Content

To approve the submission of the
Council’s Productivity Plan to the Department of Levelling
Up, Housing and Communities and publication on the Council’s
website.

Reasons for the decision

2.1     In February 2024, the
government introduced a requirement for all local authorities to
produce a ‘productivity plan’. This was announced
alongside the publication of the local government financial
settlement for 2024/25, with a further letter sent to local
authorities in April providing some more detail on
requirements.
 
2.2     Each local authority is
required to submit a productivity plan by 19 July 2024. This
non-statutory requirement forms part of the government’s
broader cross-government focus on productivity. The government has
stated that the purpose of submitting these plans is to help
national and local government to understand what is already working
well across the country, the common themes, where the gaps are, and
what more the government needs to do to unlock future
opportunities. The plans are due to be presented to a newly
established DLUHC productivity panel intended to support long-term
sustainability of the sector.
 
2.3    The government’s
expectations in respect of the productivity plans, set out in April
2024, are that local authorities should:
 
·      
Consider the different facets that drive productivity;
·      
Include reference to how we run our organisation, and how we run
the public services we provide, and how we provide place
leadership;
·      
Consider how the plan will be updated and progress reported on on a
regular basis;
·      
Plan should contain relevant metrics and key performance;
·      
Member oversight and endorsement of the plan before submission;
and,
·      
Plan must be loaded onto the Council website.
 
2.4     The government provided a
framework made up of 4 headings:

How you have transformed the way you
design and deliver services to make better use of resources
How you plan to take advantage of
technology and make better use of data to improve decision-making,
service design and use of resources
Your plans to reduce wasteful (or
gold-plated) spend within your organisation and systems
The barriers preventing progress
that the Government can help to reduce or remove

 
 
2.5      The draft productivity
plan is attached as Appendix 1. This has been developed on the
basis of the following factors:
 
·      
The focus is on Cumberland Council’s transformation
plans;
·      
This is a summary of plans already agreed, either through the
budget-setting process and/or the transformation programme
processes;
·      
The content aligns with the Council Plan and the Council’s
Target Operating Model;
·      
The focus is on the outcome of Local Government Reform and the
future, whilst recognising that the Council’s transformation
plans build on the integration of the 4 legacy councils);
·      
The key information on the transformation ambitions, approaches and
investment and savings information are included; and,
·      
The draft recognises ongoing work on benefits realisation as part
of the transformation programme, and points to Key Performance
Indicators already agreed through the performance management
framework.
 
2.6     Submission of the productivity
plan will meet the requirements set out by the Government.
 

Alternative options considered

The alternative option of not submitting the
productivity plan was considered and rejected. The clear
expectation from government was that submission of the productivity
plans was part of informing future government policy on public
sector productivity and funding.