schoolsonline

Stronger Together - An Organisational Commitment to OneSwindon

The Challenge

Like every other local authority in the country we want to secure the best possible outcomes for our residents. Historically this has largely been achieved by delivering a range of services that meets the needs of the many (e.g. waste collection, highways, street lights etc.) and increasingly the needs of the vulnerable (e.g. social care). However, there are a number of significant challenges to this traditional model of service delivery:

• Demand for services to the vulnerable is increasing at a significant rate. The complexity of care is increasing as people are able to live for longer with often complicated medical conditions. This puts considerable and growing pressure on Council budgets.
• The demographic make-up of Swindon is changing where our population is ageing and changing, which drives an associated demand for services.
• Many public services are designed in a way that sustains a culture of dependency and does not effectively leverage the capability in each of us to remain independent for longer.
• The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) resulted in a major reduction in the Council’s financial resources which makes it impossible to sustain the same level and variety of services we currently offer to Swindon residents.
• The Government is pushing a drive for localism to move power away from institutions such as Whitehall.

Our Response - Stronger Together

We have to change at pace and tackle the complexity of the challenge, particularly increasing demand, otherwise we could be forced down an entirely cuts driven agenda.

We cannot hope to tackle this challenge through incremental improvement or by getting better and better at doing essentially the same thing.

We need to get better and better at a different thing: devising new and clever solutions to extremely difficult problems.

These drivers for change must make us think about:

• Our collective purpose – what we are here to do
• Our assumptions and beliefs – what we hold to be true
• Operating model – what we do and how we do it

• Organisation structure – how we are organised
• Capabilities – the skills and culture that we need to be successful

In March 2011 Cabinet approved the strategic approach to developing a new structure for the organisation. This was approved by Full Council in July 2011, and enables us to work in a significantly different way to deliver the outcomes agreed in One Swindon and to build on Connecting People, Connecting Places. This decision has given us the authority to develop a new organisational model for working that is based on three specific areas of activities; ‘local first’, ‘strategic commissioning’ and ‘joined up delivery’.

The plans will be developed over the next few months in consultation with Councillors, staff and other stakeholders.

Find Out More

At the February All Staff Briefings Gavin explained more about the drivers for change and gave an overview of the model (131 kb).

You can find out more about the plans by reading our organisational purpose and finding out about our assumptions and beliefs.

Please read the Stronger Together - An Organisational Response to One Swindon Council Report for full details.(Link to http://ww5.swindon.gov.uk/moderngov/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=284&MId=5090&Ver=4&J=5)