Agenda item

Purpose: To provide an update on the Council’s Transformation Programme.

The Committee considered the report (Agenda Item 6) which provided an update on the outcomes delivered to date by the Council’s transformation programme, additional projects supported, recent departmental restructuring and leadership changes, and the planned development of a new forward looking transformation plan. This was an invest to save programme aiming to achieve efficiencies and effectiveness across the Council.

Councillor Vicky Poole, the Portfolio Holder for Transformation and the Corporate Programme, introduced the report. The transformation programme had been running for a two year period and in that time transformation had become widely embedded across the organisation. A number of successes had been achieved and in particular, Councillor Poole highlighted the Walnut Close temporary accommodation project. This had done much in supporting individuals who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless as well as achieving cost avoidance and savings.

Gabrielle Mancini (Service Director for Transformation, Customer and ICT) explained that the decision was made two years ago to pull together transformation projects and the Service Director role was created to take this forward. Six projects were identified for the original programme based on the potential for savings and the outcomes that could be achieved. These six projects were as follows:

·       Business Support Review

·       Strategic Asset and Locality Service Delivery Model

·       Place Service Improvement Plan

·       Corporate Recruitment Review

·       Review of care home provision

·       Review of home to school transport

The LGA Peer Review, conducted in January 2024, endorsed the principles of the transformation programme, alongside noting the spread of projects across the Council. This contributed to holding an internal restructure which resulted in centralising transformation to better track progress and achieve benefits. Policy Development Group (PDG) meetings would be taking place to further progress transformation work.

Councillor Jeff Brooks took the opportunity to highlight further successes. Greater efficiencies had been achieved in recruitment processes and retention (as part of the Employee Value Proposition). Annual savings in the region of £5m-£6m were being achieved from reduced employment of freelance/temporary contractors.

He did however acknowledge that work to review care home provision had not progressed as had been hoped as private sector organisations had not come forward to potentially run the Council’s care homes. That said, greater efficiencies had been delivered in the care homes and savings achieved, whilst continuing, most importantly, to support residents with their care needs.

Councillor Brooks added that service areas were progressing transformation, beyond the six specific projects. Transformation was embedded across projects that were being run from the centralised team. Transformation was a continually evolving process that would continue to work to improve services as well as making savings.

Councillor Carolyne Culver highlighted the need to be clear on net costs, including officer time, to fully understand the level of savings being made. She then invited questions and comments from Members, and a number of points were discussed in the debate.

Efficiencies achieved in relation to home to school transport were contractual and in terms of route optimisation. It was noted that transport costs for SEND pupils (pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) could be high as placements could often be outside of the district. Therefore, wider discussions were ongoing in relation to the availability of SEND placements within West Berkshire.

Gabrielle Mancini agreed to provide information on whether improvements had been achieved to the waiting list for home to school transport.

Councillor Chris Read noted that it was a difficulty using larger vehicles when it came to navigating rural roads. He raised the importance of considering social impacts/benefits for home to school transport as well as looking to reduce costs. Gabrielle Mancini assured Members that social aspects were considered above financial benefits.

In some cases, officers were moving from service areas to the centralised service. This was being undertaken within the same financial envelope.

The move to a centralised service was to achieve greater consistencies and greater benefit realisation. However, the need for specialist officers for projects was also recognised and portfolio managers would be appointed to support this.

In response to a question in relation to monitoring performance via key performance indicators (KPIs), Gabrielle Mancini explained that this would be part of the work undertaken by the PDG. Individual business cases were required and progress with them was tracked. This could be a role for Scrutiny Members.

Councillor Poole explained that new policies and procedures were being formed to strengthen the programme and would include thresholds for escalation should this be needed with a project. The mechanisms for considering new projects would be part of the PDG’s discussions.

Councillor Brooks added that each project would have its own business case which would be monitored. Focus would be given to points including project delivery and return on investment. He also made the point that some projects were ongoing and could achieve savings over a period of time.

Councillor Brooks felt there was scope for increased commercialisation of the Council’s services and suggested this could also be a topic for the PDG. There was the potential to progress this as part of the Ridgeway proposal if that way forward was taken.

Councillor Read felt that it would be useful to measure the social benefits being achieved for residents. He highlighted the ongoing role for scrutiny of analysing the benefits achieved and prioritisation given to projects.

The capital spend on Walnut Close was £86k. The savings achieved (in the region of £650k) were net of staffing costs.

Councillor Alan Macro was pleased to note that the temporary supported accommodation at Walnut Close made it possible for families to be more closely located to each other and the local area. Gabrielle Mancini was pleased to report that the need for bed and breakfast accommodation for individuals and families who were homeless had been significantly reduced.

Councillor Ross Mackinnon highlighted that transformation activity took place, including on some large scale projects, under the previous Administration, prior to the past two years. Councillor Brooks acknowledged this was the case, but pointed out that the centralised approach being taken commenced in 2023.

Councillor Richard Somner noted that the Transformation Review document did acknowledge the transformation work that had been carried out pre May 2023.

Councillor Mackinnon made reference to the budget reports approved by Council in February 2025 which outlined proposed savings of £469k in the operation of resource centres, with the aim to explore delivery with the external market. However, he felt that the wording in the report in relation to exploring opportunities to co-locate services was a complete move away from the proposal in the budget reports. He queried if this decision had been made.

Councillor Mackinnon noted from the report that the saving of £469k remained. However, he queried if this was still the case as the commentary provided in the report in relation to the way forward for resource centres had changed. He was concerned that this created uncertainty for resource centre users and members of staff.

Councillor Brooks clarified that the £469k saving remained as agreed within the budget. Work on the service provision had been undertaken and it was the intention to provide an announcement/an update at the Executive on 25 September 2025.

Councillor Poole described the process in place of moving onto a new project(s) while current projects were being finalised. A number of projects were pending and were being prioritised. There was therefore no time lost between a project concluding and another commencing. Projects would run concurrently.

Councillor Brooks explained that project management was being centralised and an officer was being recruited to take a lead on project management. This would help project delivery and reduce the risk of single points of failure.

It was noted that the Project Management Task and Finish Group had commenced its work.

Councillor Culver sought to understand whether officers engaged in transformation activity were being paid from capital or revenue funding and whether this was being monitored, including cases where the funding of a post could change, i.e. if a post was made permanent. Shannon Coleman-Slaughter (Service Director for Finance, Property and Procurement) explained that transformation activity was funded by capital receipts and this applied to all transformation officers regardless of whether they were permanent or temporary members of staff.

A written answer would be provided in response to the query from Councillor Culver seeking information on the income from selling assets, alongside costs incurred/rental income lost to fully understand the benefits achieved from transformation. Information was also sought on the costs of retaining an asset and using it in a different way vs the savings achieved.

Councillor Culver expanded on this point by querying if time spent by officers as part of business as usual (revenue costs) on transformation work was captured. Councillor Brooks agreed that it would be useful to understand this on a broad level, but it was not the intention to be overly specific, i.e. by asking officers to complete timesheets.

Gabrielle Mancini provided an assurance that time spent by senior officers in assisting project delivery fell outside of the performance of their regular duties and did not impact on the performance of their weekly hours.

Appendix A provided a summary of transformation programme savings and Councillor Culver queried those cases which showed savings and cost avoidance as zero. It was explained that some of the projects listed remained in progress or had only just commenced.

A key purpose of the project to enhance Market Street’s meeting facilities was to move away from the use of Shaw House for meetings and instead seek greater commercial use of Shaw House. It was explained that work on some projects helped to unlock savings in other projects.

Councillor Somner highlighted the importance of being fully clear, with projects such as this one, on costs incurred to deliver a project vs the savings achieved. Gabrielle Mancini agreed with the importance of this, explaining that costs were fully reflected on and scrutinised as part of business cases. In the case of the Market Street project, a budget had already been identified as part of maintaining the building and was not funded by new money.

Councillor Somner requested that this level of cost detail be captured with future work/within future reports.

Gabrielle Mancini described the detailed work conducted by a Transformation Manager and two Business Analysts for the Business Support Review. A systematic analysis was conducted to identify processes and functions across the Council that were similar in nature and could be centralised.

Councillor Poole gave as an example the work undertaken to standardise functions conducted by social care teams covering different localities across the district. This would increase resilience and efficiencies.

In response to queries on how this impacted officers who worked in a specialist team, but performed similar duties to others, Councillor Brooks explained that these officers would continue their roles. However, centralisation would serve to increase resilience and remove single points of failure.

Feedback had been obtained from those officers who performed these duties and the process models that had been developed had been validated by these officers.

In some cases, the decision was made to not centralise some activities due to, for example, their confidential nature.

Councillor Culver reinforced the need for further information on savings achieved as well as costs incurred. For example, if the savings for the Walnut Close temporary supported accommodation were fully net of spend (£86k). Gabrielle Mancini agreed to provide additional detail that would cover savings, cost avoidance and Government income that was able to be used for this project, alongside costs.

It was explained that the £50k spend on consultancy fees for the Place Service Improvement Plan (specifically Planning) was incurred prior to the formation of the Transformation Programme. It was the intention for this work to be used as a starting point by the Service Director for the Improvement Plan, but this had been delayed as the role had not been filled for a period of time. However, many service improvements had still been identified and progressed in Planning, i.e. the enhanced use of software to process planning applications.

Councillor Culver highlighted that the proposal for care homes to be managed by an external provider had not found support among all Members and she queried if this proposal would still be taken forward as it had not progressed to date. Councillor Brooks explained that a procurement process was ongoing and could therefore provide no further comment at the present time.

Councillor Culver followed this by querying the impact on the Revenue Budget of not taking this project forward as per the original timeframe. Councillor Brooks acknowledged that this had caused a strain on the budget, which had been covered as part of the outturn for Adult Social Care. It was felt that the savings identified for care home provision could still be achieved and Shannon Coleman-Slaughter clarified that a £1.2m saving was identified in this financial year. Councillor Brooks added that £600k was already forecast as being achieved.

The report noted that website improvements had led to improvements in staff recruitment. Councillor Brooks advised that retention was also improving and this linked closely with the Employee Value Proposition. This included an improved candidate experience and a positive induction programme.

The cost of employing a consultant as part of the home to school transport review was in the region of £15k. This was commissioned prior to the formation of the transformation programme. Gabrielle Mancini added that the savings for home to school transport were net figures that took account of the costs of the Transport Review Officer. The additional income from the farepayer scheme had been noted as part of the Revenue Budget.

Appendix A gave total anticipated savings of just over £3m, some of which was in delivery and some of which had been achieved. It was noted that with the reduction in agency spend, this figure rose to £7.6m.

Councillor Culver proposed as a recommendation that a request be made for further information on savings achieved and cost avoidance, as well as all costs incurred to establish the net position and assist further scrutiny. This would capture the information in one document and could take the form of an enhanced Appendix A and/or the transformation cost tracker that had been tabled. Regular update reports were requested. This was supported by the Committee.

Councillor Brooks agreed this would be provided and suggested this enhanced information could be brought back to the Scrutiny Committee in the new year, by which time transformation work would have been reviewed by the Policy Development Group.

Actions:

·       Gabrielle Mancini to provide information on whether improvements had been achieved to the waiting list for home to school transport.

·       Information would be provided on the income from selling assets, alongside costs incurred/rental income lost to fully understand the benefits achieved from transformation. Information would also be provided on the costs of retaining an asset and using it in a different way vs the savings achieved.

·       Further information would be provided on savings achieved and cost avoidance, as well as all costs incurred to establish the net position and assist further scrutiny. This would capture the information in one document and could take the form of an enhanced Appendix A and/or the transformation cost tracker that had been tabled. Regular update reports were requested. The next update would be received by the Scrutiny Committee at its meeting on 10 February 2026.

RESOLVED to note:

·       the achievements of the existing transformation programme and the additional projects.

·       the restructure of the service and appointment of a new Service Director.

·       the proposal to bring forward a refreshed transformation plan in the coming months.