Right for Renfrewshire - Management Structures
Renfrewshire Council · 15 December 2022
Back to Council — 15 December 2022 and its agenda
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___________________________________________________________________ To: Council On: 15 December 2022 ___________________________________________________________________ Report by: Chief Executive ___________________________________________________________________ Heading: Right for Renfrewshire - Management Structures ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Summary 1.1 The purpose of this report is to seek approval to implement a revised chief officer management arrangement for the Council. As part of the ongoing organisational recovery from the sustained period of the COVID19 pandemic, these changes will support a renewed focus to the delivery of the Council’s strategic priorities as outlined in the recently approved Council Plan 2022 – 27. 1.2 Specifically, the changes will provide an improved focus on progressing the Council’s response to increasing challenges presented by the net zero agenda, as well as continuing plans to develop further the connected communities and tackling the inequality agenda across Renfrewshire. As well as providing the right mix of skills and capacity at a senior management level, the changes represent a direct response to the ongoing financial challenges the Council will continue to face over the medium term by providing a further tranche of financial savings from the chief officer structure and aligning with the management structure design principles developed as part of the Right for Renfrewshire programme. The changes also provide a revised service structure that will better support and compliment a range of future service redesign and modernisation opportunities that have been identified as part of the ongoing Right for Renfrewshire programme. ___________________________________________________________________
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2. Recommendations 2.1 Members are asked to approve the proposed chief officer structures as detailed at Appendix 1, and delegate authority to the Chief Executive to implement the new structures in consultation with the relevant conveners. _________________________________________________________ 3. Proposed Changes to Management Structures 3.1 It is important for the Council that the management arrangements continue to support the ongoing delivery of services, but also provide the right mix of skills, experience, and capacity to enable the Council to deliver on its strategic policy priorities and continue to manage what will be an increasingly difficult financial outlook for the foreseeable future. 3.2 It is essential that the Council, even in the face of constrained resources, remains policy and priority led. A review of existing management arrangements has been undertaken by the Chief Executive in consultation with the management team and several changes are now being proposed to ensure the management structure remains best placed to deliver for the Council moving forward. 3.3 Overview of Key Strategic Drivers 3.3.1 The revised structure is directly influenced by and designed to respond to the recently updated Council plan 2022 – 27. Although the existing structure was already well placed to support the Council to progress its strategic ambitions, the proposed changes seek to provide a greater alignment to the growing strategic emphasis that is given within the new plan to priorities associated with the climate agenda and journey to net zero as well as the ambition to continue to tackle inequality and, strengthen our partnership working and delivery of key outcomes with and for our local communities in a way which promotes a fairer Renfrewshire. 3.3.2 Climate and Net Zero The climate agenda and transition towards net zero is a key strategic priority for the Council – encapsulated within the “Green” priority in the recently approved Council Plan. At present, the corporate lead for the Climate Agenda is provided through the corporate policy function within the Chief Executives Service. This reflects the predominant focus over recent years of understanding, developing and positioning the Council’s priorities and route map in relation to this developing strategic agenda. Moving forward, it is recognised that the Council will be increasingly required to transition its focus to an action led net zero agenda which drives forward at pace the very significant change, both within the Council as an organisation and across our wider communities, that will be required to further our ambition of progressing towards net zero by
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2030. In this context there is a need a need to create a clearer corporate identity for leading the delivery of the required programme of change linked to the green and net zero agenda within the Council’s service and chief officer structure, albeit policy support will continue to be provided to this agenda by the Corporate Policy function. 3.3.3 Fairer Renfrewshire The Council has for several years progressed a journey to build a range of services and interventions that look to increasingly support from within and with our communities to tackle inequalities. The new council plan has re-enforced and strengthened this commitment as part of the strategic priority for a fairer Renfrewshire where we seek a nurturing, bright, happy, and healthy futures for all. In developing this strategic priority there will be a greater focus on strengthening and developing our partnership working and delivery of key outcomes with and for our local communities in a way which promotes a fairer Renfrewshire. At present the Council’s existing arrangements in relation to services which currently support the Council’s focus on tackling inequalities and aspects of prevention and early intervention are fragmented across several service areas and functions. To better facilitate ambitions to increasingly progress in the future towards a model redesign that provides a more co- ordinated and consolidated set of sustainable services and support arrangements for our communities, the creation of a single strategic lead within the Chief Officer structure is identified as a key pre-requisite. This will provide a structural arrangement that will directly facilitate opportunities to consolidate and redesign services for the future and provide a focal point to develop increased partnership and co-ordinated delivery of services and support within our communities by both the council, partners and with communities themselves. 3.3.4 Right for Renfrewshire and Financial Sustainability The Council has over a long period remained committed to progressing transformation, change and improvement across the organisation. This has included ensuring that the council’s chief officer structure and service arrangements reflect the needs of the Council and is reflective of the financial sustainability challenges faced by the Council. Demonstrating sound leadership and vision, taking difficult decisions around the shape of our organisation to safeguard our future resilience and leading and supporting our people through these changes remains a key objective outlined in the Council plan. The proposed changes to the chief officer structure outlined below are reflective of this commitment and specifically support key organisational design objectives underpinning the Right for Renfrewshire Programme: - • Management Structure Design Principles - work is being progressed to review the Council’s existing management structures against a defined set of over-arching design principles focused primarily on the number of management layers and spans of control. These principles provide an overall framework from which to position and
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guide the detailed design of the management structure the Council will carry moving forward. It is appropriate that the chief officer structure is demonstrably assessed against and guided by these design principles. Additionally, this will provide greater confidence that the revised structure will support effective long term succession planning, ensuring that within each layer of the management structure that officers are exposed to appropriate breadth of remits as part of their longer-term development and preparation as potential candidates for future roles within the Council. • Strategic Management of Property - The Council’s current service structures and approach in terms of the strategic management of the Council’s property asset portfolio, its maintenance, long term investment approach is currently fragmented across several service structures. This current structural arrangement creates several challenges, with unnecessary service barriers, fragmented strategic and operational working, duplication of effort and hand-offs and fragmentation of professional property resources which adds to already increasing resilience and capacity challenges. • Existing structures and service boundaries are adding unnecessary complexity to detailed service redesign opportunities and in its current form the existing service structure will potentially inhibit the pace at which the transformation and improvement agenda can be progressed. The prospect of bringing together a wider breadth of specific services under a single service structure and senior management team provides the best opportunity to drive forward a range of service redesign potential moving forward. 3.4 Overview of Key Changes 3.4.1 The principal change will bring together the current remits of the Environment and Infrastructure Service, the Communities and Housing Service (with exclusion of the Community Development team) along with Property Services from within Finance and Resources, within a new Environment, Housing, and Infrastructure Service. In addition, the following revised head of service structure is proposed to replace the existing arrangements which will reduce the establishment from five to four associated Heads of Service: - o Head of Facilities & Property Services Addressing the current fragmentation of existing arrangements, this role will consolidate services which support the strategic management of the Council’s non housing property estate including professional property and technical support to major capital investment programmes and delivery of soft and hard facilities management services as well as the management of the operational and delivery arrangements supporting council housing day to day repairs service, planned maintenance, and compliance programmes.
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This strategic and operational remit may be subject to further adjustments as the ongoing strategic corporate property review progresses and wider Right for Renfrewshire service designs progress in coming months. o Head of Housing Services This post predominantly maintains the existing arrangements, reflecting the importance of clear chief officer leadership of the delivery of the significant housing and homelessness functions provided by the Council. o Head of Operations & Service Development This division will be responsible for a range of environment and operational functions as well as providing the strategic lead for service development and improvement. The operational functions will consist of waste management and collection, neighbourhood services – street cleaning, litter picking and land maintenance, including providing a single corporate lead for the asset management of Council’s open space areas. The head of service would retain responsibility for strategic and operational maintenance of the Council’s vehicle fleet and operational depot and would provide line management support for the Council’s Civil Contingencies function that is delivered through a Lead Authority model in partnership with three other local authorities. o Head of Climate, Public Protection & Roads This post will provide the strategic lead for the Council’s response to the climate and net zero agenda, as well as leading the strategic and operation delivery of the roads infrastructure and services along with regulatory & public protection services and arrangements. This will include community safety services and providing the key link with police, fire and other multiagency partners including the CCTV hub. The provision of Community Development services which is currently aligned to this service cluster will transfer to the Chief Executives Service as detailed below. 3.4.2 The existing Procurement Function, which is currently part of the Chief Executives Service (Policy and Commissioning) will transfer to Finance & Resources. This will align corporate procurement support with a range of other professional support functions providing a greater level of integration of the procurement function within a single team where a significant degree of cross professional relationship exists. 3.4.3 The existing Head of Policy and Commissioning will be redesignated Head of Policy and Partnerships and will assume responsibility for the Community Development Service. This re-shaped remit will provide clearer chief officer leadership and capacity to take forward increasing the pace of development of priorities aligned to the Connected Communities, Fairer Renfrewshire
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and Inequalities agenda. It is likely as this agenda continues to be developed over the medium term further service functions that are currently dispersed across several services, will be subject to redesign and consolidated within this division. Any changes in this regard will be reported as appropriate through the ongoing Right for Renfrewshire reporting arrangements. ___________________________________________________________________ Implications of the Report 1. Financial – The proposals result in a net recurring revenue from the Chief Officer structure that will provide support to the Council’s ongoing financial sustainability programme. 2. HR & Organisational Development – Implementation of the revised management structures are expected to be implemented in a managed transitional fashion over the course of 2023 in accordance with the Council’s HR policies, including the recognised recruitment and redeployment procedures and where appropriate use of the Council’s VR/VER scheme. Future and ongoing consultation will be maintained throughout the process with Trade Unions and relevant workforce groups. The proposals facilitate a reduction in chief officer posts within the Council by 2 FTEs. 3. Community/Council Planning – none 4. Legal – none 5. Property/Assets – none 6. Information Technology - none 7. Equality & Human Rights - The Recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report as it is for noting only and sets out the detail of an external investigation. If required following implementation, the actual impact of the recommendations and the mitigating actions will be reviewed and monitored, and the results of the assessment will be published on the Council’s website. (Report author to arrange this). 8. Health & Safety - none 9. Procurement – none 10. Risk - none
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11. Privacy Impact - none 12. Cosla Policy Position – none. _________________________________________________________ List of Background Papers ___________________________________________________________________ Author: Alan Russell Chief Executive alan.russell@renfrewshire.gov.uk _________________________________________________________ List of Background Papers (a) Background - none ___________________________________________________________________ Author: Alan Russell
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APPENDIX 1 ** The HSCP management structure is jointly funded with NHS GG&C through the integrated financial arrangements associated with the IJB/HSCP Chief Executive Chief Officer HSCP** Chief Finance Officer** Head of Strategic Planning and Health Improvement** Head of Health and Social Care x 2** Head of Mental Health and Addictions** Director of Children's Services Head of Education Head of Education Head of Childcare and Criminal Justice Services (Chief Social Work Officer) Director of Finance and Resources Head of Finance and Business Services Head of Digital Transformationand Customer Services Head of HR and OD Head of Governance Chief Internal Auditor Director of Environment , Housing and Infrastructure Services Head of Facilities and Property Services Head of Housing Services Head of Operations and Service Development Head of Climate, Public Protection & Roads Head of Policy and Partnerships Head of Communication and Markating Programme Director - City Deal Head of Economy & Development