LGA Corporate Peer Challenge – Progress review: Fareham Borough Council

The council undertook an LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) in March 2025 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 Fareham Borough Council (Fareham) 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 Fareham took place (onsite) on Tuesday 9 December 2025. 

The Progress Review focussed on each of the recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge, under the following theme headings: 

• committees and governance
• partnerships and investment
• organisational development.

For this Progress Review, the following members of the original CPC team were involved: 

• Larissa Reed, Chief Executive Swale Borough Council
• Cllr Chris Vinson, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Dover District Council
• Peter Geraghty, Deputy Chief Executive, Hertsmere Borough Council 
• Emily Yule, Deputy Chief Executive, Norwich City Council
• Ellie Greenwood, Peer Challenge Manager, Local Government Association.

Following the CPC, the council developed an action plan with nineteen actions responding to the peer team’s ten recommendations. The council’s RAG rated action plan update for the progress review reports that 100 per cent of these actions are completed or in progress. 

Since the progress review, the council has undertaken significant work, including implementing major changes to governance structures, continuing momentum on town centre regeneration, and the delivery of a major project to rebalance the borough’s waste rounds for the first time in two decades. The peer team heard further positive feedback about a strengthened organisation culture that is now well-embedded, with supportive and inclusive leadership and an energised senior leadership team working well together.

With Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) and a legacy for Fareham in mind, the council has recently refreshed its corporate plan, identifying key projects to accelerate, business as usual projects, and a third tier of projects to be completed after these priorities. Town centre regeneration, and the delivery of new community facilities and affordable housing in Fareham Park, are key priorities the council is progressing at pace.

On governance, a new scrutiny structure was implemented in May, with a single overview and scrutiny board and five advisory panels intended to input to the council’s priority projects. The new approach has been positively received by members and officers, but there is some confusion about the differing roles of the board, advisory panels and their relationship to the audit and governance committee. There are also some inconsistencies in how the new panels are operating, although this in part relates to the prioritisation agreed in the updated corporate plan and in part the nature of the priorities, with town centre regeneration more clearly identifiable than some other issues. The council should ensure a clear understanding of the new structure and undertake a review of effectiveness at an agreed point in future.

Fareham has responded to the recommendations of the CPC by strengthening its golden triangle meeting arrangements, reviewing the frequency of budget monitoring and benchmarking its risk management approach. The peer team was pleased to see this progress but encourages the council to build on this by working with councils in its proposed LGR cluster to appoint independent members to audit committees, as they will be able to support the new council once it is established.

Externally, the council has developed its vision for town centre regeneration into a detailed masterplan, with good engagement taking place with partners and residents. A new airport operator has been procured, and £60m worth of investment into the Daedalus business park secured, with plans for phase two of the site (the Swordfish Business Park) being progressed. An updated capital asset strategy is due to be considered by the executive in January.

Internally, staff are extremely positive about the organisational culture, citing engaging and empowering leadership and good staff communication, including a recent all staff event at Fareham Live. The peer team heard that ‘nothing is off the table’, with silos broken down, a stronger ‘one council’ culture and strengthened communication with staff based outside the civic centre. There are however some concerns about staff safety, following several threatening incidents in the civic centre over recent months: the council should ensure that its response to these is clearly and swiftly articulated to staff.

There was good feedback from staff and managers about the training and development opportunities available, with internal secondment opportunities utilised alongside external capacity to resource priority projects. The council will need to ensure sufficient resources are in place for these priorities as work on LGR escalates over the next year and keep under review capacity on the streamlined senior leadership team.

3.1 Committees and governance

• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 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.

Since the peer challenge, the council has replaced the previous eight scrutiny committees with a single overview and scrutiny board and five advisory panels intended to provide member input to corporate strategy priorities (rather than to portfolio holder / officer roles or directorates). Uniquely, the housing advisory panel retains a scrutiny role linked to the regulatory requirements of the council’s landlord function; the council also has an audit and governance committee.

The new model has been generally well received and provides a potentially strong model of member input and scrutiny; however, there is some confusion about the role of different committees and inconsistencies in how the panels are operating. Some of these differences relate to the distinct housing panel role; however, the peer team observed that aligning the advisory panels by corporate priorities rather than officer or portfolio holder roles has also contributed to the potential imbalance and inconsistency. For example, the different frequency of meetings reflects the council’s priorities: with more work underway on town centre regeneration, greater input has been required from the Economic Development and Regeneration Panel than from others. The peer team also felt there is a risk that inconsistencies may be further aggravated by the growing workload on LGR, which will have a greater impact on some senior officers’ time than others.

The council could consider whether there is a current need for all five panels given the priorities it has identified, but most of all should focus on: 

• enhancing members’ understanding of the distinct purpose and role of overview and scrutiny, perhaps drawing on Centre for Governance and Scrutiny training to do so;
• developing a shared understanding of what the advisory panels are for and what this means for how they operate;
• building the engagement of all panel members (not just chairs);
• as a consequence, achieving clarity on the distinction between the panels, overview and scrutiny board and audit and governance committee. 

A consistent approach to panels’ engagement with portfolio holders, which the peer team noted varied, would also be beneficial. The council should keep the new structure under review, with a formal review point to assess effectiveness once the model is embedded.

With a recent increase in member motions being proposed, the council has been working on a limited number of constitutional changes to the process for these, which will be considered by the audit and governance committee in the new year. As changes are made, the council should build on its work to provide training and guidance on the new motion template and ensure that its member development programme provides all members with a good grounding in the constitution and updated procedures. 

Work is underway in Fareham to create a more comprehensive member development offer, with oversight from the audit and governance committee. As this develops, the council should focus on ensuring take up of training that is offered, and that the impacts of training are evaluated; the council should also encourage members to draw on external training opportunities from the LGA and others, to help expose councillors to peer networking and good practice elsewhere.

Golden triangle arrangements have been strengthened at Fareham, with monthly meetings now taking place between the chief executive, section 151 and monitoring officers; all three will take part in CIPFA, LLG and LGA joint training in January.

The council has undertaken various reviews in response to the peer team’s recommendation to benchmark budget, governance and risk arrangements against best practice, which is positive. Officers met with neighbouring authorities to understand their approaches to risk management and have been reviewing Fareham’s approach to identify where external good practice could be adopted without losing the strengths of their approach. New bi-monthly budget monitoring meetings have been introduced with the leader (who is also the finance portfolio holder) covering revenue, capital, treasury management and the HRA. The new overview and scrutiny board is regularly considering reports on these issues; it also considers savings opportunities and the MTFS. The board has also considered the performance measures agreed in the new performance approach in February.

The peer team urges Fareham to reconsider appointing an independent member to the audit and governance committee. Having identified that several other Hampshire districts also do not have independent members, and as it considered the level of knowledge and experience amongst the current committee members to be high, the council decided not to do this. CIPFA guidance is clear however that it is best practice to have external members of audit committees to provide an independent voice, and the peer team believes that LGR strengthens the need for this. The council should work with authorities in its LGR cluster to identify lay members for existing audit committees to ensure there will be experienced independent members available when the new authority comes into existence.

3.2 Partnerships and investment

• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 8: Strengthen the governance arrangements (for example, 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 peer challenge included an additional focus on town centre regeneration, reflecting that this is a key strategic priority for Fareham. Shortly before the CPC, the council published its vision for town centre regeneration; the council has consciously accelerated its work since then, launching a public consultation on the emerging town centre masterplan in mid-November. The masterplan includes resizing the existing shopping centre footprint and the development of new housing. To resource this corporate priority, additional resource has been seconded into the regeneration team, with external consultancy expertise also engaged.

The council has also secured future investment at its Daedalus site, with £60m of new investment from two businesses moving to the site, as well as procuring a new airport operator. Planning for the next phase of the site, the Swordfish Business Park, is underway. The council continues to drive benefits from its original investment into the site, with skilled jobs secured within the borough, and capital receipts providing scope to fund investment elsewhere.

The council’s work on Daedalus, housing and on town centre regeneration is impressive, although it will need to carefully manage the risks that could arise from a fast-paced approach to the town centre programme, with clear oversight politically and managerially. An updated capital strategy is being developed for consideration by the executive in January 2025, drawing on investment proposals from the annual review of the Corporate Strategy and Corporate Projects. A review of longer-term asset management requirements is also planned as part of LGR.

Affordable housing has also been identified as a key priority ahead of LGR, with the pipeline of future housing delivery extended, and the development of a Later Living strategy completed. The council is one of only 29 local authorities nationwide to receive funding from the Government’s Council Housebuilding Support Fund (CHSF).

Finally, the council has also extended its existing partnership and working arrangements to incorporate councils in its proposed LGR footprint; for example, its building control partnership now incorporates Havant, and it is starting to work with Portsmouth in relation to procurement. As it looks ahead to LGR, the council is exploring the option of a Charter Trust foundation to preserve the Borough’s civic assets and mayor post-LGR; however, the council has opted not to undertake a community governance review as it does not believe there is a demand for this within Fareham. Instead, the focus will be working to ensure the identity of Fareham (and other places) will be retained and reflected within the governance structures of a new, enlarged authority, something council leaders and chief executives are already discussing.

3.3 Organisational development

• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 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.
• Recommendation 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. 

Building on the findings in March, the peer team heard continued positive feedback from staff about the organisational culture at Fareham, with a clear sense that this is now well embedded under the current political and officer leadership. The senior leadership team appears galvanised by recent changes, with a sense of energy, support and collaboration across the team. The feeling of inclusion and trust coming from the very top is filtering through the organisation, with staff feeling that ‘nothing is off the table.’

The council has invested in the new organisational People Strategy, launched at the end of 2024, with a particular focus on scaling up staff communications. A second all staff conference took place at Fareham Live in November 2025, with a mini exhibition highlighting the work of different teams and council projects. Staff spoke positively of how events such as this are helping the organisation to ‘feel as one’, with more of a one council culture and better communication between different teams, as well as with teams based outside the civic centre.

Managers and senior leaders recognise the importance of taking the best of Fareham into a new council, with a desire to shape the new unitary’s organisational culture to reflect the very positive culture that has been created in Fareham. 

As part of the People Strategy, people’s champions networks focusing on wellbeing, staff reward and recognition, and communication with teams outside the civic centre (which is seen to have improved) have been established: the council should continue to move forward with these. Staff appreciate these initiatives, as well as ongoing opportunities for training and development, including through secondments.

Alongside engaging external expertise where necessary, the council has made intelligent use of secondments to shift resources to help deliver its ambitions, with the ‘valuing individual performance’ framework focused on development. Managers recognise the importance of supporting Fareham’s staff to develop and secure roles in the new unitary authority, again to influence the organisational culture through the strengths that Fareham can bring. Given the nature of some of its priority regeneration projects (including the long delivery timeframes associated with this type of work) Fareham should give some consideration to how they are resourced in the longer term and the opportunities for skills transference from external consultants, which may also leave the authority in a stronger position going into LGR. 

With the council very clear about its priorities in the coming years but work on LGR set to increase over the same period, Fareham will need to keep resourcing for corporate priorities under close review to ensure there is sufficient capacity where it is needed. This includes within the senior leadership team, which is now smaller than during the CPC. The council should create a new head of human resources / organisational post, following changes to the SLT structure, which will help free up directors’ time (since the progress review took place, this post has been created).

At the same time, as staff focus on these agreed organisational priorities, it may be helpful to ensure there are clear processes for members to advocate on residents’ behalf, as well as clear expectations about officer responses and timescales.

Finally, the peer team heard that concerns about staff safety have been heightened by recent security incidents within the civic centre reception. The organisation has subsequently reviewed data on this and developed an action plan, but there is a need to rapidly work with staff and trade unions to ensure clarity about the organisation’s response, which will need to balance the desire to be an open organisation with the need to mitigate risks to staff from a small minority, and the fear of this.

The LGA would like to thank Fareham 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. Will Brooks (Principal Adviser) and Ellie Greenwood are the main points of contact between the authority and the Local Government Association (LGA): [email protected], 07949 054421 and [email protected], 07795 413660.

Further information, support, and resources on LGR/Devolution, can be found on the LGA’s devolution and LGR Hub website.