The LGR Transition Programme

The diagram below outlines the structure of the Local Government Review (LGR) transition programme.

         Please click on image to see the full size diagram

 

 

 

The executive is advised by the JTF. The executive is made up of eight elected county councillors, including the leader of the council and deputy leader of the council. The joint transition forum (JTF) is a cross-party group of councillors from the district, borough and county council who debate transition arrangements and then make recommendations to the council’s executive.   

ICON is the independent commission of Northumberland, an independent group set up to oversee the implementation of the transition. You can find out more about ICON here.

The joint consultative forum is to engage all relevant trade unions in productive dialogue with the executive and the joint implementation team to achieve successful transition to the new council. The forum consists of elected members and trade union stewards. This role is to consider work force, strategy and policy matters during the transition process.

The role of scrutiny is to critically challenge the decisions made or actions taken by the executive, so as to ensure the interests of all affected parties are taken into account, and make sure there is a clear strategic direction for the reorganisation.

The programme board is made up of members of Northumberland County Council’s management board and the district council chief executives. It guides the transition process and advises the council executive and SMT.

SMT is the strategic management team, comprising the new council’s Chief Executive, the four Executive Directors and the Director of Resources and Director of Corporate Services.

The programme manager and programme management office (PMO) exists to support the teams outlined above throughout the whole process of creating a new council for Northumberland.

Four overarching ‘project boards’ are chaired by the executive directors. PID and Project Plans have been prepared and are being monitored for the following:

Culture and change - Daljit Lally. To create the culture and lead the change process. This needs to be reflected through training and communications. It is also essential to establish good understanding amongst stakeholders and true partnerships with communities and other external organisations. For successful transition and transformation a change management strategy will provide support for members, managers and staff. The work will achieve new organisation wide vision, values, attributes (including identity and behaviours) that all align to deliver for the community.

Operating model - Jill Dixon. Aligned with the emerging vision for the new council - to create a ‘dispersed and networked organisation delivering value close to the heart of communities’ - the work-stream will provide coordinated support to enable the first year operating model to be designed and successfully implemented within the constraints of the medium term financial plan. 

Cross cutting issues - Trevor Doughty.
This package of work covers the delivery of two core areas essential to the establishment of the new council. This includes; Safe Day 1 Transition and Corporate Support (Back office).

Localism - Richard Robson. The work on Localism needs to include: governance arrangements at sub county level (the three areas), operational service arrangements (e.g.  Cleaner, safer, greener transport, access to employment /learning at area level) and embedding community development principles in the work of the new unitary authority to ensure that this integrated way of working with and engaging communities is successful. The customer access element of the work aims to set in place the building blocks for longer-term improvements in customer satisfaction across Northumberland, whilst achieving a safe day 1 position for front office, website and white mail.

The executive directors are reviewing the current activities of the service clusters, in order to realign the work to the new function groupings. They will continue to use some service clusters as a pool of expertise and resources.