Councils are facing significant challenges to deliver balanced budgets. With on-going pressure, particularly from social care, housing and regeneration, more scrutiny is likely, while better governance, including savings plans, is required. The pandemic has added to the financial pressures, which are likely to be ongoing as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to materialise.

Local government reform will increase the need for understanding the cost and benefits of different local government models.  Integration of Health and Social Care is part of the solution to the challenge facing us but an in-depth understanding of the challenge and the demand is imperative.

At C.Co, we believe councils can rethink procurement, deliver better value for money and drive higher social value. Increased transparency and challenge drives sector improvement.

Drivers for change in the way councils deliver services

In order to satisfy both the financial challenge and the moral need to support their citizens, we believe councils must radically change the way they deliver services. Organisation-wide change has to be far reaching and include a new, citizen-centred approach to delivery, innovative leadership and a culture of trust.

What is Future Councils?

We have developed a model for achieving sustainable organisation-wide change to enable councils to meet the challenges they face today. Called Future Councils, the model is rooted in academic learning and good practice on what does and does not work in the delivery of local government organisation change. It is based on our collective practical experience and knowledge from across the sector and beyond.

Future Councils is designed to:

  • Ensure the council is financially sustainable and delivering value for money
  • Redesign services fit for the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s citizens
  • Pioneer approaches to service delivery
  • Ensure that decisions are intelligence-led, robust and based on sound evidence
  • Provide assurance that the council and key officers are ‘safe’

The Future Councils model is made up of three fundamental layers: outcomes of change, actions to achieve change and the five core components of change, which are culture, people, governance, processes and information systems.

Working collaboratively with our clients, we draw up a week by week programme to implement our Future Councils model in a way that is custom built for each council’s specific needs.

Talk to us to find out more about our Future Councils model.