LGA Corporate Peer Challenge: Gosport 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 Gosport 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.   

We were very pleased to be invited by Gosport Borough Council to deliver its first Corporate Peer Challenge. The council is an organisation that is passionately determined to improve the Gosport borough as a place to live, work and visit. Gosport has huge potential for regeneration, having declined significantly in recent years as a result of the Ministry of Defence downscaling its operations there.

The leader of the council is setting a clear direction for the regeneration agenda in Gosport. The administration is firmly decided on its priority capital projects - transforming the former bus station site into a People’s Park and the old Criterion building into a multi-purpose arts and entertainment space. There is very strong support for heritage and culture across the community and the council is planning to deliver a programme of cultural and heritage-based regeneration projects together with its partners and developers using £18m of Levelling Up Funding (LUF). Defining the scope of this programme and agreeing and ranking a list of priority projects will be key for communicating the plans to all stakeholders including staff. 

The council’s members are continuing to adjust to their new responsibilities since the political changes in 2022. The council has had a dedicated chief executive since August 2023 and that arrangement received universal praise throughout the peer challenge from staff, partners, and other stakeholders. Staff recognise there is a positive direction of travel within the council and they value the increased engagement by the chief executive, 

The council’s section 151 officer (the borough treasurer) and monitoring officer (the borough solicitor) are both part of the shared management arrangements with Portsmouth City Council which means they have less time to focus on those issues unique to Gosport. The fact that the three statutory officers do not meet together with regular scheduled meetings limits the effectiveness of the “Golden Triangle” relationship.

The council is a small and very lean organisation. Resources and capacity are stretched, with some posts having wide remits. Shared services are generally working well although there are some concerns around capacity issues with Fareham and Portsmouth.  The council has an older workforce and there is an over-reliance on some key staff in areas such as finance and legal. Succession planning in key areas and across the council is limited which is a risk for the organisation. 

Performance management processes vary across the council and there is no corporate performance monitoring system that can chart the delivery of the corporate plan.

The council is at the very early stages of a transformation or change journey. Many business processes are old-fashioned and carried out manually and/or inefficiently. Increased automation could transform the way the council works.  Information Communication Technology (ICT) will be a fundamental part of this. Currently, ICT is not serving the council well with frequent system failures, inadequate infrastructure to fully support agile working, inadequate equipment, and poor governance arrangements. It was encouraging to learn that the council has already started to consider how ICT services could best be provided.

Council finances are currently sound with adequate levels of reserves, good prioritisation within the capital programme and a balanced in -year budget. There will be financial challenges ahead when further savings will have to be made. Formal budget monitoring should be put in place to ensure that going forward members are fully aware of and regularly updated on the financial position of the organisation, including understanding how the council is performing against its budgets and any in-year saving plans and how any demand-led pressures or emerging issues are being addressed.

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      Regeneration

Establish an agreed structure around programme management to enable the prioritisation of projects and effective delivery building on the capital programme review meetings and regeneration framework. 

3.2      Future of the Town Hall

Take a definite decision on the future of the Town Hall. The building which was opened in 1964 is old, tired, under-utilised and a drain on council resources. It is situated in the town centre/High Street area which is itself in need of improvement. 

3.3      Member Development

Introduce a member development programme including member-officer relationships. Group leaders should be enabled to deliver personal development reviews for their members. Both the administration and the opposition are still adjusting into their new roles since the change of political control in 2022 and improved formal development would be beneficial for all members.

3.4      Health and safety

Establish a Health and Safety Committee to provide additional governance and reassurance that the appropriate health and safety measures are embedded. Serious health and safety concerns were found in the Street Scene department last year. These have been addressed but it is important to ensure that good Health and Safety practices are embedded across the organisation.

3.5      Information Communications Technology

Develop a new ICT Strategy. Currently ICT is not delivering an adequate service to the Council. Going forward ICT will be a fundamental part of council transformation into an efficient and modern organisation with up-to-date business processes. 

3.6       Golden Triangle

Strengthen the ‘Golden Triangle’ relationship between the head of paid service (chief executive), section 151 officer and the monitoring officer with regular scheduled meetings. The section 151 officer and monitoring officer are based at Portsmouth City Council. 

3.7       Budget monitoring  

Establish quarterly budget monitoring reporting to Members. Although managers have access to budget monitoring information, no formal reports are taken to members on the in-year position.

3.8       Performance monitoring

Introduce performance against corporate plan priorities. There is no overall corporate monitoring system for service performance in the council. Instead, reporting varies within services with some reporting to Members.

3.9       Staff capacity

Review and address staff capacity across the council. There are many causes for the lack of capacity and staff resources including difficulty recruiting and retaining skilled staff, high sickness absence levels, inefficient processes and lack of adequate technology. All need to be considered and addressed, which could be costly but will create savings in the longer-term. 

3.10      Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

The council needs to consider how it can start to deliver its EDI objectives and fulfil its EDI statement of commitment. The anonymous results of the staff survey in 2023 revealed that 30 per cent of staff consider themselves to have a disability. The council could explore the feasibility of setting up staff networks for women and disabled staff.  These groups could be drivers for raising the profile of EDI as well as supporting staff and assisting the council in developing new workforce policies.

4.1 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:

• Sarah Martin – chief officer & director of corporate services (head of paid services) - Dartford Borough Council (lead peer)
• David Tutt – leader of the opposition – East Sussex County Council
• Kevin Powell - executive director - Broxtowe Borough Council
• Daniel Bainbridge - group head of law & governance - Arun District Council
• Paul Minnis - director: major development & regeneration - Cheltenham Borough Council
• Romilly Beard – LGA regional programme manager – One Public Estate (shadow peer)
• LGA peer challenge manager - Gill Elliott LGA associate

4.2 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.

• 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?
• Organisational and place leadership - Does the council provide effective local leadership? Are there good relationships with partner organisations and local communities?
• Governance and culture - Are there clear and robust governance arrangements? Is there a culture of challenge and scrutiny?
• 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?
• Capacity for improvement - Is the council 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 three key areas: Regeneration and Economic Development, Asset Management and ICT. 

4.3 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 Gosport 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 Gosport, during which they:

• Gathered evidence, information, and views from more than 30 meetings, in addition to further research and reading.
• Spoke to more than 100 people including a range of council staff together with members and external stakeholders.

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

5.1 Local priorities and outcomes

The council has clear priorities in the corporate plan and associated strategies such as the economic development strategy. They are very much around regenerating the Borough by developing the waterfront and town centre, promoting the heritage of Gosport, growing the economy and providing facilities for the arts, sport and leisure and making Gosport a cleaner and greener place to live and work. Staff have been engaged on the formulation of the corporate plan and the council is getting buy-in at all levels.

The council’s priorities need to be viewed in the context of the history and geography of Gosport. The Borough is located on a peninsula in South Hampshire on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour. It is surrounded on three sides by The Solent and Portsmouth Harbour. Historically, the prosperity of Gosport has been heavily dependent on the presence of the Royal Navy.  In recent years, the Navy has reduced the scale of its operations in the area and local employment opportunities have been impacted as a result. This has led to the Borough having one of the lowest job densities in England and significant out-commuting. It has significant areas of deprivation. Out of 317 local authorities, Gosport Borough ranks as the 130th most deprived. The town does not have its own railway station, making it one of the largest towns in England with no rail service. It is connected to the rail network via the Gosport Ferry to Portsmouth Harbour Station and via the Bus Rapid Transit to Fareham. 

The Navy has left behind it a rich legacy of historic buildings. Twenty percent of the land in the borough is still owned by the Ministry of Defence down from fifty percent. The Borough contains a number of complex brownfield sites which also have a military legacy. Many of these suffer from a lack of infrastructure investment and contain poorly maintained historic buildings; many have contamination issues and some, deteriorating flood defences. 

Gosport Borough has a good provision of museums and heritage facilities that offer an opportunity to explore the Borough’s history; these include the Hovercraft Museum, Diving Museum, Explosion Museum, the Submarine Museum, and the Gosport Discovery Centre.

The Peer team saw evidence that the council is focusing on delivering its key priorities within the corporate plan. However, the perception and experiences of some external partners and stakeholders is that the council is primarily focussed on only two projects - Criterion and the People’s Park. There needs to be more effective communication about what the council is doing to deliver its wider corporate plan priorities. There is a strong focus and positive engagement at officer level with a range of community groups.

Day-to-day service delivery should have stronger links in terms of performance and monitoring against the corporate plan. More monitoring and reporting organisation-wide is required to promote improvement of performance, e.g. regeneration projects. Housing data is collected, and service area business plans have started to be developed. 15 Passivhaus houses are being built which will help make Gosport a greener place to live.

Flood defence is recognised as an issue and risk in delivering regeneration, but it is not clear how this relates to the council’s understanding of the need to tackle climate action locally. Flood defence is seen as a local, technical issue on the peninsula rather than a wider and longer-term climate issue. There is a climate change Strategy and action plan from 2022 but there is no evidence of how this has performed.

The council has given some consideration to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at a corporate level. Equality objectives and a statement of commitment have been published and there is evidence that Equality Impact Assessments are being completed and are attached to reports going to Board. Nevertheless, EDI is not really a “living and breathing” issue within the council. We heard very little reference to protected groups either in the workplace or in the community. It was clear that problems with ICT systems are impacting on the ability to collect and analyse workforce and other HR data. Gender pay gap data is not published. Whilst this may not be a legal requirement because of the size of the organisation, it is good practice. Questions regarding disability and ethnic minorities as a comparison of the makeup of the workforce against 2021 census data were asked but no answers were provided.

Regeneration and economic development

There is a clear heritage and culture-led approach to regeneration, e.g. key projects such as the People’s Park and Criterion. The council plays an active part in ensuring community and heritage events are supported and well attended. This helps deliver its vision for the Borough.

Developers and other external stakeholders enjoy a positive working relationship with council officers. Officers demonstrated a wide appreciation of the different community interests and are invested in doing their best for Gosport. There is a sense of eagerness to progress projects and be pragmatic which is very helpful to future progress.

Working relationships between regeneration project managers and those on the planning and regulatory side are well developed and positive. This helps ensure projects reach milestones where the council is in control.

There is a lack of clarity between officers and members on the priority of projects beyond Criterion and the People’s Park. This could be addressed by developing a consistent programme and project management approach, e.g. in use of Gantt charts, risk registers, resource schedules. This will help to develop a priority list and identify appropriate resource allocation across all projects. Informed decisions can then be taken on project progress and timescales. At the moment there is no apparent resilience to cope with personnel changes or other issues that might adversely affect progress.

The regeneration steering group could operate more effectively; some attendees think that it is no longer a consensus-driven meeting. They feel that the dynamic of the group has changed whereby the leader of the council dominates proceedings which are then too focused on one topic. The Group could be more strategic across several areas. Less collaboration is being experienced across a range of groups. Opportunities should be pursued for wider county and central government engagement.

External barriers are hindering progress on many projects: connectivity, remediation, sea defence, landownership, heritage. There are risks associated with the financial resilience of the County Council. Leisure and tourism opportunities are not being optimised.

5.1.1 Performance

There is no overall corporate monitoring system for service performance in the council. Instead, reporting varies within services e.g. housing reports performance on issues like the number of days in bed and breakfast to the head of service and up to the housing board chairman. Monthly statistics also go to MHCLG e.g. number of rough sleepers. 

The building control partnership reports performance in six monthly meetings with members and officers. Corporate complaints, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and subject access requests are monitored and reported to the standards & audit sub board. There needs to be greater consistency around reporting against targets and reporting to corporate management team (CMT). Services have been asked to produce three-year business plans to deliver the corporate plan and they should enable better corporate performance monitoring. However it is early days for the formal business plans within the council and the quality varies between service areas.  

The availability and use of data is inconsistent across the organisation. Housing described its use of data as “a work in progress”. The social housing regulation act 2023 has led to a review of data around safe accommodation. The department is self-referring on electrics, gas safety, carbon monoxide detectors and smoke alarms. The act has also led to housing repairs having all its data in place to respond quickly on compliance issues such as fire, asbestos and damp and mould. Housing repairs has KPIs for the main contractor – reported to the head of housing and housing board chairman.

The deputy chief executive was instrumental in developing and implementing improvements in the street scene team’s structures and processes and addressing multiple Health and Safety issues in the service. There is now a need to improve Health and Safety in other service areas. Managers we spoke to were actually very aware of Health and Safety issues. The management of head of health and safety was described as “very responsive” considering that it is a shared service with Fareham Council.

We saw little evidence of services benchmarking their performance with other councils. The housing department does makes good use of databases from Portsmouth for data and uses Power BI to run reports. This works well and could be a model for other services.

2023/24 performance data from the LGA’s LG Inform service indicated that a number of services are not performing as well as comparative districts in the South East:   93.6 per cent of council tax collected versus 97.3 per cent South East District average; Average time to process Housing Benefit claims is 8 days versus 4 days amongst South East Districts; Major Planning applications decided within 13 weeks or agreed time is 80 per cent compared to an average of 88.6 per cent in the South East. This performance figure is slightly skewed as in some quarters there are no major planning applications and there is a 0 per cent report on the statutory returns.

Asset management

A clearer understanding needs to be embedded regarding the role, function and reporting line for the commercial assets lead, and that this is an asset management role rather than a project management position. Asset management needs more resource and an officer devoted to it with appropriate qualifications.

There is concern regarding lack of skill set relating to building safety and housing regulation, and the council is looking to put in place resources to manage housing revenue account and general assets alongside a compliance officer function. Compliance needs to be embedded in relation to existing stock before new stock is developed.

Improvements have been made in the council’s risk management and compliance but needs a compliant and structured programme governing the areas of fire, asbestos, gas, electricity, legionella and site security risk.

The Town Hall is at the end of its efficient lifespan and is a drain on council finances and resources. The budget includes £136k in major repairs to the town hall over three financial years, starting with 24/25.

Further work needs to be undertaken, in conjunction with other statutory and private agencies, to develop a long-term flood alleviation plan that secures the sites within the Borough in which the council has an interest in developing.

5.2 Organisational and place leadership

The new senior management structure with a dedicated chief executive role allows greater focus on the council by the head of paid service. There is better accessibility to the chief executive for partners and staff. Staff value the fact that clearer processes and structures are in place. The chief executive and deputy chief executive are developing a positive culture and encouraging staff to work collaboratively. There is recognition that staff are under pressure, but they feel supported.

Minutes from corporate management team are shared with managers for them to cascade to their teams and actions are tracked. Regular staff briefings and bulletins have been introduced. We also heard that there was good engagement with staff in relation to formulating the corporate plan.

The chief executive is actively trying to get the council recognised beyond Gosport. Both the leader of the council and chief executive are reaching outwards to make more connections with other local authorities, the third sector, peer networks and key stakeholders.  The council is proactive in its engagement with local businesses. Most stakeholders feel supported and that they have a voice.  There are better relationships with the Police. Citizens Advice spoke of positive engagement and support “far better than with any other local authority contacts”. We heard about positive support for community events and the food partnership is perceived as working well. The council has also continued to fund and actively support heritage and culture within the borough. This was highlighted as being a real strength.

The shared management resource with Portsmouth City Council in the main appears to work well. The council and has a strong relationship with Fareham Borough Council with regular liaison between the respective chief executives (e.g. joint endorsement of an enterprise zone). Most shared services perform smoothly and are of good quality. These include environmental health, building control, the coastal partnership, planning and communications.  Building control has 80 per cent market share and it is seen as being innovative and creative. The sharing of expertise in building control and environmental health improves staff retention and recruitment in these areas.  Other shared services appear more problematical. Managers have commented on the fact that the borough solicitor is based at Portsmouth City Council and there is no deputy (including no deputy monitoring officer) based at the council, which affects corporate performance e.g. FOI requests take longer than necessary and can escalate where legal advice is required. 

There needs to be a recognition by the council leadership that it cannot do everything and needs to prioritise and resource appropriately. There is too great a focus on operational issues at CMT level, and discussion needs to be more strategic. Room for further improvement exists in communications and engagement, both internally and externally. 

5.3 Governance and culture

Progress has been made by the new administration in understanding their responsibilities. There have been improvements in the way the council operates, including better-defining the line between officers’ and members’ roles in decision-making, although there could still be more clarity for members around where decision making responsibilities rest. Members should be careful not to get involved in operational matters, and senior management needs to challenge this effectively where it happens.

While steps have been taken to put in place stronger fundamentals in areas such as Health and Safety and risk management, greater clarity is required regarding their governance structures. The corporate risk register is relatively new, having been developed in the last twelve to eighteen months. The risks identified are generally strategic but it is not a mature document.

The annual governance statement is robust with no significant gaps and should be used as a living document throughout each financial year. There is an action plan to progress issues and an officer identified for responsibility. Value For Money (VFM) arrangements are sound with the exception of budget monitoring and lack of capacity in the finance team. 

Agendas for some of the council’s committees (“Boards”) are very light with a significant majority of council business being considered at the Policy and Organisation Board which is chaired by the leader of the council. A better balance could be brought to the business conducted by the policy and organisation board, the housing board, the community & environment board and the regulatory board. 

There was also mention of some late reports. Formal reports are important but these must be produced in good time to allow appropriate consideration. Late reports should be an exception and more work may need to be done to address this. All decision-making reports should include the fullest evaluation and information possible to accord with Public Law generally, best practice and minimise the opportunity for legal challenge.

There are good relationships between board and sub-board chairs and senior officers, including the statutory officers. There are few corporate complaints and member code of conduct complaints.  

The council is a lean organisation, but staff said it was a friendly place to work where people get things done. There is still some silo working but the chief executive has been addressing this with more effective communication and regular staff bulletins which has improved staff engagement. Relations with the main trade union Unison are good with union reps feeling well supported by the council. Managers are seen to be working within Human Resources policies.

The chief executive meets separately with the chief finance officer and the monitoring officer on a regular basis. These meetings should take place with all three statutory officers present at one time (separately to any line management meetings) in order to strengthen the ‘Golden Triangle’ with an audit trail of items discussed and decisions taken.

There is a shared view that new member induction is positive and newly-elected members are provided with a good understanding of how the council operates. Training on a wider range of subjects is available to members but access is member-led. There are no development reviews for members which would help new members as well as longer-serving members understand their role, the roles of officers, the balance between strategic and operational decision-making, and where the effective scrutiny of decision-making sits and how to scrutinise properly.

The council undertakes a lot of “fantastic” work for the benefit of residents within its limited resources, and more can be done to promote this within the Borough. Members need to identify what they have in common in terms of shared priorities and objectives for the Borough, its residents, businesses and visitors, and use them to progress the delivery of shared ambitions for the Borough. Every opportunity should be taken to recognise the good performance of staff members.

5.4 Financial planning and management

The council is currently financially stable and resilient. The budget has been balanced in-year. There is a clear understanding of the current financial position. However, there will be a challenging financial future due to the Government’s proposed funding reforms (which include a business rates reset), as these reforms will reduce the amount of future funding available to the council. Members understanding of long-term financial pressures and the potential size of the challenge needs to be improved and embedded. Further medium-term savings of £1.2m by 2027/28 have yet to be identified (as per the 2024/25 Budget Report).

Reserve levels are adequate at a forecast level across key reserves of £6.98m at 31 March 2025.  The council holds three key reserves to support budget management and their forecast balances as at the end of 2024/25 are as follows: general fund £1.0m, revenue financing reserve £3.9m and stability and resilience reserve £2.0m.

There is good prioritisation within the capital programme – existing priorities are considered alongside emerging priorities. Projects are taken through the full business case process and are monitored.

There are sound relationships between the chief executive / deputy chief executive and internal audit. The chief executive / deputy chief executive provide a positive response to identified risks. 

The leader of the council is engaged in the budget setting process and managers have access to budget monitoring information, a budget report and in year briefings to the political leadership do set out the scale of the longer-term financial challenge of the Council as well as forecasts for reserve levels over the future four year period. 

The budget for 2024/25 of £12,434,500 was presented to council in February 2024 as a balanced budget requiring high-level identified savings of £845,000. It was not clear what progress has been made against delivering these savings. We are aware that the head of finance is making progress on improving the budget monitoring process and reporting arrangements.

The procurement process has been enhanced and is now embedded in the organisation. There is a new policy and processes are in hand to reflect the legislative change coming in next year. Employee training is also being planned.

Audit follow-up process needs to be enhanced. The audit plan contained a significant number of audits but we were told that follow up in 2023/24 was not completed. The programme for 2024/25 includes another significant programme but also includes a large number of follow up audits. It is clear that there is a recognised back log of audits to be followed up. The standards and audit sub-board is currently a joint board - best practice and good governance says that these should be separated. Also, audit should be a stand-alone board itself rather than a sub-board of policy so there is some independence from the administration.

The council had struggled to recruit a head of finance which was vacant for around18 months.  A new head of finance is now in place and progress has re-commenced.  This, coupled with a lack of skilled availability of finance and IT resources has hindered the progress to a more modern finance function and the transition therefore has progressed at a slow pace. There is an over-reliance on key officers within the finance team. Several senior officers in the team are working part-time with a view to potential retirement in the near- to medium-future. Staff development and succession planning need to be addressed to provide sustainable capacity in the team.

5.5 Capacity for improvement

The organisation recognises many of its weaknesses and is self-reflective. There is a strong desire to improve and this will help propel the organisation to start transforming its rather outdated systems and processes. At present some of CMT are operating at an operational rather than strategic level missing the bigger improvement picture.

The council has an older workforce. According to the 2023 staff survey 45 per cent of the workforce is over 55 and only 14 per cent are under the age of 25. Some key staff in areas like Finance are working part-time with a view to potentially taking early retirement. The heads of housing and ICT are also due to retire within the next year. There are also pockets of staff who are less receptive to change than others and addressing this will be a challenge for the organisation.

Sickness levels are high at 13 days per FTE which is affecting productivity. This is higher than most councils. We were unable to get the breakdown between long-term and short-term absence although data is collected on the reasons for sickness absence. The council has an absence policy but managers are not applying it consistently. Sickness panels do take place. The area with the greatest level of sickness panels is Housing, which has over one hundred staff.

Turnover at 14 per cent is not excessive but it is often from specialist areas that are hard to replace. Capacity issues have been identified in housing and property (at the management level), Legal (in terms of recent presence, procurement, contracts), finance, and ICT. Wide remits for some roles may be the cause of difficulties in recruitment.

There are some “old fashioned” processes still in place throughout the council. Tasks are conducted manually which could be automated. One area highlighted was in finance. Staff recognise this and are keen to see changes. We understand that business continuity plans for supportive services like ICT and HR are in place. However, effective recovery would be very reliant on ICT so they would be very vulnerable without an adequate ICT service.

Staff reported feeling part of a “family” at work. The council is small but effective, with a largely one team approach. Employees feel line managers are supportive when dealing with health and well-being issues. Managers we spoke to reported being well supported by HR in terms of disciplinary, absence and grievance processes.

HR policies are in place although some may be in need of updating. HR information systems are not able to provide the organisation with comprehensive workforce data or monitoring. The current HR Oracle ORC system does not work well. A new Tripad system is to be introduced in January 2025 which should improve workforce data analysis and the ability of HR to provide managers with statistics for their staff. There have been improvements made in health and safety at work e.g. Street Scene. There is a new health and safety policy. 

Information, communications technology

ICT is a significant and major risk to the council’s ability to deliver services efficiently and/or make some of the improvements to business processes that are needed. There is no current ICT strategy or ICT vision for the organisation and no project / programme management being used to mitigate risk in this area.

There is a lack of engagement with the wider organisation which would ensure strategic alignment between what is needed and what is provided. Staff often have a desktop and a laptop computer which is costly and unnecessary. Many laptops do not have cameras which makes remote team meetings difficult. Agile working has been hindered due to the lack of appropriate equipment and as a result of different infrastructure platforms lacking appropriate integration. 

Cyber Security processes need to be prioritised as this is potentially an area of high risk for the council. Security protocols need to be put in place and embedded with mandatory training for staff and members to raise cyber awareness and therefore help mitigate any future risks. 

There are capacity issues within ICT. It appears the staff do not have the necessary skills or relevant qualifications. There is also a lack of ICT governance. Basic information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) protocols are not in place or being followed e.g. ICT strategy, architecture management (the structured design and organization of an organization's information technology and communication systems), asset management, project / programme management, business continuity, business engagement, strategic alignment, etc.

The use of an operational standard such as ITIL will help to address the management of the ICT service including:

• IT service quality
• Enhanced user satisfaction
• Efficient resource management
• Cost savings and ROI
• Alignment with business goals
• Greater visibility and control
• Risk reduction
• Continuous improvement

This will help to mitigate the multiple operational issues that that have been highlighted, including downtime and lack of integration. In addition, it should assist with easy access to business intelligence and prevent delays in achieving relevant automation.

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 the CPC report the council needs to produce and publish an action plan within five months of the time on site. As part of the CPC, the council is 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 the 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 Gosport Borough Council to be agreed.

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