Vision for transformation for Suffolk County Council

Case Study 1 – Supporting the development of a shared vision for transformation

Local Partnerships have supported a variety of councils, and transformation projects through the LGA’s Sector Support Improvement programme funded by the UK Government. These case studies explore the key activities and learnings from these projects and highlight both best practice and common challenges.

Vision for transformation

Suffolk County Council are taking a strategic view of how the Council will operate in the future. To support this process Local Partnerships supported the Suffolk County Council to develop draft Operating Model principles, which help the Council to define how it will deliver on its vision and objectives.

The challenge

Suffolk County Council (the Council) is an upper tier authority, that has a record of stability with quality delivery at a low cost. However, in common with many councils, the external operating context means increasing demand and financial pressures.

The Council therefore wanted to take a strategic view of how the Council will operate in the future. It was important to the Council to take a holistic approach, giving consideration to all areas of service delivery and thinking about opportunities for modernisation and demand management.

The solution

A review was undertaken of key Council documents, and discussions were held with Senior Officers and members across the council to understand the current position of the Council, ambitions and plans for the future, as well as key pressure points, or areas that need change. The outcome of this review was feedback to the leadership of the Council ahead of the workshop sessions.

The Operating Model principles were workshopped in two sessions with the Corporate Leadership Team focussing on the future of the council. The sessions were used to explore how the Council would work in an ideal future state, by brainstorming examples of the way the council will be in the future, such as:

• “Everyone understands their role as part of one council”
• “Collective ownership of the ways of working and customer transformation”
• “Change is joined up with consistent delivery methods”

The exemplars were grouped into themes, and then operating model principles were developed which described those themes.

The impact

As a result of the work Suffolk has draft operating model principles which will be co-developed further with the organisation. These will be used to guide the future transformation programme.

How is the new approach being sustained?

Once the Operating Model principles have been tested, further developed and approved they will be embedded as part of the Councils way of working and used to inform transformation decisions.

Lessons learned

By focussing initially on the “exemplars” the Council were able to identify tangibly how the future should look. This helped to ground the work and prevent it from being too abstract.

More transformation case studies

Can we help with transformation?

As part of the public sector we can be directly procured. Do you have a project you would like help with, or could we answer a question about our services?

Please message Sarah-Joy, use the ‘Can we help’ form on this page or use our contact us page, it would be great to hear from you.