LGA Corporate Peer Challenge – Progress Review: West Northamptonshire Council

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) undertook an LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) during March 2024 and promptly published the full report.

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 peer’s 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 West Northamptonshire Council 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 West Northamptonshire Council took place (onsite) on Thursday 7 November 2024.

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

• Vision and ambition, including place
• Customer engagement and reputation
• Budget sustainability and risk

For this progress review, the following members of the original CPC team were involved:

• Cllr Spencer Flower, leader of the Conservative Group, Dorset Council
• Denise McGuckin, managing director, Hartlepool Council
• David Shepherd, executive director, Kirklees Council
• Philip Baker, deputy chief executive and monitoring officer, East Sussex County Council
• Claire Emmerson, deputy S.151 officer, Sunderland City Council
• Judith Hurcombe, peer challenge manager, Local Government Association

The council can show that it has responded well to the Corporate Peer Challenge which took place in March 2024. The feedback arising from the CPC has been considered, taken onboard and has acted as a catalyst for improvement. The team noted a palpable improvement in the confidence of the council’s leadership, both at councillor and senior officer level, between the March peer challenge and the progress review undertaken in early November 2024. Members and officers are noticeably buoyant and energetic about the challenges ahead and how they are tackling or planning to tackle them. A key message from the team in March 2024 was to stop looking back and dwell on the past and instead to take conscious steps to become more forward and outward looking. To members’ and officers’ credit they have embraced this message and used it to refocus and recharge.

Vision and ambition, including place

On 6^th November 2024 the council launched its draft vision for West Northamptonshire 2030 at a well-attended partnership event designed to encourage partners and stakeholders to contribute to the council’s large scale strategic plans and to shape the final document. The draft vision is underpinned by three core principles of Thriving People, Thriving Place and Participation, and Efficient and Enabling Council. Feedback from partners on the day was highly positive, with enthusiasm for the concept of the council being the “beating heart of the country” and partners recognise the need to work with the council to support and shape delivery of housing and economic growth across the area.

The draft vision document brings together a plethora of existing strategies under one umbrella. The aim is to finalise the plan by Full Council in February 2025.

The council has begun to explore its ambition for Children’s Services and how it can realise that ambition in the medium to long term, working alongside North Northamptonshire Council to shape what the post-Children’s Trust arrangements could be, and how those arrangements will be delivered. It is early days for the progress of this recommendation given the scale of what is needed to be done and its significance to WNC, and both councils recognise the need to work together on supporting the Trust in the meantime. There is growing optimism and confidence from senior members and officers about what can be done to shape the future arrangements.

There is an intention to include specific actions and activities within the future business plan. This will include an area-wide strategic approach to housing and economic growth. A Housing Delivery Board has been created and a housing summit is planned for later in November 2024, which will engage with partners to share aspirations and intentions. The aims of this summit are to communicate the importance which the council attaches to delivering more and better-quality affordable homes, and to harness the energy and investment of existing and new partners to work alongside the council to achieve this goal.

A stakeholder engagement plan is being developed, and there is an intention to build upon the One West Northamptonshire event held on 6^th November, as well as other activities including a stakeholder mapping exercise.

Customer engagement and reputation

Since March the creation of a single Revenues and Benefits service has led to better support for customers, irrespective of their location across the area. This is a good example of a wider aspiration for the organisation as a whole to make services more accessible through a single point of access, minimising duplication of requests by residents.

The March peer challenge reported that the council’s website was difficult to navigate. A new website was launched on 1 April 2024, replacing the four legacy council websites. There is now a particular emphasis on the customer journey and first contact resolution, as well as website users reducing the number of searches which produce no results. As part of this the council is actively seeking feedback from customers about the website through a new feature called Rate This Page. At the time of our visit the feature was giving 95per cent helpful ratings from customers, and daily reviews of negative comments are undertaken to see what can be improved. The council’s website is ranked as eighth highest in the Silktide accessibility index of all UK councils, for which it should be commended. The overall approach now has the overview by a recently formed Website Steering Group and Customer and Digital Transformation Board.

Over the past two years the council has been working on a major project to review its web content. The current focus is on early and help and prevention and has resulted in a comprehensive reorganisation of content for children and families, as well prioritising self-help for housing. Work is also underway to test a new Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) virtual assistant on the website, with the aim of making services and support easier to find and more accessible for residents and service users. Webchat has been introduced to largely support the signposting of residents to available information. The aim in the longer term is to use this function to inform a chatbot to further support accessibility for people accessing the council through the website.

Consideration has been given to how the council can continue to raise its profile and visibility across the wider public sector. The council’s chief executive is leading the County Council’s Network (CCN) and Association of County Chief Executives (ACCE) group for Adult Social Care. She is also a member of the voluntary Improvement Board for Southampton City Council.

The council is exploring every opportunity available to showcase its area and what the council is achieving, for example:

• Hosting the Female Founders Summit in Northampton for the first time, bringing female entrepreneurs from the UK and abroad to explore inclusive economic growth
• Securing one of 23 stops of the national tour of Small Business Saturday UK, which also attracted widespread media attention
• Sharing its approach to homelessness at the LGA conference
• Promoting its approach on artificial intelligence to regional digital events
• Hosting a range of sport and leisure events, including hosting the A Perfect Day music festival in June 2024, hosting a stage of the men’s cycling event on the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain in September 2024, and securing a significant role in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup

Budget sustainability and risk

The Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP) has been updated to reflect the latest assumptions available. In common with other councils, there are still significant budget pressures for the medium term. More progress has been made over the last few months on identifying how the council will address the budget gap of £53m for 2025/26.

A major step forwards was in August 2024 when the council agreed with North Northamptonshire Council on how to resolve the longstanding technical issues relating to the balance sheet of the former Northamptonshire County Council. It has been agreed that the council will be allocated £125.5m of the former county’s assets, and £605.9m of its Capital Financing requirement. This means that WNC has been able to finalise its accounts and both councils have avoided formal arbitration. The External Auditor describes this progress as a “considerable achievement” for the council.

WNC published its unaudited Statement of Accounts for the financial years 2023/24, 2022/23 and 2021/22 in October 2024.

The most recent annual audit letter was published in October 2024. This reflects a range of improvements recognised by the External Auditor including progress on Children’s Trust overspending, although this still remains a risk area for the council. The forecast for useable reserves by 31 March 2026 has increased to £85.2m, which is a considerable improvement. The Auditor also references “sound arrangements” to bridge future forecast funding gaps, and the reprofiling of the MTFP in August 2024.

The council is taking advantage of opportunities which arise to support its revenue budget. This includes setting aside an investment of up to £20m to buy and develop properties which the Children’s Trust could use to reduce their costs, which in turn will reduce the call on the council’s revenue budget.

WNC is also purchasing key sites in Northampton town centre as part of its masterplan. This includes the Corn Exchange on the Market Square, and the brownfield former Greyfriars bus station 26-acre site, with the council anticipating the latter will be supported by significant external funding from the English Cities Fund. Work is ongoing to continue to support towns across the area, including tailored shop local marketing campaigns in Brackley and Towcester as well as support offered through a dedicated town centre manager post for the two towns.

The LGA would like to thank West Northamptonshire Council for undertaking an LGA CPC progress review. The peer team recognises that the council has made tangible progress since March 2024 and should be commended for that progress and its renewed optimism and confidence for the future.

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.

Mark Edgell, (principal adviser) is the main point of contact between the authority and the Local Government Association (LGA) and their e-mail address is [email protected]