City of Wolverhampton Council - Progress Review

The council undertook an LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) during 16-19 September 2024 and promptly published the full report with an action plan. 

The Progress Review is an integral part of the Corporate Peer Challenge process. Taking place approximately ten months after the CPC, it is designed to provide space for the council’s senior leadership to:

• Receive feedback from peers on the early progress made by the council against the CPC recommendations and the council’s RAG rated CPC Action Plan.
• Consider peers’ reflections on any new opportunities or challenges that may have arisen since the peer team were ‘on-site’ including any further support needs
• Discuss any early impact or learning from the progress made to date

The LGA would like to thank City of Wolverhampton Council (Wolverhampton) for their commitment to sector led improvement. This Progress Review was the next step in an ongoing, open and close relationship that the council has with LGA sector support.

The Progress Review at Wolverhampton took place (onsite) on Tuesday 17 June 2025, with the following members of the original CPC team involved:

• Lead officer peer: Tom Stannard, Chief Executive Manchester City Council
• Lead member peer: Cllr David Molyneux MBE, Leader Wigan Council
• Senior officer peer: Amy Harhoff, Chief Executive, East Midlands Combined Authority
• Senior officer peer: Asad Mushtaq, Executive Director Finance and Digital, London Borough of Merton
• Senior officer peer: Tunde Olayinka, Executive Director Communities and Skills, Greater London Authority
• Ellie Greenwood, Peer Challenge Manager, Local Government Association

The Progress Review considered the ten recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge under the following thematic headings:

• Finance
• Data and development
• External partnerships

Out of the CPC’s ten recommendations, the council’s RAG rated action plan reported that 100 per cent of actions are completed or in progress and on track. On their return to the council, the peer team felt that the council has made good progress against many of the CPC’s recommendations, notwithstanding the fact that some – for example, the recommendation relating to the Integrated Care Board’s finances – had become more challenging since September due to national policy targets all areas are grappling with.

The council’s position statement for the progress review highlighted a broad range of activity against all the recommendations. The peer team was pleased to see it has progressed some of the specific suggestions on partnership working, for example developing a civic agreement with the University of Wolverhampton and reviewing its convening work with the voluntary and community sector (VCS).

The peer team again heard consistently positive feedback in meetings with a range of staff and external partners during the progress review. The council is clearly sustaining its strong partnership working within the city, with strong examples of how this translates into rapid problem solving that has a demonstrable impact on residents’ lives and good progress on city centre regeneration and development schemes.

Staff positivity and commitment similarly appears to have been maintained, despite the need to deliver significant budget savings. As the peer team recommended in September, the Our Future Council (OFC) principles have been well communicated to staff. The organisation should now focus on ensuring a consistently deep understanding of the programme’s focus on transforming the council as well as delivering savings. The council has been successful in achieving the savings it has needed to achieve to date, although like many councils with similar levels of poverty and deprivation, it also benefited from a better than expected finance settlement for 2025/26. However, local government faces ongoing financial challenges, with uncertainty about the impact of Local Government Funding Reform; additionally, the financial challenge for the local ICB has increased since September, in line with many ICBs nationally and the planned restructuring of NHS England launched since the original peer review took place. The council will therefore need to retain its focus and keep up the pace on OFC.

More detailed feedback on each thematic area is set out below.

3.1 Finance

• Recommendation 1: Within the ‘Our Future Council’ transformation strategy, detail unambiguous revenue budget targets, linked to the projected MTFP gap of £32.5m.
• Recommendation 2: Clearly communicate and anchor the Our Future Council plan in the agreed ‘core principles’ from the July 2024 away day with Cabinet and Strategic Executive Board (SEB).
• Recommendation 3: Set out a clear medium term strategy for the use and replenishment of earmarked reserves.

Feedback

• The OFC principles are recognised to have been well-communicated across the organisation. The council should now focus on ensuring these are consistently well understood, with a focus on organisation wide transformation producing cashable recurrent savings.
• As for all councils, the organisation should guard against the risk of complacency linked to early savings delivery and a better than expected settlement for 2025/26. With a £17.2m gap to close for 2026/27, this will require continued laser focus, while the underspend position for 2024/25 indicates ongoing demand pressures.
• It is positive that the council is making less use of reserves to balance budgets. However, it remains imperative that plans to reduce reliance on reserves and subsequently replenish them are actioned over the medium term.
• The ICB’s financial targets and risks of NHS England reorganisation, against a backdrop of previous financial challenge, poses a significant risk for the council’s social care budgets in particular. This needs to be recognised and proactively managed.

It is clear that, following the peer challenge in September 2024, the council has made progress in communicating the Our Future Council programme internally. Staff are aware of the programme and feel that communications are good, with regular updates through the fortnightly staff video, leadership team meetings and email links to budget reports and other updates. Staff feel empowered to share their suggestions for savings through the ‘Our people ideas’ scheme. More senior staff feel that OFC is integrated into the council’s priorities - part of the organisation’s golden thread – and that there are opportunities for staff through prioritisation and changing what / how things are done.

To build on the work to date, the council should continue to ensure that there is a consistent understanding, among staff at all levels, that the OFC is a vehicle for organisation-wide transformation not just delivering savings.

The council will need to keep up the pace on OFC. Although it has made progress in delivering savings and ended 2024/25 with an underspend, all councils need to remain vigilant about growing demand-led pressures and the ongoing need for savings. Many councils, including Wolverhampton, benefitted from a better than expected funding settlement for 2025/26, and the sector continues to face significant demand and funding pressures. In Wolverhampton, this is illustrated by the fact that, of the underspend for 2024/25, only a small proportion was recurrent rather than one off savings.

The council’s budget report in February set out the 2025/26 budget and MTFS in the context of the Our Future Council programme. The MTFS gap for 2026/27 has been revised down from the £32.6m figure at the time of the peer team’s visit to £17.2m, with the gap increasing to £23.5m in 2027/28 contingent on the successful delivery of identified savings. The report identified a savings plan of £25.2m for 2025/26, rising to £40.7m over the medium term, of which £31.8m are recurrent.

The council has developed a strategy for delivering the 2026/27 budget and OFC programme. It plans to report to Cabinet in July following the June spending review, early 2025/26 budget monitoring and greater clarity about the West Midlands Pension Fund’s triennial valuation and review of employer contributions. The implications of the recently announced Local Government Funding Review will need to be clarified to assess what impact it will have on the council’s MTFS.

The peer team recommended that the council set a clear medium term strategy for the use and replenishment of reserves. The council refreshes its reserve strategy annually; the February 2025 update fits within a budget and MTFS intended to minimise reliance on earmarked reserves to maintain financial flexibility, in line with the CPC recommendation.

The council delivered on its 2024/25 budget plan to increase its reserves to £19m / five per cent of the net budget and bolster earmarked reserves. However, while it is committed to replenishing reserves, this is seen as a medium-long term strategy once there is greater clarity about future funding and savings delivery. It is positive that the council has made less use of reserves to balance the budget, but in the peer team’s view remains imperative that it continues this trend and seeks to rebuild reserves as soon as possible to provide for financial resilience and make available funds for strategic investments.

The peer team had previously highlighted the need to prepare the council (and its partners) for a more challenging financial environment in the context of the ICB’s £120m deficit.  Recent national policy announcements in the health sector have compounded this challenge; even more so than last year, the peer team urges the council to ensure that, politically and at officer level, it is recognising and proactively addressing the risks the financial position and anticipated reorganisation pose to the council’s social care budgets in particular. This is considered further in section 3.3.

3.2 Data and development

• Recommendation 4: Define and deliver a comprehensive officer and member development programme and organisational development plan linked to the Our Future Council strategy; keep senior officer capacity under review.
• Recommendation 8: Continually improve and articulate the council’s use of data in relation to understanding and determining support for priority populations in the local community.

Feedback

• There is a sense from staff and members that the council is investing in training and development and support. Ensure the training programme is fully communicated with all members.
• The council is making good progress in articulating how data is driving positive interventions and outcomes for priority populations and should continue on this path, for example alcohol abuse example being targeted at particular populations.
• Staff welcome the continued investment and focus on EDI and targeted development schemes. Continue making progress on EDI and representation in the workforce and reviewing the effectiveness of your actions.
• The peer team heard good examples of how AI / digital is increasing efficiency, but a sense that there is more to do to develop the overall digital approach as part of the OFC programme.

The peer team heard positive feedback about the council’s continued investment in people; despite the financial pressures it faces, it appears to have maintained the people centric, collaborative and caring organisational culture the peer team observed during the peer challenge.

Since the peer challenge, the council has refreshed its member development strategy. The enhanced offer was noted by senior councillors, with members of the Cabinet having utilised LGA leadership training; the council should now ensure there is consistent awareness amongst all councillors, including backbenchers and opposition councillors, of the opportunities available. To develop the offer further, the council intends to work with the LGA’s West Midlands regional team, who are keen to support this.

Among officers, the commitment to ‘growing our own’ ethos is recognised and appreciated. To increase diversity across more senior positions, the council has new cohorts of staff in its Aspiring to Management and Breaking Through development programmes: it should maintain its efforts on increasing diversity at the very top of the organisation. In May, the council ran the first Wolves Development Challenge, in which more than thirty aspiring leaders participated in a simulated opportunity to deal with hypothetical challenges that council directors may deal with. Senior officers from the council’s strategic executive board sponsored different teams and role played as part of the event, which the council plans to run again in future.

The council has increased its investment in Lumina, an approach to increase self and team awareness of behaviours to enhance collaboration and team effectiveness. At the time of the peer challenge, this had been undertaken by senior officers at the council; it has since been rolled out more widely to support service development across the council.

As noted, despite challenging savings targets, the council has maintained investment in staff, ring-fencing its corporate training budget on the basis that a leaner workforce can only thrive if every remaining employee is equipped with deeper, more agile skills. The peer team supports the decision to maintain this important capacity funding.

In the same spirit, the peer challenge highlighted the need to keep senior-leadership capacity under close review. Preserving that strategic layer is already giving directors the “permission” to prioritise, focus and “contract clearly,” and comparable evidence shows it will be critical to unlocking the next generation of innovation across both OFC and core services.

Equality, diversity and inclusion continues to be an important priority for Wolverhampton: this is recognised by staff and reflected in scrutiny from the Equality and Resource Scrutiny Panel and Cabinet Members for both Equalities and Communities. The peer team felt that there was a much clearer articulation across all the groups it spoke to of how data is driving decision making and activity around EDI, with multiple examples of targeted work including alcohol abuse work with specific sections of the local population.

On data more widely, the council is developing its new ‘Driven by Digital’ strategy, to embed a robust framework and roadmap for organisational use of digital and data. The peer team heard good examples of how technology is being used to drive efficiencies and improve services, such as the use of microchips to monitor waste levels in street bins, allowing for targeted collections. However, the council recognises there is more to do to develop this approach; it should continue to liaise with other councils to exchange and hear about best practice, and embed this as a critical component of OFC.

3.3 External partnerships

• Recommendation 5: Prepare the organisation and partners for the more challenging financial environment across the Black Country ICS in the context of a £120m deficit, whilst maintaining the positive attributes and culture of the place partnership.
• Recommendation 6: Review and better equip the council collectively to engage with the new government.
• Recommendation 7: Maintain the pace and regard for the City of Wolverhampton’s regional roles and consider more distributed leadership of these roles politically and amongst officers.
• Recommendation 9: Consider new strategies and interventions on in-work progression for working age employed residents to maximise social value and employment for local residents.
• Recommendation 10: As place leader, keep the status of existing city partnerships under review to ensure maximum impact and clarity.

Feedback

• The peer team heard consistently positive feedback about partnership working in the city and the council’s work with other organisations. There are multiple good examples of how informal relationships and governance structures benefit the city and its residents, for example collaborative working on safeguarding, family hubs and the integrated neighbourhood teams, the University, College and Business Board.
• The peer team was pleased to see the council has agreed a civic agreement with the University, and that the City Learning Quarter is nearing completion. The council should continue to pay close attention to the demand for social and affordable housing and purpose built student accommodation
• The council has strengthened its convening role with the voluntary and community sector, as the peer team recommended.
• The council has sought to progress how it works with the Government, with a detailed lobbying plan and priority local lobbying campaigns identified. The council should continue to pursue these.
• The council is a leading player in a well-established regional authority. One year on from the Mayoral and general elections, Wolverhampton should continue to focus on supporting the WMCA to be the most effective advocate it can be for the city and wider region.
• Relationships with local health partners remain strong as the ICB anticipates wider regional clustering ahead of an expected formal merger. Moving to an accountable care organisation is a live debate for Wolverhampton, the pros and cons of which should be carefully assessed.
• In this challenging context, the council will need to focus on how it can help preserve local neighbourhood working, and work with neighbouring councils to drive a collaborative approach to change with health partners.
• The council has refreshed its Good Growth Strategy. Partners recognise there is scope to strengthen regional work on health and skills.

Following the very positive feedback in September, the peer team heard further praise for the council’s strong partnerships, particularly within the city itself. It is clear that the council is maintaining its effective partnership working, despite the challenges that different stakeholders are dealing with.

As previously, the peer team heard from a range of different city partners about how governance mechanisms and strong personal relationships enable close working and rapid problem solving between partners: the peer team heard examples of collaborative working around family hubs and integrated neighbourhood teams, and of how issues impacting residents had been dealt with much more quickly than may happen in other places due to the strength of local relationships.

The peer team was pleased to hear that the council and University of Wolverhampton have committed to establishing a civic agreement, due to be formally signed later this year alongside the University’s business and professional services co-locating in the Civic Cente. With the University intending to significantly expand student numbers in the coming years, the council will need to continue to pay close attention to the interplay between the demand for social and affordable housing vis-à-vis purpose built student accommodation: the strong relationships between the two partners should provide a firm basis for managing this.

A similar civic agreement is also being explored with the college, with the City Learning Quarter campus on track to open in Autumn. The Green Innovation Corridor was launched at UKREiiF in May this year and planning permission has been secured for a major city centre regeneration scheme at Smithgate. The City Investment Board (which now incorporates the council’s leader of the opposition) provides a forum for partners to come together to focus on city partnerships and regeneration. Building on what the peer team heard last year, there is a strong sense of how the council’s partnerships and leadership are continuing to drive regeneration and ‘place’ benefit for the city of Wolverhampton, as well as improving people facing services. The recent Kabaddi World Cup also highlights the scope for working with partners on events that can further drive interest and investment in the city.

The CPC recommended that the council focus on in work progression for working age residents and the council has reviewed this area as part of the annual refresh of its Good Growth strategy. Supporting pathways into work and career progression is now an explicit priority within the people theme of the strategy: the priority will also be reflected in the ongoing update of the Education, Skills and Employment Strategy. The current review of the Wolverhampton Pound, supported by the Anchor Network, provides another opportunity to consider how to further social value outcomes in the city.

The peer team encourages the council to complement this work by focusing on a work and health programme that links health prevention work with work and skills opportunities, ensuring that this important issue is not lost in the context of health reorganisation. This opportunity is further reinforced by the recently released NHS 10-Year Plan, which explicitly recognises the critical link between health and work. With some work on this taking place within Wolverhampton, but perhaps less so regionally, the council is well-placed to play a leading role in shaping the regional response and a programme across the West Midlands Combined Authority area, ensuring that employment and skills strategies are fully aligned with preventative health priorities.  Wolverhampton, alongside others in the region and nationally, will also need to continue to influence Government to improve the environment in which skills development and retraining opportunities can be progressed at the local level.

In terms of the council’s regional role, with a new mayor in 2024 and recent changes in leadership in both councils and the WMCA, new ways of working are still being embedded. WMCA is embarking on a transformation programme and developing a West Midlands Partnership Plan and Mayoral Taskforce to set out clear regional priorities and the role of the Mayor and Leaders; roles and responsibilities of the West Midlands Executive Board (chaired by Wolverhampton’s chief executive) and supporting workstreams are also currently being refreshed.

Wolverhampton has to date been a leading player in helping to establish the regional authority; through the current discussions and evolution it should continue to focus on supporting WMCA to be the most effective advocate it can for both the City of Wolverhampton and West Midlands as a whole.

Nationally, the council developed a clear plan for engaging with and influencing the new Government; more recently, it has developed a more localised set of campaign priorities. It has recently been announced that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is bringing an additional 290 staff to its Wolverhampton office, a positive outcome for the city.

As part of the recommendation for the council to review the status of city partnerships, the peer team urged the council to develop its relationships with the VCS and ensure it was playing a role in convening the sector. The council has taken action in this space, with a planning session with the VCS in January followed up by a meeting with more than fifty VCS leaders in early May. Quarterly meetings with the sector are now being scheduled, with a task and finish group of VCS reps to define terms of reference and future planning.

It is positive that the council has acted to refresh its relationships with the VCS and actively fulfil the important convening role which councils can play. As this work develops further, it should review existing contracts to ensure roles are clear and avoid any duplication with the work of other organisations.

At the time of the peer challenge in September, the Black Country ICS, one of the first ICBs to enter the investigation and intervention regime for ICBs at risk of over spending, was known to be one of the most indebted in the country, with a £120m deficit. The peer team noted the good relationship between the council and Black Country ICB, but also that the council would need to adapt to its partner’s financial challenges as well as managing its own.

The Government’s recent announcements on the future of the health sector, including a requirement for ICBs to reduce running and programme costs by 50 per cent by the third quarter of 2025/26 and a model ICB blueprint with running costs of up to £18.76 per head of population (figures suggest the current figure in the Black Country ICB is £8.24 per head more than this), increase the pressure on the ICB. While in the short-term costs are expected to be saved through ‘clustering’ of ICBs and sharing posts, in the longer term it is expected that the six current ICBs in the West Midlands will reduce to three, with the Black Country ICB combining with the Birmingham and Solihull ICB to cover the WMCA footprint minus Coventry.

The financial risks of this position have been highlighted above. To help manage this risk, in common with all councils, Wolverhampton will need to work with neighbouring councils to proactively shape the changes that are coming. In doing so, it will be able to draw on its ongoing strong relationships within the Black Country ICS, including the chief executive’s membership of the ICB. Focusing on preserving the benefits of place based partnership working on prevention, alongside local neighbourhood working, as well as furthering the relationship with the new hospital chief executive, will be important.

As part of current discussions, local partners are considering moving to an Accountable Care Organisation (ACO): the peer team urges the council to ensure the pros and cons of this are carefully assessed, with unified agreement on what this means should they decide to proceed.

The LGA would like to thank Wolverhampton for undertaking an LGA CPC Progress Review.

We appreciate that senior managerial and political leadership will want to reflect on these findings and suggestions in order to determine how the organisation wishes to take things forward.

Under the umbrella of LGA sector-led improvement, there is an on-going offer of support to councils. The LGA is well placed to provide additional support, advice and guidance on a number of the areas identified for development and improvement and we would be happy to discuss this.

Helen Murray (Principal Adviser) is the main point of contact between the authority and the Local Government Association (LGA). Helen’s contact details are: [email protected] / 07884312235.