Productivity Plan

We are a bold, brave and innovative Council, with a proven track record of delivering high quality, efficient services that meet the needs of residents. We have achieved this in the context of a 39% reduction to our funding since 2010.

We have taken a blended approach to ensure we remain a productive Council that is valued by our residents, including:

• efficiency savings
• working with communities to reduce demand
• delivering growth

Smarter use of technology has been a constant theme in our service improvement and to achieve efficiencies

We are working to a set of design principles that prioritise efficient processes and digital by design, alongside using data and intelligence to inform all our decisions to maximise impact

Demand for Council services is continuing to increase, while budgets are reducing. We have developed a new strategic framework, Powering Our Future, which sets out a planned approach to carefully manage our resources over the longer term.

Powering Our Future will see us create a new relationship with communities, while continuing to provide efficient services that offer value for money and are valued by our residents within the reducing financial resources we have.

Barriers to local government progress include insufficient resources and ineffective methods of financial distribution, short term funding and competitive bidding.

The Council has a proven track record of delivering high quality services in an efficient and effective manner to meet the needs of residents. Since 2010 the Council's funding has been reduced by 39% in real terms. The Council has managed to protect those services that are valued most by residents, through years of austerity and challenging funding levels.

The Council has taken a blended approach to achieve this through a combination of:

• driving out savings through efficiency
• reducing demand by working with partners
• driving growth and seeking to generate more income through Business Rates and Council Tax

In doing so, the Council still delivers high quality services to local residents despite reduced funding and greater demand for services.

The Local Government Audit and Accountability Act 2014 introduced the requirement for auditors of local authority accounts to make an assessment on the value for money arrangements. Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council has always satisfied these requirements.

We are an innovative Council

The Council has successfully deployed many innovative approaches to maximise resources and maintain vital services. This has included:

• successful delivery of savings and improvements to services through a programme of efficiency, improvement and transformation reviews between 2010 and 2016
• a programme of lean reviews, which looked at processes across services, to ensure they are delivered in the most efficient way (including finance, fostering placements, One Call Service)
• invest to save models when considering service design, focused on using resources upfront to avoid greater costs in future
• an annual programme of member scrutiny reviews, assessing the efficiency and appropriateness of services in today's climate

The Council has also launched a new Powering Our Future programme. Agreed by Cabinet in July 2023, this sets out a planned approach to deliver our future ambitions for the Borough and the Council. It identifies how we will transform and implement new ways of working, which will ensure we deliver a balanced budget and value for money, at the same time as improving outcomes for communities.

Examples of activity include:

• creating the Tees Active Leisure Trust was to deliver the Council's leisure services, this has created significant savings whilst delivering an enviable leisure offer
• a programme of replacing street lamps with LEDs has generated savings of £1.8million per year
• reducing the number of administration buildings the Council runs, generating savings of £1million per year
• the Council was the first in the North East to use a new state of the art rubber modified road surface, this surface recycles tyres, reduces carbon by 8% and has superior durability to stand up to large volumes of traffic
• developing a funding model to purchase and operate our fleet, minimising purchasing costs
• social care reviews to ensure the appropriate level of care is provided to meet the needs of individuals, this includes assessing the sufficiency of internally and externally commissioned residential places - we have invested in reconfiguring and expanding our own adults and children's residential and day services provision, to reduce the reliance on expensive external placements
• refocussing early help and prevention services to reduce the reliance on more expensive care services, examples include an edge of care service within Children's Services
• bringing together into one team, our commissioning and contract management of services, this has created efficiencies, ensured a consistent approach and put robust challenge and scrutiny on contracts to ensure we are achieving value for money
• reviewed fees and charges across the Council to ensure income levels cover the cost of delivering those services
• supported the development of a thriving voluntary and community sector across Stockton-on-Tees, this includes the Community Asset Transfer Policy, which transfers community centres to local voluntary and community groups, creating savings for the Council, whilst ensuring the vibrant futures for vital community assets

In addition, Council service budgets are not increased by inflation annually, therefore services are achieving savings each year by maintaining the same level of spend despite increased prices. Budgets are only increased by exception for areas of spend outside of normal levels such as pay award or social care fees.

Driving economic growth and working with partners

We work closely with partners across the public and private sector to leverage investment into the Borough and collectively pursue opportunities for Our People, Our Places and Our Economy. Our Inclusive Growth Strategy drives our approach to attract investment and create jobs that local people can access. This increases local prosperity, whilst also generating business rates growth for the Council.

Activity includes:

• supporting business creation, development and investment in growth, attracting some large businesses into the Borough - for example an Amazon distribution warehouse, whilst also supporting growth in local independent businesses
• delivering a bold and ambitious programme of town centre regeneration, using capital investment to improve places and spaces for communities - increasing footfall, business and employment opportunities
• delivering affordable housing in partnership with the private sector, creating desirable town centre living on an old brownfield site, whilst also delivering a financial return

Our wider approach to working with partners includes the Xentrall Shared Services Partnership. Established in 2008, the successful partnership between Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council and Darlington Borough Council delivers back-office services including payroll, invoice payments, income collection, ICT support, and design and print. This has delivered over £15million of savings.

The Council also has a joint venture arrangement with Spark of Genius to meet some of the sufficiency gaps in placements for children in our care and children with special educational needs. The joint venture successfully operates three children's homes and an independent school that caters for students from a range of backgrounds and with a range of learning needs, all of whom have either social, emotional or mental health needs, or an autism spectrum condition or disorder.  This has allowed us to accommodate as many children as we can in placements within the Borough, where they have family and friends to support them, rather than somewhere further afield, which is also more costly. The joint venture is making savings of £1million per year.

Looking ahead

The Council's Powering our Futures programme, agreed by Cabinet in 2023, sets out a planned approach to carefully manage our resources over the longer term. This will see us take bold, brave and innovative approaches to Power Our Future through a mission-based approach focussing on:

• Partners - achieving more together
• Communities - creating a new relationship that builds on community strengths and supports communities to do more for themselves
• Transformation - developing new ways of working that provide efficient services, offer value for money and are valued by our residents
• Colleagues - ensuring our workforce are skilled and equipped to do the best for our residents with the resources we have available
• Regeneration - delivering growth and prosperity

As part of the Powering Our Future Programme, we have identified a set of design principles which act as 'guard rails' for the way we work and will be embedded across all activity.

These include:

• having efficient processes and being digital by design
• using data and intelligence to inform our decisions

The design principles build on the significant progress we have made as a Council through the smarter use of technology, including:

• development of the Council's website and a range of online solutions as a means for residents to self-serve, track progress and communicate with the Council, improving accessibility and reducing telephone waiting times
• implementation of an omnichannel contact centre and single CRM with a customer account, joining up records of customer interactions both online and with the contact centre, this provides a history of transactions along with progress tracking for customers and for contact centre staff
• a digital programme including a redesign of the Council's website and information directory, an extensive range of online digital services and the implementation of MS 365 productivity toolkit to improve working practices, successful adoption of digital solutions has been supported through training for staff and digital assistance for customers
• the Council's street cleansing and street scene service have introduced smart phones to eliminate the use of paper, becoming more efficient and responsive
• significant automation in revenues and benefits, including customer self service
• replacement of all major systems within adults and children's social care, providing greater automation and stable platforms to develop further digital solutions
• development of a waste bot and an online booking system for our household waste recycling centre, this improved the customer experience by avoiding long queues at the centre
• introduction of a system giving residents live information on refuse collection reducing the number of queries via telephone into customer services
• moving towards cashless systems, for example the introduction of RingGo for car parking payment

Looking ahead

Our transformation programme includes a Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) project. This will explore opportunities to strengthen the Council's position and recognise DDaT as strategic assets to support service performance and to enable the design and delivery of high-quality, efficient and effective services. This will involve designing services to maximise the digital technologies to ensure processes are automated as far as practically possible, and using technology to ensure officers are working in the most efficient manner.

This will enable the following:

• transforming the way we work as a Council
• transforming how our services work for residents
• supporting business and employment growth
• supporting community development

We have made significant savings and efficiencies over the years through streamlined processes, invest to save opportunities and prioritisation of resources. As such we do not consider that there is wasteful spend within the organisation.

However, demand for Council services is continuing to increase, while budgets are reducing.

The Council has therefore developed a new strategic framework, Powering Our Future (POF), which sets out a planned, mission-based approach to carefully manage our resources over the longer term. This will see us create a new relationship with communities, while continuing to provide efficient services that offer value for money and are valued by our residents within the reducing financial resources we have.

Powering Our Futures mission statement

We will be a bold, brave and innovative Council. Together with our partners we will make sure Stockton-on-Tees is a fair and equal place, where everyone is proud to live and work, where our communities flourish and people feel they belong. We want everyone in our Borough to participate in building a brighter future for all of us.

The five missions

Communities Powering Our Future

This mission seeks to change our relationship with communities, so they use their knowledge, skills and strengths, to deliver better outcomes for themselves. Our approach will be more efficient, whilst also ensuring our residents are happy, healthy and feel like they belong.

We will empower communities to increase individual, family and community level activities by helping people and communities to be independent and have less reliance on Council services.

Partnerships Powering Our Future

This mission seeks to ensure we are stronger together. Our collective power with partner organisations will make a positive difference to our communities, and we will remove organisational boundaries to help improve the services our communities can access.

Through collaborative working, our residents will experience seamless services that are joined up across partner organisations.

This will also be more cost effective by removing duplication and silo working. Our work with partners will include developing and testing options for system-wide change, which can maximise the impact of public sector resource.

Transformation Powering Our Future

This mission will identify new and innovative ways of working that are better for communities and more efficient. In doing so, we will work with our partners and communities in new ways, embracing technology and different approaches to create opportunities and reduce inequality. We will do this using the limited amount of money we have available.

Our transformation programme will ensure we reduce the budget gap by £9million and deliver a balanced budget each year, while continuing to deliver good and efficient services with the resources we have available.

Colleagues Powering Our Future

This mission seeks to empower colleagues to do the best they can for communities. Our vision is to have a talented and diverse workforce that is committed, engaged and empowered to deliver the council's priorities and ambitious Powering Our Future programme. Our workforce will step up to the challenging budget situation by using their knowledge and skills to work with our partners and communities.

We want to be an employer of choice where our colleagues feel valued, informed and involved in a working environment that is fit to meet the future demands of the Borough.

Regeneration Powering Our Future

Our approach to regeneration and economic growth will be critical to the future prosperity and wellbeing of our communities.

Our exciting regeneration projects will make sure Stockton-on-Tees is a place of choice for business. Not only will this generate more income through Council Tax and Business Rates, but there will also be more employment opportunities, which will reduce the demand on services and save us money.

Our Borough will be recognised for its thriving economy at the heart of Tees Valley and as a place where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.

The overall level of funding for local government is insufficient to deliver essential local services. The growth in demand within services such as children's social care, adult's social care and homelessness is unprecedented. These services protect some of the most vulnerable within our society and insufficient funding is putting pressure upon local authorities that cannot be sustained. Additional funding is essential to ensure local authorities can continue to deliver essential services to local residents.

The lack of a fair funding settlement which reflects the needs and deprivation of local areas. The formulas to distribute local government funding are out of date and have not kept pace with the needs across the country. The current funding model prioritises stability and minimises any significant changes to funding, at the cost of those local authorities with greatest need. The Fair Funding review is required to align funding with those areas most in need.

The current system of using business rates to fund local authorities is overly complex and unfair. Although growth is retained locally, there are significant risks associated with business stability during turbulent economic times and also significant changes in rateable value from appeals.

Short-term funding announcements, as seen for the past 6 years, removes stability and creates uncertainty when planning future Council finances. The re-introduction of multi-year settlements is crucial to allow councils to accurately plan their resources and produce deliverable plans for the improvement of the local area.

Competitive funding - the time and cost involved in developing bids is significant and can often be abortive due to unsuccessful bids. This is a significant call on local authority resources. Creating clear long-term funding streams appropriate to the demands of local areas, with freedoms to invest based on local needs is essential to allow local councils to develop and deliver against longer term more strategic aims.

The administrative burden that accompanies grant funding streams including claims, returns and analysis is cumbersome and continues to grow year on year. We appreciate the requirement for transparency and measurement of success particularly in relation to public funds, however the cost associated with this across every local authority will be significant.

A system-wide approach is required to maximise the impact of the public sector. The themes and demands experienced across the sector are common and cross cutting, and the scale of change needed to address them must be done via a collective approach. As a Council we are doing this at a local level, however this is made difficult by individual and often fragmented funding streams and different organisational reporting lines into central government departments. A joined-up approach within central government that is 'place first' would facilitate the work we are doing locally.

The children's social care market is broken and spiralling costs of children's social care placements are placing immense pressure on local authority finances. Regulating the children's social care market to prevent excessive profiteering would help to relieve some of the pressure on local authority budgets and would ensure the most vulnerable children in society can remain protected.

The current funding model for adult's social care is in need of reform. The current model is not fair, where funding does not match those areas with highest deprivation and need. The adult social care levy places the burden of funding adult's social care on local taxpayers.

The Council Tax system for funding local authorities is out of date and needs to be reviewed. The amount a resident pays differs by area. This disadvantages the most deprived local authorities whose residents are less able to afford inflationary increases to Council Tax. The government must allocate sufficient funding to local authorities to provide services without relying on residents paying increasing amounts for them. The increasing reliance on Council Tax income also penalises those authorities with higher levels of Band A and B properties, and places significant pressure adding to the current cost of living challenges.

We have concerns over the data published by the Office for Local Government creating the potential for possible misinterpretation of information. There is the potential for data to be used in manners which are unhelpful in providing local residents with an accurate picture of the state of its local authority.