Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council

Transformation Partner

The challenge

Peterborough City Council (PCC) were faced with the competing demand of improving service delivery for customers and service users against a backdrop of reducing funds. This required the reshaping of how services were delivered, how the Council was structured, the use of alternative delivery models and the delivery mechanism that it used to meet the challenges.  

A great deal of effort went into creating the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) and a range of projects were being delivered, but there was a lack of consistency in approach, outputs and outcomes. PCC required emphasis on providing clear, timely information to make informed decisions, understand their consequences and how they could be managed. 

Alongside this, PCC also delivered a number of core services in jointly with Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC), which added complexity to designing and delivering change. 

£10 million of savings identified and delivered

The response

4OC was awarded a contract to work alongside the Chief Executive and Leadership Team as a Transformation Partner to meet the challenge.  Our co-design approach began with a full review diagnostic review of existing objectives, projects, resources, and costs within the People and Communities Directorate (P&C). This was to quickly assess the root cause of were projects were not delivering and provide practical fixes to make immediate impact.  

Alongside the diagnostic, we provided PCC with a programme framework including the Design and Delivery controls and approaches, to deliver of the MTFS. A key part of the framework was the structured approach to designing change with staff and customers, and considered resource and cost planning.

The outcome

Our approach and response to this challenge led to: 

  • the identification and delivery of over £10million of financial savings within P&C 
  • the upskilling of staff to deliver change who now feel more confident to make faster, more informed decisions 
  • transparency and visibility of dependencies and risks to make informed investment decisions 
  • A fully designed and mobilised Local Authority Trading Company to deliver environmental services and provide PCC with future revenue generation potential