Best Value Duty

Theme 5: Use of Resources

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

  • An authority must have in place and properly deploy an effective internal control environment to safeguard the use of resources, and clear and effective processes to secure value for money. It must have appropriate financial management, reporting and regulation arrangements in place, in accordance with CIPFA’s Financial Management Code, to govern the strategic and operational management of its investments, funding, assets and companies. This includes ensuring it has the appropriate skills and capacity in place, commensurate with the complexity of its finances, using specialist expertise when needed. 
  • Authorities must comply with the Prudential Framework in making investment and borrowing decisions and not take on excessive risk. They should have effective systems for identifying, reporting, addressing and reviewing financial risk and have consideration of CIPFA’s Financial Resilience Index.   
  • Investment decisions must have a commensurate level of scrutiny, transparency and approval to make sure that officers and Members fully understand the risks. 
  • Financial management and reporting should be supported by robust financial systems, record keeping and quality assurance, with appropriate use of specialist expertise and independent assurance when needed. 
  • Authorities should respond to audit recommendations and address issues identified in a timely way. 
  • Capacity constraints should be identified and recruitment to fill key posts prioritised. Succession planning should be considered, with a longer-term view as to when there might be a gap in experienced senior officers. Special severance payments should only be considered in exceptional cases. 
  • Robust systems were demonstrated to identify, report, address and regularly review financial risk in line with CIPFA’s index. The improved risk management system now holds all risk data in one database and therefore identified financial risks from across all service areas, projects and contracts can be considered for inclusion in the corporate risk register.
  • The Council invested in the new post of Assistant Chief Executive for Place in July 2023 to add an additional layer of scrutiny over front-facing services areas such as Housing, Environmental Services, Development Management and Community Services. This has supported the Council’s ability to maintain an effective internal control environment to safeguard the use of resources. 
  • The Council can demonstrate and evidence how they have worked with external auditors successfully and how they have promptly responded to any identified areas needing improvement and implemented their recommendations quickly. 
  • The Council recognises that effective financial planning, option appraisal, risk management and governance processes are essential in achieving a prudent approach to capital expenditure, investment and debt.  All investment decisions are therefore taken in light of the Council’s Corporate Business Plan, Medium Term Financial Strategy, Capital and Investment Strategy and Treasury Management Strategy. All key finance staff attend regular training and webinars including on the Prudential Framework and also respond to consultations (including for MRP recently) and keep abreast of sector guidance.    
  • The Council identified that workforce plans are not in place for all service areas.  Workforce planning is currently built into the HR restructure process as and when required, when the HR Business Partner supports the Corporate Heads of Services in identifying skills and expertise required, benchmarking salaries and grades of posts and providing support and guidance in organisation structure alternatives. The development of departmental workforce plans across the council will provide a more consistent and strategic approach to develop optimal team and service structures that can be resourced to ensure teams are resilient and achieve the outcomes required.  
  • The Council’s workforce data shows that succession planning will be important as 22.5% of staff are in an age range where they may choose to retire in the short-medium term. The Council must address this by marketing the opportunities that may become available in these areas to attract young talent that can develop careers in local government.
  • The Council received a non-statutory Best Value Notice (NS-BVN) in December 2023 from the MHCLG to express Best Value concerns, principally driven by the Council’s borrowing relative to core spending power metric. A robust programmatic response to the NS-BVN is underway. Whilst there is confidence that strong and resilient financial systems are in place and delivery of the NS-BVN response programme will provide assurances to demonstrate alignment with the Best Value duty, it is highly likely that the Council’s borrowing relative to core spending power metric will continue to be an outlier in the sector at the 12-month anniversary date (assuming that the metric calculation and threshold applied by MHCLG remains unchanged). Dialogue with MHCLG to demonstrate continuous improvement is in a spirit of open engagement that recognises our duty to ensure financial resilience and sustainability.
  • The implementation of the new HR system in April 2024 will reduce duplication and enhance the accuracy of HR data to ensure the Council is managing staff resources effectively. Availability of HR data will provide a significant improvement in evidence-based decision making in staffing matters. 
  • Additionally, the system will enhance employee ability to self-serve many of their HR enquiries, which will free up time and resources in HR. 
  • The Council identified that the mechanism to capture savings and benefits realised through procurement and contract management activity could be improved. A methodology to capture procurement savings and benefits realised will be developed to ensure that all future savings are better captured by procurement and the relevant services.  This will also permit improved evidence-based decision making when contracts are retendered.
  • The contract management framework is not widely communicated or briefed to all contract managers. The Council will provide a briefing to all officers with contract management responsibility and update the Staff Home pages to display key information related to contract management to ensure staff have the appropriate skills and knowledge to carry out their roles.
  • The Council must continue to work on stimulating some interest in young people for local government careers by focusing on sourcing external talent by building relationships with local schools, colleges, and universities. Consideration should be given to generate more internships, work experience placements, apprenticeships, and positions for college/university leavers.  
  • The Council will provide refresher training for staff on Financial Regulations and Budget Management with a more local context to ensure staff have the appropriate skills and capacity. 
  • In 2024, a robust challenge of budget lines that report annual underspends resulted in release of revenue back to the General Fund.  Annual budget challenge will be incorporated in the Business and Budget planning process to further safeguard resources.

Next Steps Identified in Action Plan:

Through self-assessment, we identified six key actions to implement to improve service delivery, laid out in page 16-18 of the action plan.