The city council’s size acted as “both a badge and a barrier: it has led to a not invented here, silo based and council knows best culture”. These characteristics were not an inescapable feature of the authority’s size but they needed to be acknowledged and addressed. There was much to learn here from other large authorities;

The narrative within Birmingham and the council needed to become more positive. “Birmingham City Council too often sees itself as a victim. Whilst the financial and other challenges are considerable and must be tackled, the public and businesses are calling for a more positive vision”;

Thirty years ago the council was at the cutting edge of innovation in local government but had lost ground. “To return it needs to start with getting the basics right”;

There was a blurring of roles between members and officers. “The relationship needs to be reset and officers given the space to manage”;
The current devolution arrangements within the city were confused and very few people understood them. They had also not been reconciled with the council’s financial position;

The council’s vision for the future of the city was neither broadly shared nor understood by the council’s officers, partners or residents;
Instead there was a multiplicity of strategies, plans and performance management processes which lead to unnecessary complexity and confusion and were not followed through to delivery;

The chief executive and corporate leadership team lacked the corporate support and capacity that was needed to undertake their role effectively;
Neither the savings nor the staff reductions the council had made had been underpinned by a long-term strategic plan for the nature and shape of the future council and the people it needed;

The council faced very significant budget difficulties in the next few years and did not yet have credible plans to meet these;

Performance management was ineffective and not up to the scale of the task;
The council, members and officers had too often failed to tackle difficult issues. They needed to be more open about what the most important issues were and focus on addressing them;

Partnership working needed fixing. “While there are some good partnerships, particularly operationally, many external partners feel the culture is dominant and over-controlling and that the council is complex, impenetrable and too narrowly focused on its own agenda”;

The council needed to engage in across the whole city, including the outer areas, and all the communities within it; and,

Regeneration must take place beyond the physical transformation of the city centre. There was a particularly urgent challenge in central and east Birmingham.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The council should draw up an improvement plan with clear dates for delivery. Regular updates should be provided to the Communities Secretary and updates on progress should be provided to residents;

A report should be published in December 2015 about how the council had implemented the review’s recommendations;

The authority’s governance needed to be “reset” in a number of ways. These included clarification of the roles, responsibilities, behaviours and ways of working expected in relation to the Leader, Cabinet, councillors, chief executive and officers. The strategic, executive, independent scrutiny and community roles of members needed to be clearly defined and better supported. The council should also develop a simplified planning framework, and transformation support services such as finance and Human Resources should be managed corporately;

The Communities Secretary should move the council to all out elections replacing the current election by thirds. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England should conduct an electoral review that reflected existing communities. This should be completed to enable elections by May 2017;

The council needed as a matter of urgency to develop a robust plan for how it was going to manage its finances up to 2018/19 without recourse to further additional funding from central government;

The HR function should be strengthened in a range of ways. These included vesting the strategic role of workforce planning and HR in an existing Cabinet member. The whistleblowing processes that are being put in place in the child safeguarding service should also be mirrored in the council’s other services;

Birmingham should establish a new model for devolution, with the council focused on getting basic services right. The ten district committees should not be responsible for delivering services or managing them through service level agreements. The number of city-wide scrutiny committees should be reviewed and potentially reduced to three;

The creation of a new independent Birmingham leadership group should be facilitated. This group should approve the new long-term City Plan and be used to hold all involved in the delivery of the plan to account;
The council should redefine its partnership approach. This should be done by, amongst other things, having shared clarity about the mission, objectives and purpose of individual partnerships and how they will judge their performance;

A combined authority governance review based on an authority formed of at least in the initial stage the core functional economic area of Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Solihull should be completed by July 2015. Once this has happened the Government should begin to engage in a dialogue about further devolution;

The Government should support the creation of a new locally-led high powered partnership vehicle focussed on increasing employment and improving skills, starting in the most deprived parts of Birmingham. An agreed plan including proposals for Government should be developed by April 2015.

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21098:kerslake-review-calls-for-improvement-panel-at-birmingham-for-qrobust-challengeq&catid=59&Itemid=27