Liverpool City Council – Progress Review

The council undertook an LGA Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) in July 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 10 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 Progress Review at Liverpool City Council took place (onsite) on the 14 March 2025. 

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

• Leadership and local assurance
• Financial and Transformation
• Improving the resident experience of the council.

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

• Matt Jukes, Chief Executive, Hull City Council
• Cllr James Lewis, Leader, Leeds City Council
• Carol Culley, LGA Associate
• Dan Archer, Peer Challenge Manager, Local Government Association. 

Of the CPC’s twelve recommendations, the council’s RAG rated action plan with 54 actions, which was provided to the peer team in the lead-up to the CPC, reports that:

• 76 per cent of actions are self-assessed as complete or are ‘on track’ (green)
• 20 per cent of actions are self-assessed as having activity underway but with risks of delay against the original delivery timescale (amber)
• none of the actions are self-assessed as progress not assured as on-track, where additional steps are required or there are risks to delivery (red)
• 4 per cent (two actions) have not yet started and are linked to other actions being implemented first. These actions relate to the implementation of the case management system.  

In summary, steady progress can be seen across the recommendations made in the original CPC. The peers, leader and chief executive discussed how focus will need to be maintained, to ensure actions across the recommendations in the CPC report continue to be progressed, so that the impact sought is fully achieved. 

Examples of steady progress include the steps that have been taken to ‘improve the resident’s experience of an improving council’. For example – a reduction in fly-tipping, a reduced number of complaints received around street cleansing and the reduction in the number of missed bins reported. The council has also continued to progress the publication of historic statements of accounts, with the 2022/23 and 2023/24 accounts published ahead of the national ‘backstop’ arrangements. These ‘backstop’ arrangements are deadlines that were put in place nationally across local government to support the timely publication of audited accounts, within the context of a significant backlog in audit completions nationally. 

The peer team heard of the more difficult decisions the council has taken in recent months to support continued progress and improvement. This includes the increasing of car park charges, bringing this more in line with similar councils, as well as steps to reform the council tax support scheme. The willingness to take and see through difficult decisions is important and will help – given the financial confines that exist - in achieving the best for the city overall. This includes meeting the ambitions of the cabinet for a “year of delivery” across their priorities for Liverpool, in 2025.

The July 2024 CPC came within what was termed ‘a short, important window to recalibrate and focus in on what’s needed for this next stage of improvement and delivery’. This CPC Progress Review also came at a time of change as the council was in the process of moving from the externally chaired Improvement and Assurance Board arrangement, towards a locally led improvement committee arrangement. At the time of this progress review, the independent chair of the Improvement and Assurance Board was preparing his final report and recommendations. At this juncture and building on the steps already taken, it is important that the council continuously develops its own system of local assurance and improvement, as outlined by the peer team in this report.

Finally, the peer team had discussions with the council about the programme of culture change that the council is seeking to implement. Whilst doing this, the team encourage the council to look more widely and deeply at the requirements of the culture the council seeks to develop and strengthen. This includes looking at the different aspects of feedback in this report and the cultural requirements they present, for example financial management and delivery, continuous improvement, resident focus and partnership working. 

Leadership and local assurance

This theme includes reference to the following recommendations from the original CPC:

• Continue to develop your leadership of the system of assurance and improvement at the council post-commissioners. This includes continuously and openly engaging external support and challenge. It also means supporting the Cabinet to develop further into taking on aspects of the roles played by Commissioners previously, in this regard.
• Review, simplify and improve governance and accountability. Then embed this across the organisation.
• Continue to develop collective top team working throughout this period. Keeping close attention to the evolving roles and relationships of Cabinet and CMT, post-Commissioners.
• Take steps to ensure the healthy member/officer relationships that are developing across the CMT and Cabinet are replicated between members and officers throughout the organisation.

The peer team heard of the progress the council has started to make in improving the impact of overview and scrutiny. Examples included work to enhance the level of challenge given, to widen the understanding of the role of overview and scrutiny and work to support effective report writing. Members and officers that the team spoke with, discussed feeling increasingly supported to be ‘curious and empowered’ in these forums. These are steps the council intends to and should continue to build on, using the feedback from the previous Corporate Peer Challenge report, and a recent report from the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny. These steps include improving the processes around overview and scrutiny, training and development, work planning and communication/engagement.  

The sentiment of the original recommendation - to ‘Continue to develop your leadership of the system of assurance and improvement at the council post-commissioners’ is of course continuous in nature. Whilst also being particularly pertinent now, as the council is moving from the externally chaired Improvement and Assurance Board arrangement, towards a locally led improvement committee arrangement. The chief executive provided the peers with a brief verbal overview of the working position for this arrangement which was not yet finalised at the time of the progress review. In support of continuous improvement, the peers highlighted the following considerations.

• Take steps to guard against any risks of complacency as the council continues the work of improvement. To support this, the council should ensure that the focus on continuous improvement is further developed and that the most crucial improvement needs are clearly understood and owned across the council.
• This includes ensuring a refreshed improvement plan is put in place with clear outcomes and lines of accountability for this next stage. The council will be required to identify the right people, both internally and externally, to draw on to ensure a robust level of independent challenge and insight throughout. These improvement priorities can then be followed by a clearly communicated, honest appraisal as to where the council is against each area at regular intervals. This will help minimalise any risks of ‘slipping back’ and help to ensure progress and areas for further work are widely understood. 

Holding a consistent focus on the core improvement needs, whilst also realising the “year of delivery” sought by the Leader and Cabinet in 2025 means managing the risks of distraction from other opportunities and issues that may materialise, bringing the organisation back as appropriate to these core needs as a compass of sustained progress.

Building on the recommendation made in the original CPC, it is crucially important that this proposed improvement committee arrangement aligns well with the wider system of assurance and improvement at the council:

• This means ensuring a clear, well understood purpose and terms of reference for the improvement committee are established, which is underpinned by a focussed and rigorous work programming approach that grips the key issues and is clear on delivery and follow-up. The terms of reference should be clear on how the improvement committee will welcome ongoing external challenge and support.
• There is a need to be consistently mindful of the relationships the improvement committee will have with other mechanisms of assurance and improvement at the council including for example the role of the cabinet and cabinet members, overview & scrutiny and audit. This will help avoid duplication or gaps appearing in this local improvement framework.
• The peer team welcomed the approach described towards ensuring regular public reporting of the work of the improvement committee. It is important for sustaining and further developing the level of trust at the council, that this demonstrates a high level of local assurance and challenge. The approach to public reporting should be set out clearly in the terms of reference.
• Whilst the team heard of some examples where the number of standing internal officer meetings have been reduced (for example in regards to a significant ICT restructuring project), this is a recommendation that the council should go further with and can do so within the wider context of what is needed for this next stage in the council’s improvement journey.

The council are in discussion with the LGA about a top team development programme for the cabinet and senior officer team that can play an important role in supporting the council as it moves forward in this environment. This programme provides space for the ‘top team’ to reflect on their roles, relationships and ways of working in leading the council’s continued improvement journey. This is also an opportunity to look at the continued steps to monitor and support effective member/officer working relationships across the council as part of this programme. The team encourage the council to schedule this programme as soon as possible. The programme would complement the fortnightly meetings that take place between the cabinet and management team which are structured around planned items of strategic importance – for example most recently the budget setting process. Quarterly offsite away days are also in place between the cabinet and management team, shaped around the corporate priorities and key business. 

Financial and Transformation

This theme includes particular reference to the following recommendations from the original CPC:

• Revisit your financial planning and assumptions as a priority. Ensure they adequately reflect demands, assumptions, pressures and the most current guidance across the medium-term.
• Ensure that the scale of the financial challenge is consistently seen and understood across the council. Both for the in-year challenge and the years ahead. There are a number of considerations in this report that can help in continuing the journey of financial improvement. The council may wish to collate their actions against these into a finance improvement plan to support delivery.
• Unpack, clarify and refocus the transformation programme. Ensure suitable governance is in place for individual projects to manage risk, deliver and realise benefits, with a clearer narrative for the programme in place to help ensure all stakeholders understand the detail of the journey the council is undertaking.
• Complete the work in a prioritised way of getting all of the basics right (across services, functions and ensuring people have the core tools for the job). There is feedback throughout this report which reflects examples of this.

The team were able to observe through the reports provided, how the council has increased the level of visibility around the financial planning assumptions, acting on the recommendation previously given. The underlying assumptions within the council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy have also been refreshed and updated regularly throughout 2024/25 – including assumptions around inflation, demand, funding expectations and the impacts of changes to local taxation. The council considered its position around Minimum Revenue Position (MRP) following the CPC and will continue to review this alignment with changes to regulations.

The team also heard of steps taken to communicate the financial challenge more widely across the council. This has included regular items at cabinet and the corporate management team. Cabinet members have led challenge and engagement sessions between October and January 2025, with financial reporting items to scrutiny committees taking place between November and February also. As noted in summary above, the council has also continued the work of accelerating the approval of accounts, with no statements of accounts outstanding at the time of the Progress Review, supporting openness and transparency. Work has continued to implement improvements in financial reporting through the use of Power BI dashboards, including the roll-out of a new dashboard in November that gives greater visibility on outstanding debt and recovery. A new budget holder dashboard, covering both capital and revenue is in development and is due to be launched in the new financial year, accompanied with dedicated training. The council’s plans to replace the ERP is also progressing in-line with the timescales set out in the CPC action plan, with an anticipated implementation date of November 2027.

The team heard of the steps taken to refocus the transformation programme. This included refreshing what is included within the transformation portfolio, followed by a revised transformation strategy being drafted and agreed. Alongside this, the governance arrangements around the programme have also been refreshed, which includes a revised focus of the Transformation Board around key areas of delivery. These arrangements will be revisited again shortly, for the 2025/26 financial year to ensure a close focus on benefits realisation from the transformation work undertaken. 

It is important that the work of the Transformation Programme is focused on (and accountable for) adding value to the areas of greatest impact, and that this focus does not drift. As the refreshed, stated intention of the programme is to ‘focus more closely on the initiatives that deliver the most significant financial benefit to the council’ - the team would highlight the importance of further work to develop arrangements/mechanisms for clearly and holistically monitoring the demand metrics and forecasts in-step with the financial forecasts and metrics, holding this set of information at key gateways. This is in light of the demand pressures the council faces and the level of overspend seen in some of these areas in 2024/25 especially (for example, children’s social care and homelessness). More broadly, the council continues to make progress within the improvement of children’s social care, from the ‘Inadequate’ Ofsted judgment in May 2023, which is reflected in the successive monitoring reports from Ofsted in the period since the last full inspection. 

Finally, and whilst looking ahead, as the size of the capital programme grows (and therefore the potential risk exposure), it is important that the council suitably strengthens the approach to assurance around the capital programme, helping to maximise the impacts of potential borrowing.

Improving the resident experience of the council

This theme includes particular reference to the following recommendations from the original CPC:

• Complete the work in a prioritised way of getting all of the basics right (across services, functions and ensuring people have the core tools for the job). There is feedback throughout this report which reflects examples of this.
• Make the neighbourhood model work for your communities. Work with residents and partners to suitably and clearly define what this will do and how. Being clear about how this will enhance the lives of residents. Then ensure that a consistent understanding of what this model means for different people and how it will work, is in place – including how this will fit with service delivery.
• Ensure a new casework management system is implemented which works for all members, for council services and, through improved performance, for the residents they serve. Use this to improve responsiveness and support insight, accountability and transparency.

Following the recommendations made, the council has taken clear steps forward in seeking to ‘improve the resident experience of an improving council’. This is seen for example in the improving performance metrics for neighbourhood services detailed above. The Neighbourhood Model is translated through the neighbourhood action plans that have been developed following engagement with community stakeholders, elected members, partners and staff which detail neighbourhood specific priorities, with a multi-partner Neighbourhood Delivery Group established in November 2024 to help drive this forward collaboratively. 

The peer team were not in a position to meet with partners during the course of this progress review, although the feedback from those officers within the service that the team were able to speak with was that there is ownership of the neighbourhood plans across partners locally. There is continued work required to develop the communication of the priorities in each neighbourhood. Further work is required to put in place the necessary performance and evaluation framework that can bring relevant accountability and opportunities for communicating learning between approaches in each neighbourhood.

A “Customer Promise” has been drafted to define the council’s expectations for a high level of customer service, which is based upon engagement with customers, elected members, service managers, neighbourhood managers and the EDI network. This commitment is also now reflected in all job descriptions and the business planning process at the council. This will be followed by a refreshed corporate induction and training programme which incorporates the Customer Promise. Strategically, the peer team also heard of the recruitment to the new head of communications and engagement at the council and how this has been done in a way to support the development of resident engagement and focus at the council. This appears a positive step forward and a clear signal of the new approach. 

The team heard of the work that is also underway to put in place the member case management system, with a singular system due to be finalised by Q3 2025/26. Delivering this on time, and in a way which works for members is a vitally important step for further developing the resident experience of the council, whilst supporting transparency and accountability. It has an important role in further supporting the development of member/officer relationships across the council, building from the positive working relationships that continue to be observed at the most senior levels of the council.

Strategic partnership working

This theme includes particular reference to the following recommendation from the original CPC:

• Capitalise on the opportunity available now with partners and communities to jointly create ‘The Plan for Liverpool’ – rather than an internally-driven City Plan. Orientate this around how partners and partnership working can best serve all neighbourhoods in Liverpool, clearly stating the difference this way of working will represent. Whilst this title is given as an example of this shift, the name of this plan should be chosen locally.

Following the CPC recommendation the council’s policy team has led work, working with a group of council and partner representatives, to draft a Liverpool Strategic Partnership 2040 vision and framework document. The approach taken to producing the Liverpool Strategic Partnership 2040 vision and framework document differs to the approach recommended to the council as part of the original CPC, and as such there remains an opening to more closely align the work of the strategic partnership with the insights, delivery arrangements, strengths and opportunities from the different neighbourhood working arrangements across Liverpool. 

The team heard of examples from the council of how other organisations are adopting this new vision and the council’s reflections on a close working relationship between partner agencies which includes the collective offerings of support and collaborative efforts in response to new circumstances and challenges (for example – how partners worked closely together in preparing for and responding to the recent prisoner release programme). 

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. 

Claire Hogan (Assistant Director Regional Improvement and Support) is the main point of contact between the authority and the Local Government Association (LGA), and their e-mail address is [email protected]