Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council - Progress Review

Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (Sefton Council) completed a Local Government Association (LGA) Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) in November 2023. The council published their CPC report alongside a corresponding Action Plan, setting out the organisations proposals and response to the Peer Team’s findings in the Spring of 2024. As part of the CPC process, there is a commitment from councils that a Progress Review will be completed in a timely manner following the original CPC to support follow-up conversations. 

These Progress Reviews are designed to provide opportunity for the council’s political and managerial leadership to consider:

• Progress: Receive feedback from peers on the progress made by the council against the CPC recommendations and the council’s Action Plan.
• Opportunities and Challenges: Consider the reflections of peers on any new opportunities or challenges that may have arisen since the peer team were ‘on-site’ including any further support needs.
• Learning: Discuss any early impact or learning from the progress made to date.
• Operating Context: Better understand any changes in context which may affect the council’s progress or alter previously developed plans. 

This Progress Review was completed on Friday 20 June, and was held in-person at Bootle Town Hall.  To support strategic conversations and joined-up discussions, the 10 recommendations were aggregated into the following themes: 

• Prioritisation and improvement: This included conversations regarding the alignment of capacity to the council’s priorities, improvement in children’s services, and ensuring that the council’s regeneration programme enables inclusive growth.
• Processes, governance, and internal controls: This focused on the council’s Assurance Framework.
• Financial resilience: This included previous recommendations regarding the council’s Medium-Term Financial Plan, and level of financial resilience.
• Organisational development, culture and communications: This includes wider issues of staff engagement and the development of ‘high challenge, high support’ behaviours within the council.

The full recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge are included in full in Appendix One of this report.

To support the Review the council produced an overview of progress against the recommendations through an action plan and position statement which was shared with the team alongside a wider narrative on the council’s progress and context over the past 18 months. For this review, sessions were held with the council’s chief executive and senior leadership team, leader and cabinet, as well as focus groups with Senior Managers from Corporate Services and wider staff from across the organisation. 

This work was supported by the following peers:

• Lead Peer – Caroline Simpson (Chief Executive, Greater Manchester Combined Authority)
• Labour Member Peer – Helen Holland MBE (LGA Regional Peer).
• Liberal Democrat Member Peer – Cllr Ryan Priest (Group Leader, Dudley).
• Challenge Manager - Matt Dodd (Senior Regional Advisor – LGA). 

The original findings of the CPC described Sefton Council as being at ‘an important juncture’ setting out both the opportunities and challenges that were facing the organisation over the coming years. In the 18 months since the original CPC, there have been significant changes in the council’s political leadership, with the election of a new council leader in January 2024, and significant changes in Cabinet representatives. This includes the council’s move to having a single portfolio-holder for Children’s Services and Education from a previous dual model, which is more in-keeping with wider sector norms. Through this review, the energy and enthusiasm of the council’s cabinet was clear and was illustrated through the shared discussions the team witnessed on priorities as well as the knowledge of, and familiarity with their individual briefs. Importantly, the Team were told of positive relationships across members and officers, which included a healthy mixture of respect and challenge. 

During our time onsite, the council demonstrated progress against many of the Team’s previous recommendations. This includes work on issues of prioritisation through the development of a new council plan (2024-2027) aligned with a new Transformation Plan, and the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan to support progress on prioritisation and capacity as previously recommended. Furthermore, the development of a new Performance Management Framework for the council, introduced in Spring 2024 (with the first report to Cabinet in January 2025), provides another opportunity to support progress against these priorities, providing increased oversight, transparency, and Scrutiny.

The council has also demonstrated progress in areas of organisational development, including closer alignment of appraisals with council priorities and the council plan, as well as increased compliance in this area. Furthermore, the council has used regular staff surveys to monitor workforce temperature during a challenging year. Additionally, the council has engaged with external support to understand the impact of these events on the wider workforce.  In response to survey findings the council updated their Workforce Strategy Action Plan in October 2024 (refreshing the original strategy from 2023), with this Plan now being reviewed on an annual basis by a cross-Council Workforce Board.

A notable achievement in the past 18 months has been the council’s Adult Social Care Services being independently rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission. Previously the Peer Team had encouraged the council to ‘maintain the current progress made regarding children’s services’ following the Inadequate rating in 2022. It should be noted that this review was completed during the first week of the council’s OFSTED inspection which will provide full detail regarding the current position of Children’s Services at the organisation. However, in the time since the progress review was completed OFSTED have confirmed their assessment of Children’s Services at the council to now be Good, representing a significant achievement for the authority. 

Finally, alongside these positives, it is important to note that like others in the sector, the financial position of the council remains challenging. At the time of the original Peer Challenge in November 2023, the council’s level of reserves was one of the lowest amongst statistical neighbours. In response, the council successfully increased its level of reserves from £16m to £30m for the financial year of 2024-2025, however, due to financial pressure against demand led budgets in Adult Social Care, Children’s Social Care and Travel Support, in this time, this figure has reduced with £19m of general balance reserves being used to support the budget. 

This leaves the council with approximately £11 million of General Balances to manage their budget risk in 2025-2026 which provides little headroom for non-delivery of savings and the management of emerging spend. In this context, it is essential that the council grips their financial position and monitors demand, spend, and the delivery of the councils’ transformation programme in real time.  This will be required, not just to achieve the organisations’ ambition of replenishing reserves, but also maintaining the financial resilience of the organisation in the immediate term. 

Through this Progress Review, the Peer Team recognise the clear and structured approach that the council has implemented in responding to these original recommendations, and the notable progress that has been made in several key areas. Impressively, these improvements have been made during a time in which the council, working closely with partners, has been forced to deal with extremely challenging local circumstances, following two major incidents in Southport in July 2024.

The tragedy that took place in Southport in July 2024 was something that no area would ever want to face and the role of the council was important both in the initial aftermath and continues to the present day.  The impact on the council as an organisation has been profound and has had a deep affect on Members and Officers which organisationally has been recognised and continues to shape direction and resources.

The council has taken an approach which is to be led by the families in responding to the events of the 29 July, providing extensive, tailored support to 29 families, over 100 people, 29 business, and 200 staff (with support provided from across multiple agencies) whilst also leading the local community and resident response. The council described this work to the Peer Team as the ‘privilege’ of leading the community response, clearly recognising the profound and deep impact that the horrific incident has had and continues to have on the area and the importance of a deep and meaningful engagement with those directly affected and the wider community. The council is committed to providing appropriate and accessible support for the children and families affected by these issues, and in August 2024 approved a fully costed recovery plan, including partners, and setting out longer-term ambitions for recovery. It is not the role of the Peer Team to consider these, however, team members were keen to place on record their admiration for the organisation’s response, and as discussed during the review, how the council demonstrated the values and impact of local government in such difficult circumstances.

At the time of the council’s previous CPC the organisation was working towards the delivery of the 2030 Sefton Vision as a plan for the borough which would be delivered alongside key partners. However, at the time of this Peer Challenge, the organisation was still in the process of embedding a new Corporate Plan which had been developed in 2023 and launched in July 2024. 

Since this review, it is clear to see that further work has been completed to embed and strengthen these documents, ensuring that capacity is aligned to corporate priorities. This has included the development of a comprehensive Transformation Plan (launched December 2024) for the organisation, as well as bolstering the use of service planning and appraisals (known locally as Performance Development Reviews). Through this progress review the council was able to present a clear narrative regarding the relationship and interdependencies of the documents, and how they support the organisations’ key objectives. 

There is now additional corporate capacity in areas of data analysis, project support, transformation and commissioning with the ambition of supporting the organisation to drive coordinated change and deliver financial savings. Programme governance for this work is in place, with individual project boards which escalate issues in the council’s executive leadership team and quarterly reporting on the entirety of the programme. 

The council has introduced a project prioritisation criterion to support decision making and resource allocation. This included a ‘ways of working’ document which was endorsed by the council’s executive leadership team which utilised a resource matrix. It is a positive that the council have sought external views and insight on these developments, including through external focused reviews, and shared learning exercises with other local authorities. Moving forward, it is recognised that the increased financial challenges of the authority, there will need to be an increased focus on delivery of both the short-term and long-term objectives set out in the council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy.

Previously the peer team called on the council to ‘review and refine’ the council’s performance management framework, recognising that historically, whilst the council had developed annual reports, it had not yet taken quarterly reports on performance to Cabinet. This created a previous disconnect between councillor oversight, resource allocation, and risk management. 

This year, the council has introduced quarterly performance monitoring reports to address these previous gaps. This report, structured against 43 agreed performance measures also includes benchmarking information and direction of travel information to place these issues into a wider accurate context. This is a key development which will act as a foundation for further improvement. Going forward, there is ongoing work requires to ensure that the council maximises the benefit of this product, this should include consideration of any staff and member training requirements, as well as the potential links this can create with Scrutiny, supporting Scrutiny work programmes to be better informed. 

The introduction of quarterly reporting is a relatively new development for the council (introduced in April 2024 and reporting to Cabinet since January 2025), and therefore, the true benefit of the product will be evidenced in how this information is used. The council has an established Performance Board which leads the annual review process associated with the performance framework, ensuring that this product remains up to date, including the potential addition, removal, or amendment to targets, and the political oversight required for this. 

At the time of the council’s full CPC the Peer Team reported that across Members and officers it was “unwaveringly clear that their organisational priority was the necessary improvement of children’s services’. Children’s social care at the council, was rated Inadequate in 2022.Significant resources have been invested since then, with additional capacity used to support improvement in this area. The Peer Team heard that there has been progress made in this area as illustrated in Children’s Social Care through the reduction in the council’s use of agency staff from 65 per cent to 28 per cent of the workforce, and average levels of caseloads now being 15 per social worker. Alongside this, the Team were also told that progress had been made in supporting Children in Care and Care Leaver cohorts, including the launch of the Care Leaver MetroCard and increased partnership working with social housing providers on housing support for care leavers. Finally, the council has developed a more systemic approach to engaging with children and families, as illustrated through their consultation with 3,395 local children and young people on the content of the 2025-2028 Children and Young People Plan.

This progress review was completed during the first week of a full OFSTED ILACS inspection which will provide a new and full assessment of these services, but the Peer Team can see the capacity and resources that have been invested into this priority – as reflected in the original review, when spending in Children’s services had increased from £52.9 million in 2022-2023 to £80 million in 2023-2024 following a ‘rebasing’ of the financial requirements for children’s services. Alongside this, the Peer Team were told of the progress that has been made by the council on supporting their Children in Care and Care Leaver cohorts including the launch of a Care Leavers MetroCard and the launch of a Carers Business charter, and an impressive partnership with their social housing provider, ensuring decent first homes for Care Leavers. 

Previously, the Peer Team encouraged the council to progress regeneration priorities towards the outcomes of inclusive growth. The council has a clear and ambitious growth and strategic investment programme and has continued to work closely in partnership with the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and other public and private sector partners on many projects. Whilst there is still ongoing work to ensure that local resident’s best benefit from these regeneration programmes, there has been a number of significant developments over the past 18 months. This has included regeneration in Southport linked to a successful £37.5m Town Deal targeted at the town centre and waterfront, for example with continued progress on the Marine Lake Events Centre, and the recent completion of the Enterprise Arcade project on time and to budget. Importantly, the council has also recently received a funding commitment in the 2025 Comprehensive Spending Review to support the renovation and reopening of Southport Pier. 

These developments, alongside the Southport Town Hall square and gardens project, and securing an operator for the new Marine Lake Events Centre will have a significant impact on the Town over the coming years. Similarly, developments in Bootle including the significant progress on the transformation of the Strand shopping centre, and ambitious plans for future phases emerging, alongside the new ‘Salt and Tar’ venue and the opportunities linked to the opening of the nearby Everton Bramley Moore Dock Stadium will all create new opportunities for residents to benefit from the regeneration of the borough.

The council has a clear and robust reporting structure on all programmes and projects, with evidence of effective consultation and engagement, and of particular focus on social value outcomes including for children and young people. This is visible in procurement processes and contract delivery, including the maximisation of employment and training opportunities for local (including care experienced) young people across the regeneration programme.

Previously the Peer Team presented a number of findings and recommendations regarding the council’s assurance framework. The council provided additional evidence regarding these issues including compliance with the Financial Management Code issued by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance (CIPFA), with recent assessments being reported to the council’s Audit Committee, and a wider improvement Action Plan in place. The council has also used wider examples of independent review to assure themselves on these issues, including consideration of the implications regarding the 2024 Procurement Regulations and subsequent changes to contract procedure rules. 

After a period of significant stability in the council’s senior roles, there has been recent change amongst statutory officers with a new Monitoring Officer and interim Section 151 Officer in-place. The council is aware of the opportunity of fresh perspectives that this presents, but also the loss of historic corporate knowledge, and recognises the contributions of previous post-holders. 

Previously the Peer Team encouraged the council to maximise the contribution of Scrutiny to the council, and suggested consideration for the role of opposition, progress tracking, and alignment with performance and budget reporting. These issues remain relevant across the sector, and the council should continue to keep under review these issues, including through the consideration of training and development opportunities. This should also include consideration of the relationship between Cabinet and Scrutiny, recognising the importance of this relationship in supporting accountability as well as the potential contribution for wider policy development.  Additionally, ahead of all-out elections in 2026 it will be important for the organisation to assure themselves on the appropriateness of their constitution and consider both the training and amendments that may be required based on their existing practice. 

Finally, moving forward, the council may wish to extend their work on internal assurance to further consider council owned companies. The Peer Team have not had the capacity or opportunity to investigate these areas of work, and do not raise them as a risk or concern, but instead a feature of good practice in strong systems of assurance. 

The previous CPC highlighted the challenging financial context in which the council was operating, particularly the challenge of reconciling the necessary investment required for targeted service improvement. This is against a backdrop of having low financial reserves and overspend against demand led budgets – an issue that is being faced by the majority of councils in the sector. Previously, the Peer Team encouraged the council to use the process of developing their Medium-Term Financial Plan to support understanding across the organisation regarding their financial context. Importantly, throughout this review members from across the council as well as officers, all recognised and spoke to the financial challenges facing the council, recognising the challenging financial context the council is working in.

The council has in place measures and controls that provide additional support to the monitoring and management of these issues, including additional senior finance capacity for Adult Social Care and Children’s Social Care as well as monthly meetings on their budget involving the Chief Executive, Finance Director, and Service Directors. These are accompanied by regular briefings across Cabinet and Executive Leadership Team to support an understanding of pressures across the organisation. The council’s Transformation Plan is also designed to address these demands. However, given this document is in its first year, there is ongoing work required to move this work from planning to delivery, and it is positive the council has committed to completing an annual review linked to risk and pressures. 

The challenges of the council’s finances are in-part, shaped by the organisation having low General Fund reserves. Previously the Peer Team recommended that the council increase these over the timeline of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy to support increased resilience. The council responded to this by increasing reserves from £16 million to £30 million as part of the 2024-2025 budget setting process. However, in this period, the council was forced to use approximately £19 million of reserves to deal with the pressure on demand led budgets. This leaves the council with approximately £11 million in General Fund reserves going into 2025-2026. However, the council does have a public commitment to replenish reserves through their Medium-Term Financial Plan, increasing General Balance Reserves to £19.5 million, £24.9 million, and £30.3 million over the coming three years. This presents a clear challenge whereby the recent history of rebasing or overspending is no-longer an option in the council’s current context so the development of the Medium-Term Financial Strategy will need to address this.

An additional medium-term pressure to the council’s financial context, similar to others in the sector, is the council’s High Needs Deficit for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. This deficit has increased from £5.4 million in 2019-2020 to £38m in 2023-2024, reflecting the rising demand for services that has been seen in this time. This reflects a wider challenge facing the sector, with national deficits forecast to be close to £8 billion by 2026. However, in this context, it is important that the council continues to monitor and manage this pressure, recognising that the current national override which allows these figures to be reported as deficits is due to expire in 2027-2028.

The council has identified savings of £13.9 million to set a balanced budget for 2025-2026 and their transformation plan is aligned to this activity. This progress review was completed before quarter one reporting was published or available. This mixture of low reserves increased local demand, and significant savings targets, means that Sefton will have to ensure that their transformation programme delivers agreed savings, and that their budget monitoring provides real-time oversight to manage financial risk as quickly as possible.

In response to the LGA Corporate Peer Challenge recommendation to develop a culture of high challenge and high support the council has developed a shorthand for this approach known as ‘the Sefton Way’. This is rooted in the values of Communities (tailored approaches rather than one size fits all), Collaboration (working across departments and partners), and Ambition (a commitment to improve outcomes and services). This has been supported by the 2024 Workforce Development Plan as well as several practical changes. 

This approach has been demonstrated and communicated through the visible political and managerial leadership of the council. To try and embed this culture of high challenge and high support, the council have introduced a new Service Planning and Performance Management framework. This framework empowers staff, supports continuous improvement, and ensures accountability. This framework supports prioritisation across tiers of staff. The council has also launched a range of staff engagement approaches, including: 

• All-staff listening sessions, held annually and delivered to all services of the organisation.
• Teams Hours with the Chief Executive, a bi-monthly opportunity for staff to ask questions directly.
• In-person corporate inductions, ensuring new staff meet senior leaders early in their employment with the council.
• Strengthened internal communications: Fortnightly manager briefings and standardised team meeting agendas to promote consistency on key corporate messages.
• Staff recognition: A rolling programme of staff recognition events, recognising excellent practice and long-service. 

Responding to the Peer Team’s finding on staff engagement, Sefton Council conducted an all-staff survey in Spring 2024 (3,592 invited employees with 39 per cent response rate). The survey revealed that 94 per cent of respondents said they are willing to go the extra mile, and 91 per cent being committed to making Sefton successful and 68 per cent being proud to work for the council, all these measures are above benchmarked averages. However, in the context of this response rate, it is important that the council maintains other channels of communication with their workforce. 

This survey also illustrates some areas which require further work and attention, with the council performing below benchmarks. This includes only 49 per cent of staff having a good understanding of the council’s previous council plan (21 per cent below benchmarking) and only 62 per cent of respondents saying that their development review discussions had contributed to understanding council priorities (9 per cent below benchmarking).

This was in part reflected in the council’s monitoring of appraisals whereby they found only 55 per cent included discussions on the Corporate Plan. The survey only included a response of 34 per cent having trust in confidence in the appraisal process, but the Peer Team appreciate this is likely to increase given the improved monitoring and grip of this area. 

The Council’s monitoring of appraisals is an area of significant improvement since the original peer challenge. This was a statistic which the council could not provide during their original peer challenge, and they have tracked the figure from 75 per cent in 2024-2025 to 84 per cent at the time of the progress review. It goes without saying that the Peer Team would encourage further uptake in this figure, but they recognise the progress made to-date. 

We appreciate that the political leadership and senior management of the council will want to reflect on these findings and suggestions, and how the organisation can best take them forward. It was agreed that this report would be published to support principles of transparency. 

Under the umbrella of sector led improvement, the LGA will continue to offer ongoing support and advice to councils following these reviews and will continue to coordinate this support for Members and officers, through engagement with the council’s chief executive. Whilst it is not intended for this progress review to create additional recommendations for the council, the Peer Team believe that the council may wish to consider the following:

• Financial Grip and Rigour: There is a shared understanding and recognition of the council’s financial position across councillors and officers of the council. However, the council’s context remains highly challenging and will require ongoing oversight and continued alignment of the council’s transformation programme with their financial pressures in real-time.
• Review Resident Engagement and Consultation: Establish a two-way engagement channel to support real-time conversations, feedback, and updates (beyond consultations) and fostering trust, transparency, and stronger community connections between council and residents.
• Maximise the benefit of your ‘Golden Thread’: The council has invested time and capacity into clarifying their priorities and values over the past 18 months, and now has a fully aligned council plan, transformation plan, Medium-Term Financial Plan, and Performance Framework. The opportunity presented by these assets should be maximised, including the alignment of performance issues with Scrutiny work programmes and increased use for communication.
• Embed the ‘Sefton Way’: The council has made progress against previous recommendations on issues of workforce; the opportunity now exists to build on this progress to work across council departments and extend partnership working into new areas and opportunities. 

Dan Archer (LGA Senior Regional Adviser) is the regional lead for the North West and, is the main contact between your council and the Local Government Association. As outlined above, Dan is available to discuss any further support the council requires, his email address is [email protected].

1. Recommendation 1: Review and align corporate capacity to support council priorities: The council should consider the skills, capacity and capabilities that are needed to support issues of transformation, organisational development, and communication.
    
2. Recommendation 2: Use the process of developing the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan to develop a widespread understanding and ownership of the council’s financial challenges: This will need to include accurate forecasts on costs and demand, and the development of clear saving plans.
    
3. Recommendation 3: Increase Financial Reserves: The council is aware that their reserve levels are amongst the lowest in the country, and there is a need to increase them over the cycle of their Medium-Term Financial Plan to support resilience against potential unexpected pressures.
    
4. Recommendation 4: Maintain the recent progress which has been made regarding improvements to Children’s Services: The council is clear in their priority to improve Children’s Services following the inadequate OFSTED rating in 2022. This will require ongoing attention, focus, and resources to support increased pace for the coming years.
    
5. Recommendation 5: Ensure that regeneration opportunities are supporting inclusive growth: There are several exciting regeneration programmes taking place across the borough, however there is scope to strengthen its narrative and benefit from Sefton’s strategic location as part of the wider Liverpool city region to maximise wider social and economic benefits that will deliver inclusive growth.
    
6. Recommendation 6: Develop the wider assurance framework within the council: The council has key elements of internal assurance and controls in place, including internal audits, pro-active engagement with external audit, and good financial reporting. There is a need for the organisation to consider how these elements combine and are strengthened to support internal assurance, rigor, risk management and challenge within the organisation.
    
7. Recommendation 7: Consider the use of meetings and their impact on capacity: The council articulated their ambition for “fewer meetings and more action” through the CPC process. The team would encourage the council to review which meetings can be stood down, including a review of internal governance to support alignment and reduce duplication, to consider the use of communication channels to avoid meetings being used to share information, and ensure that wider meetings are maximising the contribution of Members and senior officers.
    
8. Recommendation 8: Review and refine the council’s performance management framework: This year, the council has introduced quarterly performance monitoring reports to cabinet. There is potential for this work to go further, and the team would encourage the council to ensure that the outcomes reported best reflect the council vision and priorities, the incorporation of direction of travel and benchmarking to better understand relative performance, and the use of targets to articulate ambition and focus attention on service improvement.
    
9. Recommendation 9: Develop a culture of high challenge, high support behaviours across the organisation: Recognising the energy and enthusiasm that exists across Sefton’s workforce, an increased focus on performance will accountability, whilst also helping staff with prioritisation of tasks.
    
10. Recommendation 10: Build on the findings of the upcoming staff survey and consider the benefit of a resident survey: Consider feedback from a council wide Staff Survey, and a potential Resident Survey to support prioritisation within the council, wider issues of improvement, and feedback on services and changes that have been made.