of the complicating, uncertain backdrop of local government reorganisation (LGR) in Hampshire: the peer team believes the process will leave the council in a stronger position of ahead of LGR and help sharpen its focus on building a legacy for Fareham that outlives any future organisational changes.

The council has a clear set of priorities set out in its recently refreshed corporate strategy while the newly approved Fareham Town Centre Regeneration Strategy 2025-2035 highlights this as a key priority. The launch of the council-owned Fareham Live entertainment venue at the end of 2024 is one of a number of impressive council projects shaping the local place and bringing positive impacts to residents. Across the Fareham Live, Daedalus and Welborne Garden Village projects, the council has demonstrated strong political leadership and officer stewardship of key priorities, supported by effective partnership working and an astute approach to commercial acquisitions and asset management.

Partnership working is a strength for Fareham. The council has numerous partnership arrangements with other local councils, and has shown consistent willingness to host, support and lead partnerships. The peer team observed however that typically partnership working is service or project specific and felt that the council could explore a more strategic approach to partnerships that supports its place leadership role. In doing so, there is scope for Fareham to think about networks and structures that can endure beyond LGR, mitigating the risk of a dilution of Fareham’s priorities in a potential future unitary.

Alongside major projects, Fareham can also highlight effective and improved service delivery in major service areas: a recent highlight is work to reduce the number of people in emergency accommodation, with significant financial benefits. 

The peer team supports the recent move by the council to strengthen performance management. Following a period in which the council has had limited performance indicators, the adoption of a new set of performance measures will help to strengthen oversight and challenge by members. The council should however ensure that the Executive and scrutiny function regularly review progress against the measures, rather than just the audit and governance committee.

Fareham is currently in a period of organisational transition. The peer team heard consistent feedback about the supportive organisational culture at Fareham and the longevity of many staff is testament to that, but it is clear the new leadership brings a notably different style that has enhanced this. Members and staff welcome the more collaborative and empowering approach as ‘refreshing’ and a ‘sea change.’ 

There has been a recent focus on developing the new People Strategy, embedding organisational values and strengthening internal communications: the council should maintain its efforts in these areas, with a continued effort to ensure they are being felt equally in all parts of the organisation. The council has also identified other areas where it could make improvements, for example in ICT and digital. In the context of LGR, the council may not now wish to take forward projects it otherwise would have done. The peer team recommends that, within this changed context, the council identify its top priorities from the numerous different projects underpinning the corporate strategy, opportunities plan and long list of ICT opportunities. The peer team felt that there was greater scope for these to be joined up into an organisation wide plan, backed up by clear resourcing and financial plans. 

Fareham is seen to be ‘well controlled and well governed.’ The council has an uncommon approach to risk, although this appeared to be well understood and embedded internally. Past good management of the organisation’s finances mean the organisation is in a comparatively good financial position, with a balanced budget for 2025/26. It has created new income streams through its investments, with new assets being managed in support of its priorities but could consider drawing together its different asset management strategies into a single strategy, supported by appropriate governance arrangements to oversee these major project areas. 

To strengthen its governance, the peer team recommends the council benchmark itself against the various codes, guidance and frameworks produced by CIPFA, Solace, Lawyers in Local Government, the LGA and others to assure itself it is operating in line with sector best practice. 

Relationships between members and officers are good at Fareham, with members reported to be knowledgeable and supportive. However, the peer team felt there is scope for members to be more challenging, supported by better performance, budget and risk information to enable this. Scrutiny is widely recognised to be inconsistent and ‘not working effectively:’ the council should consider options for streamlining and strengthening scrutiny, with consistent practices across all scrutiny mechanisms, clear member ownership of work programming, opportunities for both pre- and post-decision scrutiny and more consistent flows of information between scrutiny and the Executive.

To support stronger scrutiny and challenge across the council, a comprehensive member development programme should be developed for Executive members, committee members and backbenchers. The peer team was impressed with the coaching offer available for staff and felt that the council could build on the recently enhanced member training programme and draw on external resources to create a comparable development offer for members.

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:

3.1    Build on your existing strong partnership working to develop a more strategic approach to partnerships and place leadership, considering the legacy structures that can focus on Fareham post LGR.
The council is involved in numerous shared service partnerships with other councils as well as working with private sector partners on key economic development projects. It should now consider how a more overarching rather than service or project based approach to partnerships, could enhance place leadership for Fareham and provide a focus on the borough beyond LGR.

3.2    The council is leading great work: consider how you are promoting the good work that you do, as well as being open with others about the shared challenges all councils have. 
Despite its good partnership working with neighbouring authorities, Fareham has not been a strongly visible council sub-regionally or nationally. The peer challenge provides a starting point for the council to do more to highlight where it has led impressive work – but also be honest about the challenges it faces and where it might learn from others.

3.3    Enhance the performance, risk and budget data available to members, with clearly quantifiable metrics linked to services and corporate strategies that go beyond statutory requirements, enabling effective challenge and scrutiny. Assure yourself that your risk management approach is fully robust.
The council should ensure that detailed performance measures, budget monitoring and risk management reports are regularly shared with and effectively scrutinised by the Executive and scrutiny functions. Members should satisfy themselves that the council’s approach to risk is providing the assurance and oversight required in relation to key organisational risks.

3.4    Reform your approach to scrutiny. Consider separating advisory and scrutiny roles and review where performance reporting is currently considered. Consider commissioning a Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) review and / or training to support members in a revised model. 
There was unanimous agreement that scrutiny within Fareham is not working effectively. Potentially with external advice from the CfGS, the council should streamline and strengthen its existing panel structure and scrutiny work programme. 

3.5    Build a member development offer for portfolio holders, committee chairs and all members to enable effective participation in a model of more distributed leadership and reformed scrutiny / advisory panels. Draw on LGA and other external resources to develop this.
The council has recently strengthened its member training offer but could build on this with a wider member development offer (possibly framed by a member development strategy and member development working group) incorporating mentoring and external leadership courses. This should be available to Executive members, committee chairs and members as well as backbench councillors.

3.6    Benchmark budget and governance arrangements against best practice set out by CIPFA, Solace and Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) codes and guidance, such as budget monitoring frequency, independent member on audit and governance committee, ‘golden triangle’ management arrangements.
The council should review its current practices against guidance and codes developed by sector bodies such as CIPFA, Solace, LLG and the LGA to assure itself that current arrangements are in line with best practice.

3.7    Build on your impressive work and due diligence in support of individual bold investment decisions to draw together a single asset management framework, with clear principles for investment decisions and risk appetite, so that decisions are considered as elements in a larger financial and strategic context, and less on a standalone, case-by-case basis.
A single asset management strategy would provide an overarching framework and greater clarity on how the council reaches its investment decisions, framing future projects and delivery. This approach would also leave Fareham better placed in the LGR discussions to come and guard against the dilution of Fareham’s priorities (rather than relying on individual projects or sites) – see recommendation 3.10 below.

3.8    Strengthen the governance arrangements (eg by introducing a programme or delivery board) to drive forward and monitor the asset management framework and associated decisions, to ensure they are meeting the corporate objectives of the organisation in a cohesive way.
The council could consider establishing a specific governance mechanism responsible for overseeing the council’s capital investment decisions and project delivery in line with the asset management strategy and its corporate priorities.

3.9    Organisational culture appears to have significantly strengthened following changes in political and officer leadership. Continue work to embed these changes and the new organisational values in a consistent way, with a particular focus on teams not in the corporate/civic centre, and implement the People Strategy in the context of LGR. 
There is a clear sense of a more positive and empowered organisational culture in the council, but a need for ongoing efforts to ensure corporate initiatives and communications reach different teams and working locations in a consistent way. The council should consider how to maintain momentum in these areas despite the backdrop of LGR.

3.10    Champion the place of Fareham in Hampshire’s LGR discussions and consider how to mitigate the risk of any loss of identity or dilution of priorities in a potential future unitary. 
Fareham’s political and managerial leadership will be focused on ensuring the best outcome for Fareham’s residents from the LGR process. This could include consideration of new arrangements for lower-tier local government and/or, linked to recommendation one, new partnership vehicles that will endure beyond LGR to ensure continuity of focus on Fareham BC’s strategic priorities.
 

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:

• Larissa Reed, Chief Executive, Swale Borough Council  
• Cllr Chris Vinson, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Dover District Council 
• Peter Geraghty, Executive Director, Hertsmere Borough Council
• Karey Summers, Director of Customer Experience, Charnwood Borough Council 
• Emily Yule, Executive Director of Resources, Norwich City Council 
• Corey Gooch, Business Intelligence Manager East Lindsey BC (shadow peer team member)
• 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 the council’s approach to economic development and town centre regeneration.

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 Fareham Borough Council 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 three days onsite at Fareham, during which they:

• Gathered evidence, information, and views from more than 30 meetings, in addition to further research and reading.
• Spoke to more than 60 people including a range of council staff together with members and some 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.

Local priorities and outcomes

About Fareham

Fareham is a relatively small borough of just thirty square miles with a varied coastline and landscape, an attractive Georgian town as its main centre, and several other villages. The peer team heard that ‘Fareham is a collection of places’, with some suggestion that the Fareham place identity could be stronger. 

With a population of 114,500 recorded at the 2021 census, Fareham is less diverse than the English average – 93 per cent of the population identify as White British, compared to 81.7 per cent across the rest of England.  Fareham is a prosperous borough, ranked 298 out of 317 local authorities in the 2019 indices of deprivation, although small parts of the borough are within the top 30, 40 and 50 per cent of most deprived areas. Employment rates are higher than the regional and national average, as are the numbers of people in higher paid roles. Just under 80 per cent of the 48,600 households own their own home, compared to a national average of 62.5 per cent. As would be expected in this context, Fareham’s population is healthier than the national average, with a higher life expectancy and an ageing population.

Priorities and vision

At the end of 2024, the council refreshed its 2023-2029 corporate strategy, Fareham: a great place to live and work. The strategy’s six priorities are to provide housing choices, respond to climate change and protect the environment, ensure strong, safe and healthy communities, promote economic development, ensure leisure opportunities for wellbeing and fun, and be a responsive, inclusive and innovative council. As part of the process of implementing the strategy and its priorities, the council should now think about how to ensure a golden thread running from the vision and corporate strategy through service and individual performance management.

Town centre regeneration is a clear priority for Fareham, with the Executive recently approving the Fareham Town Centre Regeneration Strategy 2025-2035. The comprehensive document outlines a clear vision for the town centre as a destination of choice, ambitions for each part of the town centre and a set of pillars and principles for the transformation of the town.  The peer team observed that in many ways, the town centre appeared to be in comparatively good health, with a relatively low number of empty shops on the high street and a regular market. With such a strong emphasis placed on regenerating the town centre, the council could go further to articulate the benefits of this to the wider borough.

The Council is leading impressive work to turn its vision and priorities into outcomes. Work on the Daedalus site, Welborne Garden Village and on the Fareham Live development and shopping centre acquisition in the town centre are covered elsewhere in this report, but are strong examples of how the council is working effectively to deliver on its priorities on economic development, housing and town centre regeneration.

Both equalities and climate change feature within the council’s corporate plan priorities. The council has published corporate equality objectives for the period 2022-26 (these are reported on annually to the Executive), as well as an overview of the area’s demographics. Equality impact assessments are undertaken by services, with some corporate support available for these. The council has recognised that there is scope to go further in its consideration of equality, diversity and inclusion, both internally and externally. The corporate strategy therefore outlines a key project to ‘ensure the council’s services are accessible to all members of our community and staff by recognising and celebrating diversity, promoting inclusion and by providing systems and structures that allow for equity of opportunity and access.’

Responding to climate change is explicitly recognised in the corporate strategy’s six priorities. The council made a commitment in 2019 to become carbon neutral by 2030; this was followed up in 2021 by the organisation’s first climate change action plan. The approach to date has been to provide some corporate coordination / support (for example on training and funding bids) intended to enable all services to embrace the agenda, but concentrating on those services that can make the biggest difference. While the focus has largely been on carbon reduction and the council’s operational estate, the organisation is now considering a more outward focus that jointly positions its broader work on climate change, climate adaptation and the environment. 

Fareham’s Greener Future, published in 2024, outlined the council’s varied work on carbon reduction, sustainable development, land stewardship, protected bird sites on the Solent, coastal management, air quality, and waste and recycling, very much reflecting the area’s specific environmental characteristics. The council introduced biodiversity net gain into its local plan before the application of the Environment Act 2021 requirement to do so, and, as a part of the country significantly affected by it, is similarly used to managing nutrient adaptation. Fareham hosts the Partnership for South Hampshire nutrient mitigation team, having received £16m of government funding on behalf of 12 local authorities, and is exploring the scope for a habitat bank within the borough.

The 2024 document is expected to be followed by a comprehensive environment strategy in due course: the council should consider what cross-organisational structures could help support the development and delivery of the strategy.

Performance

Fareham can demonstrate good outcomes in some of its core services. The council owns around 2,400 homes; it has yet to be inspected by the Regulator of Social Housing but the council has self-assessed its preparations for the regulator’s inspections at 67 per cent green, 29 per cent amber and four per recent red as at October 2024. The council achieved impressive results in its Tenant Satisfaction Measures, ranking above the landlord median / national average on the majority of indicators and with an overall satisfaction rate of 83.5% (the third highest for council providers in the southern region).

The peer team was interested to hear about recent work to reduce the number of people in emergency accommodation.  Fareham has invested in new temporary housing stock, as well as undertaking an internal restructure and enhancing training and multiagency collaboration. This work has been impactful: since January 2024, the number of people awaiting placement has fallen by 70%, with emergency placement costs reduced by 57% from April to September 2024 compared to 2023. No families have been placed in B&Bs since September 2023. At the time of the peer challenge, the council had three street homeless and fourteen people in B&Bs (compared to 75 in January 2024); the most recent budget monitoring figures from November showed a £634,000 underspend in housing, enabling the council to reduce its planned budget for 2025/26.

The council successfully adopted its local plan in 2023 but is already starting to think about how the next iteration of the local plan will be influenced by the strong focus on town centre regeneration and housing. The planning service performs well: planning metrics in Fareham’s LG Inform corporate peer challenge information report for the two years ending quarter four 2023/24 were strong in terms of processing times and appeal decisions for both minor and major applications, and the council is proud that it granted the highest percentage (98 per cent) of planning permissions of any district council in the year to December 2024.  However, in common with other Hampshire boroughs, the council has lower than national average recycling rates.

Over a period of a number of years, Fareham has consistently had a very low number of complaints investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, and even fewer complaints upheld. The council is currently working with the LGSCO and other councils to develop complaints best practice and guidance. 

Performance management

Fareham has recently approved a new corporate approach to performance management, with a set of key performance indicators now in place as performance measures. These were agreed in consultation with directors, heads of service and service leads following workshops in 2024 and comprise a mix of quarterly and annual statistics, some with external benchmarks, grouped by corporate priorities. In addition to these KPIs, customer facing services will conduct regular ‘ten - ten’ surveys, contacting a small sample of recent customers to ask them to rate the service they received and what more was needed to receive a rating of ten. All performance measures are reported on the council’s website.

Prior to the new framework, there appears to have been limited service performance reporting beyond statutory indicators. Fareham previously adopted a Vanguard methodology across many of its services and although this clearly brought a number of service benefits and savings, it also appears to have been accompanied by a scaling back of planned work programming and performance management in some key areas, reducing the council’s ability to identify performance issues and weakening oversight. This led to service performance challenges and increased risks in areas such as housing repairs and planned stock maintenance; this was reflected in the results of the tenant satisfaction measures used by the Council. 

These issues are being addressed by strengthened senior leadership in the service, however the council will need to assure itself that it has the necessary systems in place to programme work, maintain performance and effectively monitor it, rather than rely on key individuals. The new performance measures provide a basic foundation for this and the council should focus on embedding these, although it could also consider quickly setting performance targets and should keep the set of indicators under review with consideration of others that may be useful to monitor. Performance measures are due to be reported to the audit and governance committee on a six monthly basis. The peer team recommends that performance reports are also reported to the Executive and the relevant scrutiny panel on a quarterly basis, alongside quarterly budget monitoring, in line with practice elsewhere.

Organisational and place leadership

Leadership changes and a new approach to communications

Fareham is in a period of transition following changes in both political and managerial leadership; the leader was elected in May 2024 when the previous leader retired after 25 years, with the chief executive having been appointed shortly beforehand, also following the retirement of a long-serving predecessor. It is clear that these changes have brought a notably different style of leadership, with the council shifting from a strongly centralised to a more distributed leadership approach: ‘the new leader wants it to be a shared team.’ At officer level, the senior leadership team (SLT) has been expanded to provide additional focus and expertise in the key areas of neighbourhood and housing services, to good effect. Directors and the executive meet monthly, with the executive having a short pre-meet beforehand. 

Both officers and members welcomed as a ‘sea change’ and ‘breath of fresh air’ the more open and collaborative approach. Despite the uncertainty around LGR, the peer team felt and heard of a strong sense of positivity across the council, with personal praise for the Leader and chief executive in an organisation that ‘doesn’t feel like a prescribed hierarchy.’

The council’s new leadership has strengthened internal communications and is seen to be highly approachable: ‘the chief executive’s door is always open.’ Alongside the staff intranet, the refreshed monthly ‘Our News’ newsletter is providing more engaging, interactive communications, including a focus on different teams and an update from the chief executive on recent SLT discussions. In November 2024, the senior leadership team hosted Fareham’s first ever in person staff event, Our News Live, at Fareham Live; additionally, quarterly coffee and chat sessions with the chief executive and senior leadership team have been introduced, with staff encouraged to pop in for a chat. 

The more open and engaging communications approach have been welcomed by staff. Officers noted that efforts have been made to ensure staff based in the council’s depot can now access the council’s intranet and training platform, and visits by the leader and chief executive to the depot had been particularly well received as something that had not happened previously. In relation to LGR, staff praised the ‘factual, reassuring’ approach to keeping staff updated.

The council has recently approved a new Communications and Engagement Strategy, with priority aims set out for both internal and external audiences. The council engaged with services to understand what good communications look like and what customers want in their areas. As it looks to implement and take forward the strategy, the Council could consider underpinning the strategy with specific data about how customers access different council channels and services.

Fareham focused on engaging different parts of the community (for example, the business community and voluntary and community sector (VCS)) as it developed its town centre regeneration strategy; the engagement plan being developed to support it recognises that there will be different levels of engagement, including both informing and co-production, as the council moves to implement the strategy. A new tenant engagement strategy was developed in 2024, with a tenant engagement group subsequently established and a new tenant engagement officer appointed to work more closely with tenants to develop new policies.

As noted above, the council corporately is placing more emphasis on its responsibilities around equality, diversity and inclusion and has identified a priority to ensure services are accessible to all and celebrate diversity. The council will publicly celebrate Pride month for the first time this year and has been working with local LGBTQ young people to hear about how they understand the council’s services, and what the council can do to make their everyday experience easier.

Partnerships

Partnerships are an area of strength for Fareham. The council is involved in numerous partnerships, primarily with other Hampshire councils, delivering services including building control, coastal management, environmental health, internal audit and legal services.  There was positive feedback from the council’s partners, including about its willingness to host, lead and support partnerships and the quality of support Fareham’s corporate services provide.

The council has also worked effectively with private sector partners in relation to flagship local infrastructure projects, with a good track record on project delivery; through this it is having a demonstrable impact on the local place.  Examples include Fareham Live, through which the borough now has a modern entertainment venue owned by the council, but operated by an experienced venue company, following a project the council conceived and led. Additionally, the council’s political and officer leadership was instrumental in securing £100m infrastructure funding to upgrade Junction 10 of the M27 and ensure the viability of the Welborne Garden Village. Fareham acted as a bridge between the developer, Government and Hampshire County Council, ensuring the necessary remodelling to enable access to the site.

Areas for development

Fareham’s existing partnership working provides a strong foundation to build from. With most of the council’s current partnerships service or project based, the peer team felt that there is scope for Fareham to connect its partnership working and place leadership roles, shifting away from a slightly transactional approach to a more strategic approach to partnerships. At the current time, there is no overarching structure or network providing a mechanism for place-based discussions involving multiple partners for Fareham town centre or the borough as a whole (although there are multi-agency governance arrangements for specific areas including the Solent Enterprise Zone at Daedalus and for Welborne Garden Village). With uncertainty about the long term future of the council, a new partnership vehicle that endures beyond LGR could have the important legacy of ensuring a continued focus on Fareham and mitigating the risk of a dilution of Fareham’s priorities in a potential future unitary. 

Internally, as noted there is already impactful and well received work taking place to enhance organisational engagement, communications and collaboration. The council should seek to maintain momentum in these areas, and the sense of positivity surrounding them, despite the uncertainty of LGR. As in any large organisation, this should include continued focus on ensuring that corporate communications and engagement opportunities consistently reach all teams and all working locations and do not vary depending on which team or building staff work in.

The peer team heard that staff at different levels within the council had welcomed opportunities to work collaboratively on the organisational values, Fareham Live and town centre regeneration projects. In particular, heads of service had found it valuable to meet collectively. The peer team understands that this may become a regular network and supports this as something which has proved a helpful way of strengthening cross organisational understanding and collaboration in other councils. The council could also consider regular extended leadership team meetings involving both SLT and heads of service. This would provide an important sense check that communications are being received and importantly, being understood in a consistent way through the council’s management structure and beyond (see 5.3 below).

A related point is that the council could also consider establishing further thematic groups focusing on cross cutting priorities such as climate change (as noted previously) and equalities (see section five below).

Governance and culture

A traditional council

Fareham is a stable Conservative authority with a sizeable majority; the peer team heard consistently that the council is ‘very traditional’ although it perhaps slightly unusual given its politics in having retained its housing stock and with largely in-sourced services. There was consistent feedback about a ‘very supportive’ culture within the council, with a focus on staff as a whole and not just a work perspective: Fareham is widely seen as a ‘very good employer’, with the longevity of many staff testament to this. Following the leadership changes, staff perceive a shift to a more empowered culture, with one officer commenting that ‘autonomy is a good part of working for Fareham’ and more meaningful engagement between senior leaders and officers. 

Relationships between members and officers are good, with the ability to have informal dialogue assisting swift decision making. Staff noted that ‘people feel supported by members and portfolio holders’ and that ‘members have a genuine interest in services. They come across as authentic and want to advocate’, while a member commented that officers are ‘top notch.’ Externally, a partner commented on the ‘incredible…dedication of members and officers to Fareham.’

The council concurrently has a number of newly elected members, some new Executive Members and new opposition leadership. The council leader and deputy leader hold occasional meetings with the opposition leader and deputy leader: the chief executive meets with the opposition leader on a monthly basis

The council enhanced its induction and wider training offer for the May 2024 intake of members and the peer team heard good examples of the democratic services team providing support to newer members to understand their role (for example, going through past budget papers). The peer team believe there is scope to enhance this support with a wider development offer that supports members to adapt into their different roles. With a large number of scrutiny panels and a more distributed approach to leadership, all members need to be confident about how they can engage and challenge and the routes open to them to do this. Role specific training, mentoring and participation in leadership training available from the LGA and others can help with this. The council should draw on these resources and could consider framing this with a member development strategy or Member Development Charter.

Audit and Risk

Externally, the council is seen as ‘well controlled and well governed.’ 

Internal audit is well-regarded, with the council very open to the process. The internal audit service is jointly delivered with Portsmouth City Council, with joint work also carried out with other Hampshire audit teams. A new chief internal auditor was appointed during 2024/25; the internal audit strategy has been refreshed for the first time since 2018/19 and was approved by the audit and governance committee in February 2025.

The internal audit work plan is informed by discussions with SLT and heads of service. The service has been used effectively to support services experiencing challenges: when potentially significant risks around the condition of the council’s waste management fleet were identified, an internal audit was commissioned to review the service. Following an internal audit, managers receive a review document and agree an action plan. Internal audit work is reported to the audit and governance committee on a quarterly basis, using a traffic light system for assurance opinions. 

The council’s previous compliance against the current global internal audit standards showed full conformity with 49 of the 52 standards; it now intends to benchmark itself against the new standards which are taking effect from April 2025.

The chief internal auditor’s annual report to the audit and government committee in July 2024 concluded that the ‘council had a framework of governance, risk management and control for the year 2023/24 which was generally working effectively.’ Only one limited assurance opinion was given during 2023/24, with 75 per cent of recommendations from the year signed off and 19 per cent being progressed.

The council has an audit and governance committee which meets quarterly, with an audit and governance standards sub-committee; the sub-committee was not convened in 2023-24 and has not been convened in 2024/25. The committee is viewed as increasingly effective, with an experienced chairman with a professional audit background; the chairman meets annually with the council’s chief internal auditor.

Fareham has an approach to risk management that differs from that of many other councils. The council no longer has a risk register but instead applies a risk management policy based on seven principles.  Annual meetings are held with risk managers to review risk management activity and confirm that the policy is being followed and can be evidenced; key risks are documented and presented to SLT and the audit and governance committee in six monthly reports. The chief executive’s Assurance Group (CXAG), comprising directors, assistant directors, the monitoring officer, chief finance officer and chief internal auditor and chaired by the chief executive, carries out an annual review of the effectiveness of the framework, including reviewing the chief internal auditor’s annual opinion on the adequacy and effectiveness of the council's framework.

The CXAG also leads the council’s annual governance review, informing the development of a detailed annual governance statement (AGS) covering a broad range of issues and outlining high level actions and lead owners for identified governance improvements.

Areas for development

Fareham has established governance and assurance processes in place, and as noted, is considered to be well governed. The peer team suggest however that the council may find it helpful to benchmark current practices against relevant governance codes produced by CIPFA, Solace, LLG, the LGA (LGA Improvement and Assurance Framework self-assessment tool) and others to ensure they are in line with sector best practice or identify areas that could be strengthened.  

As an example, the audit and governance committee does not currently have any independent members, whereas CIPFA’s 2022 position statement: audit committee in local authorities clearly recommends ‘that each authority audit committee should include at least two co-opted independent members to provide appropriate technical expertise.’

The management arrangements between the chief executive, monitoring officer and section 151 officer could also be considered. The new section 151 officer works closely with the chief executive but is line managed by the monitoring officer. However,  the CIPFA, Solace and LLG Code of Practice on Good Governance for Local Authority Statutory Officers emphasises the importance of each of these three officers being able to constructively challenge each other, and states that ‘The chief finance officer and monitoring officer should have a clear and direct relationship to the head of paid service (chief executive), normally through line management or other equivalent arrangement.’ 

On risk, as noted, the council’s approach is relatively unusual. While this is felt internally to be working well, it is important that through its annual and other reviews, the council is assured its arrangements are sufficiently robust, and that it has in place systemic arrangements that enable both senior officers and members to regularly understand and identify performance and other risk issues.

Scrutiny and challenge

The peer team heard consistent feedback that scrutiny is not working well at Fareham. The council has an unusually large number of scrutiny panels covering climate change, the Daedalus site, health and public protection, leisure and community, licensing, licensing trading concessions, planning and development, policy and resources, and streetscene. In an authority with only 32 members, this places a significant demand on members (who may be on three or four panels each) and structurally is highly unlikely to be the most efficient way of approaching scrutiny.

Feedback to the peer team suggests that the work of the scrutiny panels has become blurred, involving some scrutiny but also providing an advisory function, with inconsistencies in how they are operating. There is a perception among some members that officers ‘own’ the panel work programmes, although panel priorities is a standing agenda item for each panel so there is an expectation that members lead this.

The peer team heard that scrutiny panels sometimes receive presentations during meetings, rather than advance papers, undermining the chance to scrutinise and challenge. The peer team noted that the lack of performance data, and budget monitoring reports only being provided every 6 months also reduces the scope to scrutinise. There appears to be more focus on bringing issues to scrutiny at an early stage, before there are well-formed proposals to comment on: while this provides the opportunity for panels to contribute to policy development, there is a perception among some members that firmer proposals are not then always brought back to panels. Similarly, the peer team heard that there is scope to strengthen ‘you said, we did’ feedback from the Executive to panels, as well as post-decision scrutiny.

The peer team recommends that the council streamlines and strengthens its scrutiny panels, ensuring a consistent approach across a much smaller number of panels with clarity about formal scrutiny structures and any other panels established to advise the Executive and wider council.  The council could consider a single overview and scrutiny committee (major projects or functions that carry greater risk such as Daedalus may warrant dedicated scrutiny sub-committees), alongside the use of advisory panels and / or task & finish groups to carry out bespoke and in-depth work. Fareham may find it helpful to commission an external review from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) to help it consider how to restructure its scrutiny panels: it should also consider providing CfGS training for all scrutiny chairs and panel members. This will help build understanding of the full scope of scrutiny (for example, considering requesting external partners attend scrutiny meetings) and how members can develop work programmes to incorporate a mix of pre-decision, task and finish work and post-decision scrutiny. The council should also ensure clearer information flows between refreshed scrutiny panels and the Executive.

Beyond scrutiny panels, the peer team believe that Fareham would benefit from members generally providing more consistent questioning and challenge during meetings than has historically been the case. This should also be well documented: some meeting minutes were regarded as, and in the peer team’s view are, ‘economic.’  The council should also consider reinstating live screening or publishing recordings of public meetings to enhance transparency. 

As noted elsewhere in this report, timely sharing of performance, budget and risk data, as well as consistent take up an enhanced member development offer focusing on role and meeting specific training rather than just induction and service focused training, will support members in providing this challenge.

Financial planning and management

Finances have been effectively managed at Fareham, and the council is in a comparable, or stronger, financial position to other councils. It received a positive interim Value for Money report for 2022/23 from its external auditors, with no significant weaknesses or recommendations identified, although the sector-wide audit backlog meant the 2022/23 and 2023/24 accounts were subsequently disclaimed.

The council has set a balanced budget for 2025/26, increasing council tax by the maximum 2.99 per cent permitted, but with no requirement to use reserves (a £0.29m general fund reserves contribution was made towards the 2024/25 budget gap). There is a clear medium term financial strategy: currently, GF reserves are expected to plug a predicted £1.3m budget gap in 2026/7, with budget gaps of £1.25m and £0.929m but insufficient available reserves in 2027/8 and 2028/9. The council recognises the need to replenish its reserves. 

The council has used two separate iterations of its ‘opportunities plan’, in 2019 and 2023, to identify savings and revenue opportunities to close previous budget gaps, with £2.5m revenues savings identified so far. The plan is now being reviewed to identify savings for 2025/26. The council has taken a collaborative approach to identifying savings, with both officers and members identifying opportunities for consideration and scrutiny panels commenting on draft versions of the plan. Portfolio holders are engaged in discussions about difficult budget decisions; members are aware that the council cannot rely on reserves and appear accepting of the need to reduce the budget. 

Fareham’s LG Inform report highlights that it has slightly higher than average council tax and NNDR collection rates compared to its CIPFA near neighbours and is more significantly above the England average. However, the council was below the nearest neighbour averages on reserves as a percentage of service spend and as a percentage of net revenue expenditure (2023/24), and significantly above its near neighbours on debt servicing as a percentage of core spending power and total debt as a percentage of core spending power (also 2023/24)

The council’s figures on debt reflect the assets it has previously acquired and its social housing stock. Bold decisions have been taken to acquire land holdings and strategic local assets in the Daedalus site and Fareham shopping centre. These are now generating income streams for the council, and the peer team felt that the council has to date showed commercial acumen in its acquisition and subsequent management of these. The potentially risky purchase of the shopping centre demonstrated good awareness of commercial considerations and due diligence and was informed by expertise recruited from the private sector; the council has wisely engaged retail sector expertise to manage the asset.

The peer team visited the Daedalus site and was impressed with what it heard of the management of the site, which hosts two business parks, a skills and innovation centre, South Hampshire College Group’s Civil Engineering Training Centre and Centre of Excellence in Engineering, Manufacturing and Advanced Skills Training and Solent Airport; the site forms part of a pre-existing Enterprise Zone. Having acquired the site in 2015, it is now bigger and more ambitious than the original vision, with 128,000 square metres of land offering the largest employment opportunity in the borough. The council has made a considerable investment into Daedalus, but appears to be taking a shrewd approach to utilising the asset in support of its wider priorities, taking a patient and selective approach to agreeing land sales to businesses intending to occupy the site and create employment opportunities and future income streams, with capital receipts used to help fund town centre regeneration.

The operational airport has potential to be part of a strong marketing and promotional dimension for the authority. However, it is currently being substantially subsidised. In reprocuring the contract to run the airport (discussed at 5.6 below), the council will need to decide how this asset is managed in the future or what partnership/venture arrangements it wants to pursue to achieve the airport’s full potential in the context of LGR.

Although Fareham is a prosperous borough and therefore ineligible for some grant funding streams, the peer team noted that the council was successfully tapping into available grant funding such as the Warm Homes scheme, UK Shared Prosperity Fund and notably £16m from the Local Nutrient Mitigation Fund to the Partnership for South Hampshire, hosted by Fareham, to deliver nutrient mitigation across the Solent and South Hampshire sub-region.

Areas for development

The council’s Annual Governance Statement for 2023/24 noted plans for a project to improve manager engagement and understanding of the financial position and cost of services. The peer team heard a suggestion that the council ‘isn’t very good at knowing the cost of our services’ but also that ownership of finances is shifting towards services rather than just the finance team, with heads of services strengthening their monthly meetings with their finance business partners. Fareham should continue work to embed this greater understanding and ownership of finances and the financial challenges across the organisation.

Linked to this, the peer team believes that the Executive should engage in more regular routine oversight of the organisation’s financial position: it currently receives budget monitoring reports on a six-monthly basis, whereas SLT receive reports every two months. The peer team is concerned that receiving financial updates this infrequently cannot ensure members have sufficient, current information or timely assurance about the council’s finances: it recommends the council moves to at least quarterly reporting to the Executive, in line with standard practice elsewhere.

The council is demonstrating a clear and impactful commercial outlook in how it is managing its assets. However, it has a number of separate asset management plans covering disparate assets, including car parks, the Fareham Shopping Centre, the depot and civic offices. The peer team recommends that the council considers drawing these together into a single asset management framework which include clear principles for the council’s investment decisions and set out its risk appetite, providing a basis for a systematic assessment of risk in a programmed way. This will help ensure investment and capital decisions are considered as elements in a wider financial and strategic context, linked to the council’s priorities, rather than reviewed on a standalone, case by case basis.

Linked to this, the council should also consider establishing specific governance arrangements, such as a programme or delivery board, to monitor the framework, associated decisions and delivery of key capital projects. This will help provide clearer member oversight of an area that is one of the council’s key priorities.

Capacity for improvement

People Strategy, values and performance management

At the end of 2024, Fareham approved a new People Strategy, with a vision of ‘enabling our people to flourish.’ The strategy sets out six pillars, identifying for each the steps already undertaken, actions underway or due in the next twelve months, and longer-term actions. The People Strategy has been well received across the organisation but is now being reviewed to determine which of the planned actions may need to be revised in light of LGR. The council should work quickly to do this and maintain its focus in this area: ‘keep working at the relationships – it’s all about the people.’

The People Strategy highlights the council’s organisational values: better outcomes, responsibility, integrity, innovation, collaboration and kindness. It was clear from the peer team’s discussions that work to develop the new values was widely owned across the organisation, that they are well understood by staff and being applied: ‘kindness is the golden thread that runs through the organisation.’ The council is planning to further promote the values and also planning to incorporate them into a new performance framework being developed for staff. 

Previously, performance management involved setting Smart objectives; however, in part due to the pandemic, this evolved into something more light touch with feedback based on what officers should stop, start, continue and change. The peer team picked up that in the past, some managers and staff have struggled with providing constructive criticism or challenge, as well as recognition that the council needs to refresh its performance management and introduce a golden thread to the organisation. A desire among staff for more feedback on performance was indicated in the August 2024 Pulse staff survey. Members of the HR team are currently working with managers and supervisors to support them with providing positive feedback and constructive criticism: this is also intended to help position staff to get what they want from the opportunity LGR may present. 

It is positive that Fareham has recently introduced six monthly temperature check surveys, although the council could try to increase the response rate to more than half of staff. Survey results confirm that staff perceive a positive culture change and appreciate the approachability, positivity and supportiveness of managers, but identified communications, workloads and opportunities for staff to learn and develop skills as areas for development. As noted, the council has been focusing on strengthening its internal communications in recent months, and during the peer challenge, however, the peer team heard that many staff do feel there are opportunities to develop within the organisation. Staff also fed back that their ideas are taken on board, with the senior leadership team empowering people to put views forward.

As noted elsewhere in this report, the peer team was impressed with the coaching offer available to staff. The council employs a Management Development Coach for four days a week, part funded through the organisational training budget, to provide performance and development coaching for members of staff, who can self refer or be referred for support. Although stretched, the peer team heard that resource has been utilised effectively to improve performance and support staff with development opportunities; the organisation is also introducing group coaching sessions to enable staff to manage sessions themselves. 

As part of the implementation of the People Strategy, the council has established a Peoples Champion network intended to look at thematic issues, in the first instance, wellbeing: ensuring wellbeing, equality, diversity and inclusion is one of the pillars of the strategy. Fareham has not to date had any staff networks, so this is a positive development. 

The council could also consider establishing staff network groups looking at other key themes such as equalities, or representing particular sections of the workforce, to help the council’s objective of driving work in this area. In recognition that Fareham has more to do to develop its approach to equalities, the council recently commissioned external equalities training – the peer team heard very positive feedback about the quality of this training and how it had increased staff’s understanding. Positively, the council does not have a gender pay gap.

There are strong and constructive relationships with both the regional and local Unison representative; although the formal agreement between the council and trade union dates back to 1994 and is out of date, the good working relationship means that neither party relies on the agreement. The joint consultative committee, bringing together the HR team and trade union, meets quarterly, with additional meetings scheduled as required. The positive nature of this relationship will stand the council and its staff in good stead as the authority works through the process of LGR.

ICT and digital

Fareham has already recognised that it has more to do to progress opportunities in ICT and digital, with a Digital and IT strategy a key corporate project and the Council exploring opportunities to transform its digital service.  The peer team heard positive feedback about the IT service from staff - ‘never change the internal IT team; they’re amazing!’ –and the new ICT manager has developed a projects plan and ICT task list to help manage projects more effectively. However, there is also an acknowledgement that ‘we’re a little bit behind the times on digital transformation’ with limited previous investment in this as a priority. 

The council appears to be at an early stage in developing the strategy, but the peer team felt that the IT project board is beginning to strengthen the links between technical IT requirements / projects and wider organisational needs linked to corporate priorities, as well as identifying resourcing and funding to support them.

Areas for development

As in other areas, the council’s future work on digital and ICT is made more complex by the prospect of LGR, which may reduce appetite for investment in new solutions and approaches. The peer team felt that there is still scope for greater join up between the council’s opportunities plan and the emerging approach to ICT and digital, as well as the corporate strategy. There are more than eighty projects identified in the opportunities plan, more than forty in the corporate strategy; the ICT team also has a separate long list of projects for consideration, and there are separate priorities identified in the People Strategy.  The council will need to be mindful of whether it has the capacity to deliver all of these -  particularly in the context of LGR, which will impact both the resources available and rationale for priority projects - but may find it helpful to review these projects collectively, identify those that should be prioritised regardless of LGR, and bring these together into a single organisational change or legacy plan. This should be backed by clearly articulated costs, savings and benefits linked to different projects, with an appropriate evaluation mechanism that ensures consistent capturing of business benefits realisation.

Customer digital access is an area that the council could develop further if this is deemed a priority in the context of LGR. Although there has been some survey work with staff on service needs, the council does not appear to have clear data on digital capabilities across the borough, meaning that the customer facing ICT offering hasn't been based on understanding the customer needs. Greater understanding of the digital capability of residents will help the council identify how best to use digital services that result in the biggest successes and value for money whilst also being able to support residents to becoming more digitally capable, which brings multiple benefits. 

The peer team also understood that there are some inefficiencies in the council’s use of e-forms, with some double keying of data required where there is no integration with the council’s systems.

The peer team also heard there may be opportunities for customer services to play a greater role in dealing with resident queries. Customer services is mainly dispersed across the organisation, with most queries going directly through to services who are not always immediately available to respond. The council could consider reviewing how its small central customer services team could be enabled to deal with a broader range of queries at the first point of contact, rather than forwarding these onwards.

In terms of its more inward focused work, the council should continually focus on ensuring that organisational communications, values and initiatives are shared and embedded consistently in different teams and working locations. 

The peer team heard concerns from more senior staff that the attractiveness of pay and conditions of some roles has been reduced as jobs have evolved over a period of time. This is a challenge for many councils; like others, Fareham has at points paid market supplements or offered starting / retention bonuses to support recruitment and retention, as well as advertising roles without identifying a specific capability or grade in hard to recruit professions. With budget constraints and widespread workforce shortages in important local government functions, there are no easy solutions, but as it proceeds towards possible LGR, Fareham should consider how decisions on pay can protect the organisation as much as possible.

Economic development and town centre regeneration

As highlighted already in this report, through equally strong political leadership and officer stewardship council has led impressive work in economic development and town centre regeneration. 

The council’s work on the town centre, Fareham Live project and new regeneration strategy involved good internal and external engagement, with cross-organisational project groups to support these key priorities and an external town centre regeneration steering group: this is now due to be replaced by a Fareham Town Centre Consultative Group. The council has also made intelligent use of partnership arrangements, recognising where specialist expertise is required and engaging sector-specific operators to run assets such as Solent Airport, Fareham Live and Fareham Shopping Centre.

Fareham appointed an economic development officer three years ago, with further regeneration posts being recruited to support delivery of its Regeneration Strategy. This is helping to strengthen relationships with local businesses: as well as providing ad-hoc business support and facilitating connections within the council, the economic development lead also hosts businesses breakfasts and produces a business newsletter for around 2000 recipients. A new South East Region Defence and Security Cluster has been launched (in which Fareham is actively involved), with a regional film office also being explored, and the economic development officer also provides a clear link point with Fareham’s local colleges and skills providers based at Daedalus.

Areas for development

The peer team heard that the council owned Solent Airport is currently operating at a loss and being subsidised by income made elsewhere on the Daedalus site. Clearly, it will need to effectively manage the risks associated with owning a loss making asset; it is in the process of reprocuring the contract to run the airport, with a clear priority to reduce this net deficit. Pending the outcome of the procurement process, and the future returns from the airport, the council will need to keep under close review whether the airport is delivering in either financial or wider economic development terms, or whether alternative operating models may be more appropriate in supporting the council’s strategic objectives and the overall profitability of the site. 

In terms of its strategic objectives, the recently developed town centre regeneration strategy provides a framework for what the council wants to achieve in the town centre: the council must now develop detailed plans for how this will be delivered. The council’s recent town centre delivery approach has seen it step in and acquire assets, but this is unlikely to be feasible or desirable for all it wants to achieve in the town centre. The peer team felt that the council should actively explore other forms of partnership working, for example joint ventures, arm’s length companies or housing delivery companies, to help deliver its ambitions, and was pleased to hear the council is already looking at this.

As noted, the peer team felt that the council could do more to articulate the benefits of town centre regeneration for the wider borough of Fareham; linked to that, a wider economic development strategy could help to join up the different elements of the council’s activity. The council is considering the need for an economic development strategy, with economic development a clear priority for the new political leadership. An overarching strategy bringing together the council’s work in the town centre, at Daedalus, with businesses and with training providers, and highlighting investment opportunities in the borough and the benefits for the whole place, could help to support this priority.

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 you need to produce and publish an action plan within 5 months of the time on site. 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 Fareham will be agreed in due course.

In the meantime, Will Brooks, Principal Adviser for the South East, is the main contact between your authority and the Local Government Association. As outlined above, Will is available to discuss any further support the council requires. [email protected], 07949 054421.