Agenda item

Challenge Board Report

 

To consider and respond to the Challenge Board Report (dated 14th June 2023) which is attached at Appendix 1 (see pages 29-47).

Challenge Board Report

 

Council was asked to consider and respond to the Challenge Board Report (dated 14th June 2023) which was attached at Appendix 1. The following members of the Challenge Board were present at the meeting: Pat Ritchie (Chair), Mark Edgell, Wallace Sampson, Stephen Houghton and Gillian Marshall.

 

The Leader introduced the report, highlighting that one of the recommendations from the Caller Report had been to invite in a challenge board to help the Authority deal with the matters which had been raised in the recommendations. Lee Rowley MP, the Minister at DLUHC had recently commended the Authority for the work they had done so far and the Leader’s intention was that a peer review should take place.

 

Regarding the point in the Challenge Board report about female voices struggling to be heard, he found this disappointing. No member should struggle to be heard whether male or female so some work would be done anonymously to identify where the problem was and how it could be alleviated. The results would be reported to the next Group Leaders meeting and the Group Leaders could then take this forward. He then proposed the report’s recommendations, which was seconded by Councillor Reid.

 

Pat Ritchie thanked the Council for inviting the Challenge Board in and all of those who had engaged so well with the process. Two interim reports had been presented so far and this third report was a stock take report. It was important to focus on the report as a whole, as it contained a lot of detail, and not just on the recommendations. It was the Board’s assessment of where the Council was following Caller. A huge amount of progress had been made in a short period of time but there was still a long way to go on an improvement journey that could take quite a while. The most important thing was to consider the work which had been done, and how it was embedded to drive change and improvement.

 

She drew members’ attention to Section 3 of the report which contained a commentary on progress against each of the Caller recommendations. Members needed to be clear on how the changes were embedded in the organisation and how they would impact on the Council going forward through the Corporate Plan and the Code of Conduct.

 

Paragraphs 3.18 and 3.19 drew out the importance of a clear improvement plan so members could identify progress made against the various actions. Paragraphs 3.23-3.29 dealt with the need to ensure that all members were heard across the Council as a whole and that all members were supported with the right tools to do their jobs.

 

She encouraged the Authority to continue to be self-critical but also to celebrate success and the three recommendations would support that. She also drew attention to recommendations 5 and 6 and the recommendation that the Authority have a corporate peer challenge before the end of the municipal year. Finally, she thanked the Challenge Board members for their work and expertise.

 

The Chairman then invited members to ask any questions.

 

•         Councillor Dickinson welcomed that the Council had made a response to the Challenge Board’s report. He was concerned that were still some significant areas of work still to be tackled, notwithstanding the work which had been done so far, including monitoring performance of the Corporate Plan. He was particularly concerned that each report from the Board referenced the need to engage properly. His questions were - did the Challenge Board feel the Council had engaged properly with the process, were the actions the Council had put forward robust enough and did the Challenge Board feel that the Council was ready to be cut free from external scrutiny?

 

•         Councillor Kennedy referred to the conclusions and asked the Challenge Board how much work they felt they still had to do to challenge the Council and he asked what they felt the issues were associated with governance, systems, behaviours, trust and culture.

 

•         Councillor Morphet asked what the ideal corporate peer challenge would involve and what powers it would have to encourage the Council to do better.

 

Stephen Houghton responded that there was no evidence that the Council hadn’t engaged properly with the Challenge Board and everything which had been asked for had been provided. The Challenge Board’s work was complete. The covering report on actions went some way to addressing whether the identified actions were enough but there were other areas to be looked at in more detail. The covering report was not the improvement plan, but a summary of the detail. The key would be the Improvement Plan. He felt it would be advantageous to the Council to have some independent oversight of the Improvement Plan going forward.

 

Regarding the embedding of the culture change, Pat Ritchie commented that it would take time to rebuild trust and confidence through the organisation and the work already started was the means of driving that forward. Things were moving in the right direction and there was lots of evidence of good progress but there was still some way to go, which would take time.

 

Mark Edgell advised that the corporate peer challenge was a normal piece of support available from the LGA. The team would be comprised of a range of different councils including a leader and chief executive and would hold up a mirror for the Authority to see how things which had been put in place had been successful and a more general health check about priorities, financial sustainability, governance and culture and capacity to improve. The review usually took about four days and would feed back to full Council through a report. An Action Plan in response to this was expected with a follow up after six months to check progress.

 

The Leader commented that he and the Chief Executive had made the decision to ask for a peer review as he was keen to ensure that the momentum was continued. All Group Leaders would be involved in the preparation for this.

 

Regarding the robustness of the process, Wallace Sampson confirmed that this had been robust, and there had been engagement, but there was work still to consider as part of the Improvement Plan.

 

•         Councillor Murphy asked the Challenge Board thought they had fulfilled their public sector equality act duty in the way they had produced the report given that they had raised points about women members saying they struggled to be heard. However, no context had been provided for this and no recommendation was made on it. She thanked the Leader for picking up on this point and taking action on it.

 

•         Councillor Hill asked the Board to expand on two points. Firstly, the reference in the report to officers speaking truth to power and the perception by some that the primary officer role was pleasing the Leader and Cabinet, and the reference in the Caller Report to the “climate of fear”. Secondly, the reference to Advance Northumberland and “significant risks”.

 

•         Councillor Chicken commented it had not been her experience that female councillors were not heard and she asked if there had been any evidence of this or was it just opinion.

 

•         Councillor Dale queried whether the Audit Committee would still be reviewing the Challenge Board’s report. Also, since 2017 the County Council’s accounts had been qualified because of not providing best value which was a significant challenge for the Authority. Regarding the peer review, she asked if the Challenge Board were making a recommendation that the Council itself take forward the change on behaviour issues which was required and which had been needed for a long time.

 

•         Councillor Grimshaw commented that opposition members still did not feel trusted and asked the Challenge Board whether they felt things had moved on in this area.

 

In response to some of these points, Pat Ritchie replied that the point about women struggling to be heard had been made in a number of discussions. This had been raised with the Chief Executive and it was important for the Council to reflect on it. As she understood it, the equalities duty sat with the Council so it was for the Council to decide how to respond. On governance and audit, the Board had flagged up in the report the role that audit could potentially play and she recommended that some consideration be given to that. This also linked to the recommendations on change and oversight of change, and where that sat was for the Council to decide upon. On the point about Advance, a lot of the changes had happened before the Board came in but the Council needed to ensure that the reforms around the shareholder function were done in a robust way. The Board had not picked up on a climate of fear, but one where the organisation was going through change and there was need to ensure that voices were heard as part of that.

 

Regarding the point of no recommendation on voices not being heard, Mark Edgell responded that this was a good challenge back to the Board but it was clear that the Council had heard this message and further work was the correct next step. There was no evidence that the Council was not up to meeting the challenges moving forward but the Council needed to draw all of its improvement plans together into one place, there needed to be some ongoing, cross party and preferably independent oversight of progress and the Council should open itself up to periodic, external challenge.

 

On the point about speaking truth to power, Wallace Sampson commented that the Board had felt there was an important role for officers to play in this and that they had the confidence to be able to do so. Officers needed to understand that they had a role to support the Administration but also serve the whole Council.

 

•         Councillor Dickinson referred to the point about people having a voice and sometimes feeling intimidated in meetings. He felt members worked quite well but if there were issues then these needed to be addressed. He was disappointed with the Council’s response and would have liked to have seen a much more robust set of actions and consultation on those actions. His Group therefore would not be able to support the recommendations without more detail.

 

•         Councillor Kennedy agreed with these points. The Council was at a starting point and there was still a long way to go before culture was changed.

 

•         Councillor Reid felt things had improved in the last 7-8 months and relationships were better. He felt officers were able to speak truth to power and do their jobs properly. He was content that the Council was at the point where it should accept the recommendations and move on. Councils worked because of relationships and these could not be regulated. If any member felt they could not speak up in front of a particular person, then they should raise it with them.

 

•         Councillor Morphet commented that his Group were grateful for the Challenge Board’s help and would support the recommendations.

 

•         Councillor Castle commented that things were now improving in Council meetings. He understood it was the opposition’s role to hold the Administration to account but there needed to be a sense of common purpose for residents. The Council as a body should operate with common cause and he believed that it was now going in the right direction. “Huge and rapid progress” was an important statement and the process of improvement would not end. He was disappointed that Labour could not support the report because it was the right way to go and he commended all members for contributing to the progress which had been made.

 

•         Councillor Ball thanked the Challenge Board for their work and was disappointed that they would not be part of the next stage of the journey because behaviour and culture change would take time, and she felt this would come about more quickly if the scrutiny was maintained. She looked forward to seeing improvement though KPIs and how staff would be positively impacted by the changes.

 

•         Councillor Renner Thompson reassured members that the Labour shadow portfolio holder for children’s services received the same information on KPIs as he did and these would be available on the Council’s website very soon.

 

•         Councillor Oliver felt the Council was much more focussed on delivery for residents and was a happier place to be. The report was excellent and he welcomed the emphasis on individual responsibility but would have liked to have seen a little more on accountability. He welcomed the Action Plan report coming to Audit Committee and the plan for a peer review. He thanked the Leader and other Group Leaders and the members of the Challenge Board for their work, which had made a difference.

 

•         Councillor Ezhilchelvan felt the Council had now turned a page and that it should be able to be self-managing without the need for external oversight. He commended the Leader for initiating the governance review. Regarding the comments which had been made about female members being heard, he was not concerned about this and felt each comment needed to be taken in context. In his opinion, the Challenge Board had been extremely inclusive in its workings.

 

•         Councillor J. Watson thanked the Board for highlighting these issues to be addressed. He referred to a comment about the robustness in relation to Advance Northumberland. Having been the Chair for 18 months with everything that entailed and all of the in depth work which had been done, he was disappointed at the suggestion that there were still things wrong and that the achievements of the company had not been recognised.

 

•         Councillor Ferguson felt the recommendations in para 4.7 were vague and open ended. This was not a criticism but showed that there was still a long way to go. The Council needed to take ownership of its improvement and he felt asking the Challenge Board to stay would prevent that happening.

 

•         Councillor Hill commented that things had definitely improved and the Leader had skilfully managed a difficult situation within the Council. However, she was not comfortable about some things which she felt had been covered up. Regarding female members not being heard, she felt it was not so much that, as being heard without being shouted at or disrespected. A pattern of this negative behaviour had developed, though it had got better recently.

 

•         Councillor Grimshaw agreed with these comments. Se had been in meetings where female members had been treated with a great deal of disrespect and criticism. She welcomed the improvement which had been made and hoped that it would continue.

 

•         Councillor Wearmouth thanked the Challenge Board. In response to some of the points which had been raised, he commented that it was the County Council part of Advance governance which needed work not Advance itself. Regarding voices being heard, he could relate to this and appreciated the Leader’s comments on work to be done. It was important to learn how members wanted to engage as not everyone wanted to stand up in the Council Chamber and some of this would be picked up in the changes in Scrutiny. Speaking truth to power and officers’ feedback was also an important issue. His own approach was to ask for feedback from officers. One issue which had been raised with him was members going round officers when they did not like an answer and he encouraged members to think how this could be changed. There was work still to be done on changing culture but this would take time.

 

The Leader noted the views which had been expressed. He was content that the Council was moving in the right direction and that members would work together to get where they needed to be.

 

On the report’s recommendations being put to the vote there voted FOR: 36; AGAINST: 21; ABSTENTIONS: 2.

 

It was therefore RESOLVED that:-

 

(a)      the Challenge Board report as attached at Appendix 1 be noted and received;

(b)      the Challenge Board Recommendations be noted and received;

(c)      the Council’s responses to each of the Recommendations as set out in paragraph 5.10 of the report be approved;

(d)      the work of the Challenge Board is now complete and that their work with the Council will conclude; and

(e)      the Chair and all Challenge Board members be thanked for their support, advice and guidance during the past year.