Best Value Duty

Theme 4: Culture

Self-Assessment Heatmap
C001 C002 C003 C004 C005 C006
C007 C008 C009 C010 C011  

Best Value Duty - Description of a Local Authority Whose Service Delivery Delivers Best Value:

  • Culture describes how the established governance procedures and leadership are exercised in practice, whether they are respected by the letter or in spirit. 
  • The culture of a local authority is determined by an agreed set of shared values, ethics and beliefs, how decisions are made, as well as how elected Members and officers behave, interact and carry out their roles. 
  • The organisation should act as one, rather than in siloes, with a cohesive sense of one authority running though all operations. 
  • The Council was able to demonstrate that there are various policies and procedures in place to establish expectations with regards to ethical standards and working behaviours between and within Member and Officer cohorts. There are also policies and procedures in place that sets out the sanctions for all members of staff if they fail to uphold the values and behaviours expected of them.
  • It can be evidenced that the Council meets the Transparency Code and is committed to sharing information with the public unless the content of reports are exempt. The Council have shown that various conscious decisions have been made to be transparent with residents – by sharing CKPI dashboards, the work done to resolve issues identified by Regulators, and publishing progress on achieving climate change objectives to demonstrate accountability. 
  • Organisational culture and leadership development has been prioritised with investment in a staff survey and a leadership assessment programme during 2024. This will determine future action required to develop the culture further to improve organisational performance.
  • Due to the significant limitations in the Council’s previous standalone HR system, it has not been possible to maintain accurate historic records of workforce data, such as statistics on bullying, sickness absence and staff probation periods. By establishing a new HR system that can start building a database on these issues the Council will be able to analyse the data and produce evidence-led initiatives to improve the problems.
  • Recent changes in the political make-up of the Council means that Runnymede Borough Council is currently under No Overall Control with four Co-Leaders. In 2023/24, political groups formed non-formal alliances, demonstrating a high level of cooperation within the alliance to support decision-making at Committees and Full Council. However, the Council has put rules of engagement in place that will be closely monitored and refined as appropriate as relationships develop to address the challenges the new political make-up generates to ensure the democratic process is not held up by this.
  • The new HR system ‘My View’ that was implemented in April 2024 will allow the Council to begin maintaining records of harassment and bullying in the Council and accurately quantify this information. The system will support improved monitoring and reporting on the number of harassment cases disclosed to HR, the processes used to address the issue, the success rates of mediation, the outcomes of all cases reported, and whether there are any other initiatives that should be implemented to improve the issue across the organisation.
  • The Council is undertaking an organisational culture assessment and conducting the ‘My Experience Matters’ staff survey with an independent facilitator which will evaluate the culture and provide evidence of where and how the culture may need to change and adapt in RBC. This will be followed by a series of events to communicate the feedback and results of the survey to build trust, confidence, and transparency. An action plan will subsequently be developed to address gaps identified to be implemented from Q4 2024/25 and 2025/26.
  • The Council has a detailed, clear and easily accessible whistleblowing policy. The Policy is to sector standard and provides an internal and external point of contact for whistleblowers to report their concerns. Staff communications to promote the policy across the workforce will be put in place to ensure that all staff members are reminded of the details of the policy at least annually.
  • The Council will develop an annual workforce report using data collected from My View to cover a range of issues including addressing the Equality Act and Public Sector Equality Duty.
  • Failure to complete mandatory training during the induction period may lead to failure to pass the probation period for staff in the Council. However, failure to complete mandatory or refresher training is not formally laid out in HR policy, so the Council will consider adding this in the appropriate policy to ensure a culture of compliance is embedded throughout the organisation.
  • The Council will review and consider including specific mention of the scheme of delegation in job descriptions, the staff induction checklist and the staff code of conduct. This will clarify specific responsibilities where relevant, consistent with the scheme of delegation and improve cohesiveness in the organisation. 

Next Steps Identified in Action Plan:

Through self-assessment, we identified six key actions to implement to improve service delivery, laid out in page 13-16 of the action plan.