Accelerating Shropshire Council’s transformation to deliver savings and Shropshire Plan

Shropshire Council is set to accelerate its drive to change how it operates and drive forward the £51m savings it must find, while supporting its vision of “Shropshire living the best life”.

This follows the launch of its Shropshire Plan, which set priorities for the council to focus on to support a healthy population, healthy economy and healthy environment, underpinned by a healthy organisation.

To help deliver the Shropshire Plan and provide extra capacity, capability and resources, the council has already taken a number of steps, and is looking to appoint a transformation partner.

The partner will work with the council, for up to three years, to focus on delivering services and internal support differently, and ensuring these changes are made at pace.

They will be key to helping the council achieve the £51m savings it must find by 2024, largely through reorganising the delivery of its services and securing £150m of savings over three years of the contract.

A report to the council’s Cabinet next week (meeting on Wednesday 15 February 2023) says that the transformation partner will also help deliver around 30 projects that change how the council operates, while helping its services operate more effectively and provide better outcomes for the public, while also saving money.

The work of the transformation partner is expected to cost between £1m and £3m, spread over a three year period, to help drive forward at pace the council’s transformation and achieve its medium term financial strategy.

Lezley Picton, Leader of the Council, said:-

“The Shropshire Plan gives us a very clear objectives and priorities to help people live their best life.

“We have made a strong start, and we now want to accelerate the transformation of the council and how it operates for the people of Shropshire to ensure we can deliver on these priorities and the Shropshire Plan.

“Given the scale of the financial challenge we face, we have to change how we do things and at pace. The transformation partner is simply the next step in ensuring we achieve this.

“Some of the changes that need to be made require expertise that the council simply does not have. Rather than looking to work with individual external organisations for dozens of different pieces of work, the most financially prudent way of achieving this focus is to work with a strategic partner.

The expertise that this strategic partner will bring covers a huge range of projects and services, including bid writing, review of contracts, and pushing through organisational shift at pace.

“To close this budget gap as we must, this expertise is not just necessary, it’s vital.”