Inspiring Leaders in Local Government

Inspiring leaders in local government

Outline Solace Group Business Plan

April 2015/ March 2018

DRAFT

About the Solace Group

The SOLACE Group Ltd is a group of organisations operating as a charitable trust, with a commercial services arm.

SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers) is the representative body for senior strategic managers working in the public sector in the UK. We are committed to promoting public sector excellence. We provide our members with opportunities for personal and professional development, and seek to influence debate around the future of public services to ensure that policy and legislation are informed by the experience and expertise of our members. We are not a political organisation, but instead seek to influence the future of local public services through evidence and professional understanding. Whilst the vast majority of Solace members work in local government we also have members in senior positions in health authorities, police and fire authorities and central government. SOLACE spans all of the UK, having membership in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England.

SOLACE in Business is the new name for the Society’s high performing commercial team (formally known as Solace Enterprises). Wholly owned by the Society, Solace in Business operates on a ‘profit for purpose’ bases with all profits returned to the charitable trust to support the professional development of our members and the sector. It provides high quality, customer-focused and practical support to local government, the public sector and the voluntary sector, both in the UK and internationally.

Solace Group Board

The Society is governed by the Solace Group Board consisting of serving chief executives and senior managers from UK local authorities. At its AGM in October 2014, the current Solace Group Board was appointed for a two year period as follows:

Chair of the Board Joanna Killian (Essex)

President Mark Rogers (Birmingham)

Head of Finance Simon Baker (Staffordshire Moorlands & High Peak)

Solace Group Solicitor Mark Hynes (Lambeth)

Solace Group Directors Graeme McDonald, Debbie Wood & Terry McDougall

Non-Executive Directors Lyn Carpenter (LB Hammersmith & Fulham)

Averil Price (Chelmsford)

Solace in Business Chair Kim Ryley

In addition, the Solace Group Board includes the Chairs or representatives from the following Solace regions

Solace Wales Helen Patterson (Wrexham)

Solace Scotland Angela Leitch (East Lothian)

Solace Northern Ireland Liam Flannigan (Limavady)

Solace Policy Board

The policy activity of the Solace Group is overseen by a Policy Board, chaired by the Solace President. 10 Policy and deputy spokespeople are appointed by the membership to lead policy portfolios and networks of Solace members.

Community Well Being / Jo Farrar (Bath & NE Somerset) Penny Thompson (Brighton
Children & Families / Phil Norrey (Devon)
Kim Bromley Derry (Newham
Civil Resilience & Community Safety / John Barradell (City of London)
Stephen Baker (Suffolk Coastal & Waverney)
Elections & Democratic Renewal / Dave Smith (Sunderland
Jo Miller (Doncaster)
Innovation & Commissioning / Max Wide (Bristol)
Sandy Hopkins (East Hampshire & Havant)
Digital Leadership / Martin Reeves (Coventry)
Robert Kenyon (Leeds)
Leadership & Learning / Deborah Cadman (Suffolk)
Becky Shaw (East Sussex)
Local Government Finance / Paul Martin (Wandsworth)
Mike Suarez (Cheshire East)
Economic Prosperity & Housing / Martin Swales (South Tyneside)
Simon Neilson (Walsall)
Manjeet Gill (West Lindsey) Housing lead
Evidence Based Research / Abdool Kara (Swale)
Steve Atkinson (Hinckley & Bosworth)

Solace Regional Groupings

In addition, the Solace Policy Board includes representatives from each of the Solace Group Regions

South East Patricia Hughes (Hart)

South West David McIntosh (Christchurch and East Dorset)

East of England Nicola Beech, (Braintree) &

Matthew Cross (Broadlands)

London TBC

East Midlands Simon Bovey (Daventry)

West Midlands Ian Miller (Wyre Forest)

North West TBC

North East Jane Robinson (Gateshead)

Yorkshire and Humberside Mariana Pexton (Leeds)

This is the first Solace Group business plan which outlines the combined objectives and proposed activities across the Solace Group for 2015/16 and the following two years. It is set out in two parts. Part one outlines the strategic objectives and targets for the Society; and part two sets out the business objectives and targets for Solace in Business. The Group Business plan is developed with staff and members of the Solace Group Management Team. It is agreed by the Solace Group Board and the Solace in Business Board annually and, once approved, is translated into action plans for each key area of work and into objectives set for individual members of staff. Delivery of performance is scrutinised by both Boards which meet four times a year.
Part One: The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (Solace Group) Business Plan

Strategic Objectives

The Society’s strategic objectives are:

·  To provide excellent opportunities for the local public service leaders to learn, develop and to network with each other and with contemporaries from other areas of public life

·  To influence the debate about the future of public services and to ensure that policy is informed by the experience and expertise of our members

·  Build the integrity and reputation of public service management

Our members deal with a huge range of complex and high profile issues across all public services delivered locally. They lead multi-million pound organisations dealing with day to day management of issues as broad as planning decisions, child protection, health provision and managing community tensions.

Our members and local public services generally, are working in an environment posing significant challenge. They are seeking to balance rising demand against unprecedented fiscal tightening. The new local government financial settlement is tight and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The policy and legislative landscape is ever changing. Health, crime and education, in particular, have seen considerable flux in recent years. Some new localism powers have been given to local government, while performance in areas such as child protection, education, planning and social care has come under increasing scrutiny.

Over the long term the challenges of promoting local economic growth, skills, caring for an aging population, housing, climate change and introducing new technology will continue to drive innovation and change across the sector.

Solace has an interest in all these areas, but in order to focus the Society’s resources, we look for the following characteristics when focusing our work.

·  Relevance to local government

·  Requiring of officer or managerial leadership

·  Strategic in nature

·  Influencing the reputation of local public services and their management

·  Affecting numerous regions

·  Impacting across the tiers of local government

·  Solace members can bring a unique perspective to the issue

We seek to inspire leaders in local government and deliver our objectives through these complimentary strands of activity:

•  learning and development focused events, courses and programmes

•  commissioning research and think-pieces for publication

•  delivering information services through our policy briefing, publications and website

•  developing networks of Solace members who share an interest in key topics

•  developing strong working relationships with private sector partners operating in the public sector

•  undertaking campaigns to highlight issues and policy proposals of importance

2015/16 Priorities

The society will pursue five key priorities over the next twelve months:

·  Develop member’s skills in managerial leadership

·  Promote sector sustainability and the reputation of the profession

·  Promote progressive local government reform across the ten Solace policy portfolios

·  Maximise the organisational efficiency of the Solace Group, deliver a first class membership offer, putting members’ professional development at the heart of all we do and deliver high quality services to our clients and partners

Developing managerial leadership skills

The keystone of the Society’s influence, reputation and strength are our members. They are the focus of everything that the organisation does. We put Chief Executives and senior managers at the centre of all that we do.

Local Government is experiencing an extremely challenging time. Fiscal constraints are considerable, while the demand for many of the services councils provide continue to increase. Local authorities require strong, consistent managerial leadership and Solace seeks to support our members to be the best strategic managers they can.

Solace’s commercial ‘leadership and organisational development’ offer enables it to impact on the supply of development activity, as well as seeking to influence behaviour across the market and individuals.

We will:

·  Establish a learning framework for leadership skills among local government senior managers and senior teams

·  Develop Solace’s learning and organisation development offer to ensure it is focused on the needs of the sector and our members

·  Refine the Solace membership offer to ensure that it reflects the needs of all Solace members

·  Deliver an events programme focused on skills for managerial leadership

·  Provide the infrastructure that enables a network of Solace members to provide improved mutual support for members across the society

·  Deliver the ‘Springboard’ programme for the top 20 aspiring leaders in local government

·  Provide a leading information service to members through our policy briefings and website

·  Deliver a sustainable level of income from our commercial learning and organisational development activity to be re-invested in supporting the sector

Promoting sector sustainability and reputation of the profession

The sector continues to be under unprecedented pressure both financially and on its performance. While budgets are squeezed, the spotlight of challenge and assessment remain while services undergo significant change. The expectations of localism have also been high but so far remain largely undelivered. We therefore work in an area who future remains uncertain and whose very sustainability comes increasingly under question.

Solace believes that public services are commissioned most effectively and efficiently at a local level by an open, transparent and accountable local government. We will therefore push for greater integration of local public services, starting but not exclusively with health. But adequate, considered and coherent management arrangements are a pre-condition for effective, sustainable and efficient local government. Good management is an investment not a cost. The absence of sufficient management means inefficiency is not tackled, change is dodged and commissioning is weak.

Solace will therefore continue our promotion of both the sector and the professionals that make it a success. We will challenge ourselves and our colleagues to be ambitious. We will seek and promote reform within local government itself and across the wider public sector, in order to drive innovation and improvement.

We will:

·  Lead the local government professional bodies in developing an ethical code of conduct, based upon values and behaviours, and therefore focused on individuals

·  Develop a membership framework in which Solace members can be held to account following a breach of the code of conduct

·  Respond robustly to Government to promote the role of managerial leadership in UK public services

·  Use a wide range of media to develop Solace members as an influential hub of local government thinking

·  Use work on leadership and other evidence to robustly promote the integrity and reputation of public service management

·  More frequently engage with our members so they can effectively input into policy development and ensure Solace reflects their priorities

Promote progressive local government reform

Ultimately local government is about supporting local communities through difficult times and ensuring high quality local services are there when they are needed. The recent economic and fiscal crisis has led to a paradigm shift in public services. This means that fundamental reform of the system is required in order for the state to re-imagine and meet our community’s expectations. Solace will therefore seek to ensure local government is best placed to respond to the needs of local communities and push radical change.

We will:

·  Publish the annual Solace report on local public services in February 2016

·  Work to provide leadership to social care reform and ensure a robust and proportionate improvement regime operates across education and both children’s and adult social care

·  Work towards greater integration across all local public services and assets to ensure long tern financial sustainability and efficiency

·  Promote policy proposals which enhance the role of local government in economic growth, including the acceleration of city deals and community budgets

·  Promote local accountability and a new contract with communities across the policy work of the society

·  Work with the ESRC and the LGA to bring local government and academia together to make better use of research and other evidence and to ensure identify best practice ‘evidence led policy-making’ in local government

Organisational efficiency

During 2014/15 we delivered a significant programme of governance and organisation change which culminated in the creation of the Solace Group at the AGM in October. Our new streamlined arrangements enable us to drive forward efficiencies across the totality of our business, improve our effectiveness and ensure membership of Solace remains valuable to our members.

Building on our priority of development our members skills, we will increase accessibility and transparency across the organisation. We will also seek to build a stronger, broader membership. We recognise leadership in local public services comes from many sources and we will therefore broaden the reach of the society and engage with other professional and representative bodies to achieve our objectives.

The private and voluntary sectors play an important role in local government and we will work more closely with their representative bodies and our business partners to ensure our members have the opportunity to learn and share best practice with the very best from other parts of the economy.

We will

·  Ensure our membership offer remains clear, attractive and based on need

·  Run a series of national and regional events, masterclasses and networking opportunities to support members’ professional development

·  Run policy based networks that engage and inform members in key areas of policy and leadership

·  Take opportunities to visit councils and their communities across the country

·  Increase our member’s business partner engagement and ensure the expertise of our business partners informs policy development

·  Invest in our staff to ensure they are high performing