Transformation roundtable - Investing to Save and Transform (morning session)

Georgia Rudin, opened the session and invited participants to introduce themselves and flag current priorities. GR confirmed that slides and a summary would follow and handed to Naomi Lucas, Principal Adviser, Finance Improvement, who framed finance as a strategic enabler. The focus was long term scenario planning, aligning financial processes with outcomes, and shifting from reactive budgeting to proactive, evidence led investment decisions.d prioritisation.

Garry Cummings, LGA Finance Improvement and Sustainability Associate

• Garry Cummings defined invest to save as targeted upfront investment to secure sustained savings and improved outcomes in areas such as digital, social care, energy and community services, underpinned by efficiency, innovation, sustainability, political sponsorship and early finance involvement.
• He stressed robust baselining and proportionate options appraisal, testing do nothing, partnership, joint venture and in-house models before committing. Savings must be profiled realistically into the MTFP, with regular monitoring and reprofiling as delivery progresses.
• Major capital or borrowing requires early Cabinet and Council engagement, with transparent revenue, financing and risk implications. Councils should avoid optimism bias and “first past the post” approaches by prioritising corporately.
• On technology, GC highlighted the need for councils to maximise existing systems and shared dashboards before costly upgrades, ensuring automation delivers tangible savings or redeployed capacity, with IT and change teams engaged from the outset.
• He also revealed that securing buy-in depends on linking transformation portfolios explicitly to the MTFP, visible senior sponsorship and whole-council communications. For prevention schemes with longer paybacks, trend-based financial modelling of “costs avoided” provides a credible route into financial plans.

When should savings be recognised in the Medium-Term Financial Plan (MTFP)?
Savings should only be recognised once there is a clear and credible delivery plan, supported by robust baselining and milestones. Including savings too early risks destabilising the plan if delivery slips. Councils should build in regular monitoring, with a mechanism for reprofiling savings to later years where needed, ensuring that both finance and transformation teams remain aligned and credibility with Members and external auditors is maintained.

How should councils prioritise investments when capital is limited?
Councils should avoid fragmented, “first past the post” approaches. A single corporate pipeline ensures visibility of all proposals, allowing leadership to compare options side by side. Projects should be baselined properly, scored against impact, risk and time to benefit, and prioritised accordingly. Where the business case is strong, borrowing can be considered alongside capital receipts, provided payback is evident and consistent with the MTFP. This ensures that scarce capital is used to maximum effect.

How should councils respond to political or leadership change during a live programme?
The key is early re-engagement. Officers should restate the original business case and the risks of stopping or delaying the programme but also invite the new leadership to shape scope and priorities so that ownership transfers smoothly. This not only reduces the likelihood of programmes being abandoned but also provides an opportunity to reframe outcomes in line with new political priorities, maintaining momentum and support.

What tools are available to support councils in making invest-to-save decisions?
The LGA’s Transformation and Innovation Exchange (TIEX) maturity assessment was highlighted as a practical tool to baseline capability and identify priority areas. Councils were also encouraged to exploit existing IT systems fully, using shared dashboards such as LG Inform to link operational and financial data, before considering costly new platforms. Involving IT and change professionals early ensures that systems are used effectively and that investments deliver measurable returns.

How should councils treat prevention-focused programmes that have long payback periods?
Prevention schemes, such as early intervention in social care or public health, often deliver outcomes beyond typical financial planning cycles. Councils were advised to use trend based financial modelling to project “costs avoided” and to track proxy indicators such as reductions in demand or improvements in wellbeing while longer-term outcomes mature. This creates a credible evidence base for including prevention in financial strategies and helps protect investment in programmes that are vital but slower to yield savings.

How should you account for the cost of internal staff time in an invest to save business case?

This really depends on the way that the Finance Director wishes to account for the schemes. Personally, for me, in the development of the business case I would class this as normal work of staff involved.  If the invest to save scheme solution requires significant staff involvement, then this should be considered in the costs of the option / solution. This could be seconded staff, apportionment of costs of staff time or staff backfills. 

The roundtable discussions highlighted that successful invest-to-save programmes rely on strong alignment between finance and transformation, with many councils reporting that silos and mis-timed budget processes remain a barrier. Several are addressing this through joint boards and embedding finance business partners into transformation teams, ensuring savings are both credible and visible in the MTFP. 

A recurring theme was the tension between finance’s short-term savings requirements and the longer delivery horizons of transformation, prompting councils to develop explicit benefits registers, integrate data dashboards, and routinely re-profile savings. 

Delegates stressed that time released by automation or AI must be formally converted into cashable savings or redeployed capacity to be counted. In terms of portfolio choices, councils are prioritising quick-return projects, such as digital redesign, while keeping longer-term prevention and capital schemes, like children’s services reform and renewable energy, in development pipelines. 

Resource and capability constraints were also raised, with participants noting change fatigue and a desire to reduce reliance on external consultancy, instead focusing on internal capacity building and peer learning. Communications were seen as critical, with clear messages to staff, Members and residents needed to sustain buy-in and avoid perceptions that investment equates only to cuts. 

The overall reflection was that invest-to-save must be treated corporately, owned politically, tracked with discipline, and supported by robust engagement, with the LGA playing a valued role in convening peers, sharing artefacts, and supporting financial modelling and prioritisation.