Published
Header image for article 7194
The Council's three Workstream Boards met for the last time in June, marking the closure of wave 2 of Council of the Future (COTF).

Following the completion of the Review of Transformation, several changes will now be made to the COTF programme to ensure projects move at pace and deliver significant savings.

At each of the Workstream Board meetings, the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) talked board members through the proposals agreed by the Corporate Management Team (CMT).

One of the most significant changes is the establishment of new Directorate Boards that will replace the Communities, Enterprise, and Innovation Workstream Boards.

Directors take the helm

The new boards will focus on the delivery of projects by service rather than by Council priority, with each board led by its respective Director.

The move aims to increase accountability by ensuring Directors are ultimately responsible for the delivery of projects that sit within their service.

Members of the Programme Management Office (PMO), HR, ICT, Finance and Communications will sit on the boards alongside Project Managers.

A representative from each of the other two services will also have a seat at the table to ensure the cross-cutting nature of the Workstream Boards is not lost.

Homing in on savings

Projects that will form wave 3 of COTF will now need to meet more stringent criteria designed to ensure savings are delivered quickly to help the Council become financially stable.

Not only will projects have to better align with the priorities of the Council’s various strategic plans but also generate savings of more than £250k over 12 months or £500k over 24 months.

Several enabler projects will also be approved by CMT. These projects will support the Council to deliver on savings through various means, including:

  • making processes simpler
  • automation
  • improving the use of digital technology within communities

On the back of these changes, c20 COTF projects that have still to reach an end date will either become business-as-usual work or form part of the next wave of the transformation programme.

Several new projects are also expected to be unveiled over the coming months.

Supporting change

As well as tightening up the criteria for projects, the review will see changes to reporting and to the PMO, which will reduce in size to three core Programme Management Co-ordinators.

Other proposals that flow from the review will need to go before Council for approval following the summer recess.

Valued work

Having talked Workstream Board members through the changes, SROs made clear the new structure aimed to improve the way projects were supported and monitored.

Although change was afoot, they stressed work on projects that were still live must continue as normal, as the changes they will bring about and the savings they will deliver are vital.

SROs thanked board members for their hard work and dedication, reminding them that they had helped change services for the better.