Lessons in council transformation from an APM Award winner

In November, Nottingham City Council became the latest local authority to declare itself effectively bankrupt. Birmingham City Council had done the same just a few weeks before. And with inflation driving up the cost of borrowing, a disconcerting number of other authorities have signalled they may soon be forced into a spending freeze too.

Sounds like a job for sound project management. Indeed, anyone fearing the worst for their own local services may be heartened by the work of Essex County Council’s Transformation, Delivery and Support team. Under the directorship of Debbie Knopp, the team just scooped Public Sector Organisation of the Year at the APM Project Management Awards — having won the same accolade in 2021 too.

‘Bonkers’

According to Knopp, the root of the issue for councils is tied to their need to balance a “bonkers” set of priorities.

“It sometimes feels like a competition, of people who want to fund pothole repair, say, versus those who want to invest in social care,” she explains. “The pothole people will say voters don't like their cars getting damaged; the social care people will say you can't compare a pothole to a looked-after child. You would never put those ‘businesses’ together in any other scenario; councils do.”

And Essex is no exception. Knopp’s team has been busy with initiatives to bring certain services in-house — including recycling and child fostering — which has saved money and improved the provision. But as 2022 drew to a close, with their cost pressures rising like those of their peers, the council’s leaders realised they had to put an end to the sparring between departments. It was making it difficult to reach sound decisions over investments, savings or transformations.

The entire council would now have to start thinking as one. Such a comprehensive transformation project would be rare for a council. It would also be expensive and disruptive. But thanks to Knopp’s project team, Essex had amassed a transformation reserve of £750m, which allowed them to avoid the knee-jerk reactions typical of such a financial challenge.

“There would be lots of similar organisations who wouldn't be able to jump into the whole-council transformation approach we’re taking, because they don’t have the foundations we've put in place,” says Knopp.

Starting well

The transformation team did plenty of other things right. They invested time and energy in defining the rationale behind the change, communicating the inherent opportunity as well as the challenge. Crucially, they brought people together from different disciplines to work things out at an early stage. All of which is in keeping with a slogan that serves as a guiding principle for transformation at Essex County Council: ‘Starting well’.

“Project teams shouldn’t be afraid to spend a little longer than what may feel comfortable thinking about what they’re really doing,” says Knopp. “That has made a big difference for us. There's always pressure just to get going. We make sure we take time to create the space to talk about what’s going on. What are we actually trying to do? And how will it look and feel when we get there?”

Another key to success lies in how the department treats its project professionals.

“People make things happen, and relationships are key,” says Knopp. “We have a really strong professional project management team where everyone supports one another, and which really thinks about how to grow the capabilities of our own people.”

Indeed, the ‘starting well’ concept extends to training too. The council has developed a wealth of documentation under that banner, helping to guide its teams through the organisation’s project processes and instilling the right thinking. According to Knopp, this makes it more likely that transformations will lead to the kind of impact they were expecting.

But it isn’t enough to simply bowl in armed with an arsenal of project management tools and trickery. The Essex team makes sure that its project professionals tailor their communication on a particular job to suit the stakeholders they’re talking to.

“We love all of that crunchy project management stuff, but you don't always need to show the toolbox,” says Robert Little, Delivery Assurance Manager in the council’s Transformation, Delivery and Support team. “When you’re talking to non-project professionals, instead of saying we're doing a risk log, you could simply suggest talking about what could go wrong.”

This month, Essex County Council is publicly launching details of its wholesale transformation to residents, who will learn how the council is adopting digital tools and artificial intelligence for many of its services. Amid all the change, it will surely come as a relief: thanks to strong project management, they don’t have to worry about the health of fundamental services.

Within the project team, meanwhile, the work has generated a buzz of excitement — that they are embarking on an approach that’s genuinely different. And they know they’re starting well.