To consider the findings of the recent Local Government Association (LGA) corporate peer challenge and agree how those findings will be used to inform improvement plans.

Herefordshire Council recently took up the offer of an LGA corporate peer challenge, recognising the opportunity this provided to have an independent and objective assessment of the council’s achievements and plans to continue the journey of improvement.

The report of the peer team’s findings identifies areas of success and good practice, and suggests actions that could be taken to enable us to achieve more. The recommendations propose ways in which those suggestions can be taken forward.

That:

(a)        the approach (at appendix 1) to responding to the recommendations from the corporate peer challenge be approved.

1.          To take no action. This is not recommended because the value of considering the issues raised by the peer team as part of the council’s commitment to continuous improvement would be lost.

2.          To develop a specific action plan in response to the peer team’s recommendations. This is not recommended because improvement activity is already underway or planned in many areas. The recommendations of the peer challenge team will inform this work; establishing a separate action plan would add to the bureaucracy of monitoring and reporting without necessarily adding value to the improvement.

3.          It is open to Cabinet to agree different approaches to taking forward the recommendations; in doing so regard should be had to existing and planned improvement activity to ensure alignment of activity and best use of resources.