We are very keen to keep challenging ourselves and one way of doing this is to subscribe to the Corporate Peer Challenges offered by the Local Government Association. 

This is where colleagues from other local authorities take a look at what we are doing and provide their insights into issues such as our ambitions, our capacity etc.  It can be a really useful exercise for us, provided we are completely open about what we do and how we do it.

Our first Peer review was carried out in October 2016. The LGA published a report, which highlighted that:

• we are an ambitious council and we need to make sure we prioritise all the projects we are embarking on to make sure we have the capacity to deliver
• we have strong managerial and political leadership which has helped to see us through the severe government budget cuts
• we have committed staff who are committed and enthusiastic
• we need to put more work into developing our second corporate priority of economic growth so everyone knows what the vision is and how we will deliver it

We have also recently invited the LGA to carry out a Peer Challenge in focussing on transformation plans.  This was a test bed for the LGA as well and a new type of Peer review. It was useful for both us and the LGA and their findings were documented in a report. 

The report is very good as it shows that we have the appetite for change although it does highlight that capacity is still an issue.

We will be having a full Peer Review in February 2020 and the report will be placed on this page.