On 1 April 2023 local government in Cumbria will change. The current six district councils, along with Cumbria County Council, will be replaced by two new ‘unitary’ councils. This may bring many changes to Levens Parish as the area presently covered by two councils will reduce to just one as Westmorland and Furness Council, will be created.

From April 2023 Westmorland and Furness Council will be responsible for providing all the services currently delivered in those areas by the three district and borough councils and the county council. That means everything from your waste and recycling collections to highways and planning matters, adult social care and parking will all be looked after by the new Westmorland and Furness Council.

Update from the LGR Programme Board

Tuesday's meeting marked the passing of the halfway point in preparing for the new authorities. It was 314 days since the Secretary of State announced his decision on unitary options for Cumbria and 305 days until Vesting Day on 1 April 2023.

And it's fitting at this milestone that the Programme Board is arranging a briefing for staff from all seven councils to update on where we're at and the progress made. It will be on 4 July, details are below.

This week the board heard a number of key updates, including on finance, new websites and telephony systems being developed for the two new councils.

Outline proposals on the financial ‘split’ between Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness were considered, including the formulas and principles to be applied which would ensure that funding is fair and that resources are allocated according to need.

These proposals will go forward to the Shadow Authorities to feed in to discussions around the new councils’ wider strategic planning process.

A Customer and Digital report updated the board on progress around telephony systems, websites and payroll solutions being developed for the two new councils as it looks to deliver effective and efficient customer experiences from Day 1.

All staff LGR briefing - Monday 4 July

As mentioned above, an all councils staff briefing is being organised for 9.30am to 11am on Monday 4 July.

It's an opportunity for everyone to hear some important updates on the LGR programme and progress towards establishing two new councils.

The Teams live session will include presentations from programme leaders on the transition, as well as covering the emerging ‘visions’ for the new councils, key programme milestones and an update on the framework for the allocation of staff roles.

Invitations will be emailed out in the next few days.

The session will be recorded and made available for all staff unable to attend on the day.

Legal query mailbox open

A new central mailbox has been set up to co-ordinate requests from teams looking for legal assistance on the LGR process.

The Legal and Democratic workstream is asking for those with queries – such as on byelaws, statutory obligations, council constitutions and external contracts – to email their request to lgrlegaladvice@cumbria.gov.uk from where a response will be co-ordinated.

Theme and Workstream updates

Themes and workstreams support the Programme Board and ensure every area of each council’s services and responsibilities is taken into consideration during the complex transition from seven authorities to two.

After the Programme Reset there are now six themes. These are - People, Place, Corporate and Enabling, Finance and Commercial, ICT and Customer and Digital. Each month we share updates from the themes.

Don’t forget, there’s an updated glossary for frequently used LGR terms on your council’s LGR SharePoint site.

People

The People theme has boards for Adults, Children and Families and Public Health.

Across the children, adults and public health workstreams, work has continued on assessing the different options for how services could be delivered by the two new councils, the so called ‘blueprints’.

As has been communicated previously, the starting position for this work was an assumption of separating services between the new councils, with each running their own service (‘disaggregation’). This is what the Structural Changes Order from Government said we should do. For most services this is likely to be the decision of the new Shadow Authorities.

For a small number of specific services, the ‘blueprints’ include alternative options for the Shadow Authorities to consider that do not involve disaggregation. For example, one council hosting a service that operates on a Cumbria wide basis working for both councils, potentially for a transitional period or long term.

Leaders from the three People workstreams have met informally with the Shadow Cabinets for both new authorities to talk to them about this work and explain how different options have been arrived at. These have been positive sessions, with the new members very engaged with the issues.

We are now working towards finalising the blueprints for consideration at the forthcoming meetings of the two Shadow Cabinets on 20 and 22 July. A plan is in place for sharing this blueprint information with staff in advance of those meetings.

Place 

The Place theme contains a variety of services ranging from waste services, transport, climate change, leisure services, housing, libraries and coroners. Since the last update, the workstream leads have been refining their blueprint documents ahead of their consideration by the Programme Board and the two Shadow Authorities. 

Work has also continued – with the assistance of KPMG – on the delivery plans for once the blueprints have been agreed. There has also been some initial work carried out on the possible financial position for services, and workstream leads have also been completing the risk register. 

As with other themes, the Place Theme board members have been meeting with the new councillors briefing them on the situation and making sure they are aware of the any issues specific to a particular workstream. There have also been presentations to DLUHC (the UK government's Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) on planning, with similar updates on highways and waste services due in a few weeks.

Corporate & Enabling

Reports from the theme’s eight workstreams are below, including from two new teams, Transformation, and Policy and Performance.

 

Organisational Development (OD) and Human Resources (HR)

As we move closer to the start date for the two new councils, additional resources have been allocated to the workstream.

Tracy Boustead, Assistant Director (Workforce & OD) at Cumbria County Council, is now providing additional strategic and technical support, and is leading the workstream as we focus on implementation i.e. getting the right things delivered, at the right time and in the best way possible. 

The workstream has now agreed the critical milestones and we will soon let you know the timescales and next steps for the TUPE process.  

A key critical milestone has been achieved this month with the new Chief Executives’ external recruitment campaigns now live.

Trade Union representation and involvement is essential for LGR success. 

The formal LGR Joint Negotiation and Consultation Group (JNCG) meetings are now in place, chaired by Lawrence Conway (Corporate and Enabling Board Chair).

A reminder that updated staff FAQs are now available on your council’s SharePoint site. Following feedback, we added in more detail on TUPE. In the meantime, if you have any concerns or questions, don’t hesitate to speak to your line manager or a member of your HR team.

 

Corporate Estate and Capital Programme  (formerly Assets)

The workstream is now focussed on refining information gathered to date for the developing options for the Corporate Estate and Capital Programme that will be presented to the two new councils this summer.

Creating a strategy that identifies where each of the new councils will be headquartered from Vesting Day onwards is a major piece of work. Evidence gathering is crucial to this process, and the options will be informed by data drawn from across the LGR programme, taking into account a wide range of factors and through political engagement with the Shadow Authorities.

Blueprints for the Corporate Estate and Capital Programme have been presented to the Programme Board gaining positive feedback. More information is now being assembled on the combined Capital Programme across the County Council and District Councils which totals more than £600 million over the next five years.

In line with all of the themes and workstreams across the LGR programme, the team has also worked to identify the tasks that are critical to Day 1 readiness. These have been fed into the programme's Critical Path document - a crucial route map highlighting the areas of focus that need to be completed to allow the new councils to operate safely and legally from Day 1. This document remains in development, with a final version set to be adopted in the coming weeks.

 

Communications and Engagement

After delivery of a multi-platform election promotion campaign, the Comms Group has supported the new member induction process at Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness.

The group has also worked on a new narrative to help all our stakeholders better understand the reorganisation and prepare them for the launch of the two new councils. This is being rolled into our ongoing communications.

We are working on a series of information events to ensure all stakeholders, including members, staff and the public, are receiving regular updates on progress.

Initial design work on branding will be considered by the two new councils in July.

The approach to stakeholder mapping has been agreed and is being implemented as there will soon be a focus on employee engagement around blueprints for services.

The first draft of a C&E blueprint has also been submitted – a collaborative piece of work involving all councils.

 

Legal and Democratic

Legal and Democratic has led on the induction programme for new members; part one has been delivered, with part two being finalised. Work will commence shortly on the wider member development plan.

The first meetings of the Shadow Authority and Senior Appointments Committee have taken place, with meetings of the Shadow Cabinet and Overview and Scrutiny Committee having taken place or about to to take place. Work has continued on plans for the Shadow Authority meetings and forward planning.

A reset of this workstream has been concluded, resulting in the creation of 16 sub-groups, some being continuations of the earlier work streams. Focus is on Day 1 readiness work across the programme.

 

Strategic Commissioning, Procurement and Contract Management

Registers for contract pipeline and grants across all seven councils are now virtually populated (currently chasing down the Terms & Conditions and Agreements).

A significant amount of interdependency work across workstreams/themes is happening, as are updates to the workstreams and LGR Programme Board.

Approximately 140 contracts with a high-risk rating are now subject to review by the Legal workstream, with some requiring further external legal advice and capacity support.

 

Data & Intelligence Hub 

The Data & Intelligence Hub continues to make good progress in supporting the LGR programme with critical data needs.  

Work continues to support programme blueprints. During May and into June, the Data Hub has been working hard to gather, validate and map core data sets which are required by the programme, including HR data, Asset data, and over 13,000 lines of finance data. 

This detailed work has involved an extensive exercise to consolidate data held in different systems or formats, and then map the data to a service schedule to allow it to follow work packages through the programme.  

Alongside this, the Data Hub has been working to support the development and application of the disaggregation and aggregation metrics for each work package.  KPMG analysts have developed a dashboard which will allow for a ‘factsheet’ to be exported for each workstream, showing key finance, HR and asset data according to their chosen aggregation or disaggregation metrics. 

Work continues with colleagues across the programme to improve, clarify and strengthen data quality, with the aim of moving towards publication of the factsheets towards the end of June.  Further information will be issued in due course around how work packages can access their factsheet data.

The Data Hub continues to support with other critical areas of the programme, and good progress is being made in areas such as more detailed mapping of finance data. Data protection and security remains a strong focus and commitment of the Hub, and secure management of data including the development of privacy impact assessments continues.

Our focus over the next month is to continue to complete the request for data and information for programme products, the main focus being the costing of the Blueprints.

If you have a query or want to know more please email the team via the dedicated email service ask.datahub@cumbria.gov.uk

Policy and Performance 

A new workstream has been established and is now working as one group, bringing together the previous individual policy and performance workstreams under technical lead Nik Hardy. They have started work on the development of council plans for Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness Shadow Authorities with the aim these will be agreed after work across the summer.

Transformation

A second new workstream, Transformation, is also now up and running under the direction of technical lead Claire Gould. Engagement has started with key workstreams regarding the organisational Target Operating Models (TOMs) and aligning with priorities.

Finance and Commercial

Work has progressed on a number of fronts both in supporting the overall LGR programme and on what’s required to ensure finance and commercial services will operate without interruption from Day 1.

The theme continued to support the blueprinting work, working closely with the Data Hub on the preparation of finance data.

We also led on the drafting of the Section 24 document, that sets out the spending limits of the existing district councils and county council in the run up to Day 1.

A significant focus over the last period has been the work to develop the detailed disaggregation principles so these can be applied at cost centre level (for the blueprint costing exercise).

Looking to what’s coming up next, we also moved forward with our thinking on the detailed approach to developing the budgets for the new unitaries and have created a framework for the development of the budget setting for 2023/24.

Similar to the other themes, work also progressed on our critical path and we created the requirements of F&C for Day 1 operation, this included a number of workshops with the ledger system supplier.

ICT

The ICT Workstream continues to progress vital work on Day 1 readiness plans to ensure the seamless transition of ICT services for the two new unitary authorities.

The high level ICT Architecture Plan has been discussed with the Programme Board and Shadow Council Cabinet Members with technical teams from all seven sovereign councils now progressing the detailed technical work to create ICT solutions for both Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness Unitary Councils whilst maintaining existing services until they are no longer required.

This is a large and complex programme of work to ensure colleagues have the ICT solutions required to continue doing their jobs. This covers everything from laptops, desktop computers, tablets and phones, to critically important operational considerations around key business applications and systems, security arrangements, data centres, maintenance and management services, back up and disaster recovery arrangements and finalising the new Microsoft Enterprise agreements for end users and server licensing.

In addition, the team are progressing work on options for telephone systems, file storage and printing solutions and collaborative systems such as Email, MS Teams and SharePoint. The technical teams are also looking at network solutions as well as options for corporate, public and guest WiFi,  remote access and reliable Virtual Private Networks to support secure home or remote working.

ICT teams are also engaging with service areas to identify and collate their Day 1 ‘Must Have’ business requirements prioritising business critical systems and applications. This work will help the teams triage all of the required tasks and assess the minimum delivery resource requirements.

Finally, informal briefing sessions have recently been held with both Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness Shadow Cabinet Members to discuss the ICT work progressed so far and present an overview of the draft ICT blueprints.

Further meetings are scheduled with elected members to progress the transition plans for Day 1 Safe and Legal readiness alongside progressing the longer term ICT priorities for each new council.

Customer and Digital

Work has continued towards finalising a ‘Day 1 Readiness Plan’.

Design principles have been agreed to shape future customer services provision, including:

• Delivering seamless, sustainable and transformed end-to-end services through collaboration with services that proactively reduce and shape demand

• Be designed for everyone, based on user needs, supporting customers to do more – accessible, inclusive, secure and fit for purpose

• Be designed end-to-end, enabling the earliest possible resolution of customer enquiries in a simple and consistent way

• Be delivered by skilled, knowledgeable and empowered staff with digital expertise and a willingness to try new things and learn from others; shaped by service design experts; led by digital champions

• Provide value for money by “fixing the plumbing” to break dependence on inflexible / expensive technology and collaborating with the wider sector to deliver in a streamlined and efficient way

• Continually leverage data and intelligence to enable evidence-based decisions about future services.

• Continually improve in a low risk and flexible way, enabled by user-centred service design and Agile methodologies, learning from success elsewhere, and real-time performance measurement

The number one priority is to prepare the new councils to be ‘Day 1’ ready, delivering safe and legal services, aiming for a smooth transition to the new councils and ensuring that customers will experience two distinct councils from 1 April 2023.

Customer and Digital has confirmed the need to work closely with the new Transformation workstream to ensure that options for the new councils’ customer and digital models aligns and supports the new ways of working.

This includes integrating fully with the websites that are being developed for the new councils and ensuring the most effective and efficient customer journey.

Initial blueprint discussions have already been held with the Programme Board and the Customer and Digital workstream is now refining its final blueprint.

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Don't forget, there's more information online! 

Got a question about LGR? About TUPE or working for the new authorities?
Check out the LGR frequently asked questions

Visit the LGR website: newcouncilsforcumbria.info