Mole Valley Productivity Plan July 2024

Joining a shared procurement service in 2019 improved resilience at no extra cost while enabling the procurement of goods/services for a lower cost. The procurement of the leisure contract in 2024 extended the range of services on offer at MVDC’s two leisure centres, introduced new community-based services and avoided an anticipated significant loss of income.

MVDC began delivering services in partnership with other local authorities which helped recruit staff to hard to fill roles. This ensured service continuity in services such as Environmental Health and Building Control. The joint procurement of a waste and street cleaning contract with three other authorities in 2017, together with the establishment of a shared contract monitoring team, ensured continuity of service while delivering savings of more than £1m pa.

Recognising the importance of investing in services which prevent the need to access more expensive services, including those provided by other public sector partners, MVDC expanded its community alarm service. This enabled it to place a wide range of equipment into residents’ homes to monitor, learn and predict care needs, thereby reducing the level of care package requirements for residents.

This approach, funded by health and social care teams, not only provided a very valued service but produced system wide financial savings and, in 2022, led to the establishment of the Mole Valley Responder Service to attend non-injury falls. The aim was to attend and ‘lift’ patients to avoid the need for an ambulance. This reduced costs to the health service and improved health outcomes for residents.

By the end of March 2024, the Responder Service had attended 2,600 incidents, resolving 89% without the need to escalate to the ambulance service. It was estimated that for every £1 health invests in this service, there was £2.71 cost avoidance to the wider system.

MVDC has a history of using the powers available to local government in an innovative way to improve services, reduce costs or bring in extra income. Between 2016 -2018 MVDC borrowed approx. £92.5m capital funding from the Public Works Loan Board to invest in carefully chosen commercial properties.  This approach contributed at least £1m pa to the Council’s annual revenue budget. Likewise, in 2023, the Council made use of capital receipt flexibility to fund investment in its Transformation Programme, Evolve 2026, with the remit to deliver £4.9m additional efficiencies and savings by 2026/27.

Since BPR MVDC has continued to invest in technology and software to streamline processes and improve customer service. For example, investment in laptops enabled MVDC to remove desk/mobile phones and their associated costs and allowed staff to be contacted wherever they were working.  In 2023, a review of the allotments service showed that the IT system was not user friendly.

This, together with a lack of integration with the e-forms on the website, meant that residents, staff and site agents could not self- serve and a lot of manual intervention, including the re-keying of information, was required.  The purchase of a new system will address these issues, freeing up 16 hours each week.

MVDC has significant property assets which it has used in a variety of ways:

• MVDC invested capital funding and helped secure external grant funding to enable the transformation of a dilapidated football ground into a new Football Stadium, offices and soft play. This generated a revenue stream and brought additional footfall to Dorking town centre.
• A review undertaken during 2022 identified sites where the property estate could be rationalised. In one case the sale of a former depot generated a capital receipt without affecting service delivery. In another, the relocation of staff from a small satellite office improved staff cohesion, saved on costs and provided an opportunity to generate additional rental income.
• MVDC has undertaken strategic land assembly to enable regeneration and place shaping.
• The Council used a vacant unit on the High Street to establish a retail incubator unit which transitioned to a Community Interest Company. Another example is the Mole Valley Skills Hub, where a vacant unit was let to a charity to enable a Skills and Employment Hub to have a physical presence on the High Street.  Working in partnership with DWP, the hub enabled local access to support from Job Centre Plus and wider third sector and adult education providers.
• Use of a MVDC owned community centre in an area of deprivation by a partnership enabled a range of support and advice services to be provided around a cafe, garden and craft area.

In the absence of alternatives, MVDC was forced to place those who were homeless into Bed and Breakfast accommodation. Not only was this expensive but the quality varied, and the location was often disruptive in terms of schooling, attending work, access to support etc. In 2014 the Council invested £1.2m capital funding in homes to use as Emergency Accommodation. In 2018 it acquired a further two properties and most recently used Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) and S106 contributions to acquire more accommodation for this purpose.

The quality of services delivered by any Council is only as good as its staff. In recent years the public sector has struggled with recruitment and was forced to rely on expensive interims to keep services running. While some interim use will always be necessary, for example, to cover maternity leave or run time limited projects, MVDC developed an Organisational Development Strategy and a new job site, supported by a specific recruitment resource.

This, together with the innovative use of flexible working and a positive culture, reduced the cost of interim staff from £978,555 in 2017/18 to £580,000 (4% of salary budget) in 2023/24. Non-unionised, MVDC has a thriving Staff Hub which represents the views of staff and promotes wellbeing.

There is a need within most small public sector organisations to supplement the skills, expertise and capacity of staff who deliver ‘business as usual work’ with specialist advice and expertise in specific areas, or on fixed term projects.

Within MVDC this is only done when it is the most cost-effective solution or when employing an in-house resource is simply not possible given the nature of the advice/service required.

Since BPR two cross cutting management reviews have been carried out. In addition, where there was staff turnover MVDC reviewed team staffing structures to see if things could be done differently.

One example included a review of MVDC’s Property and Regeneration services in 2018 which brought the two services together, saving a management level post and enabling the implementation of a corporate landlord model which made better use of the funding available to support operational assets. A focus on succession planning, together with a desire to make best use of the apprenticeship levy, encouraged the team to create a degree apprentice role. This helped fill a hard to fill role and provided an opportunity to learn while you earn.

In 2022 MVDC worked with the Local Enterprise Partnership on a grant monitoring service. This helped MVDC pursue opportunities to offset/fund the cost of projects that couldn’t be done otherwise. In 2024/25 MVDC is expecting to benefit from grants of at least £4.2m.

in 2021 MVDC adopted its Equality Policy Statement 2022-26. This sought to ensure that MVDC not only complied with its legal responsibilities but that the Council is fair and accessible when delivering, designing, buying, and evaluating services, developing policies, and considering the needs of employees.

Members show Leadership with a Cabinet Member having responsibility for Equalities, and Member Champions for both ethnic minority groups and people with disabilities. MVDC provides a range of training. In 2024 the e- learning course for staff, provided as part of a larger training platform, cost approx. £348.

MVDC will introduce a new Partnership Strategy, review existing collaborations, and explore new opportunities to ensure better value for money and outcomes. A two-year Finance Transformation project has the potential to result in much closer working with another authority to share costs, upgrade and share systems, improve processes, and increase online service availability.

During 2024/2025 MVDC will replace its current Asset Management Plan with an Asset Management Strategy. This will build on the new Council Strategy and map assets against those priorities and objectives.

MVDC will consider whether better use can be made of the assets it owns; for example, the Council’s civic offices have successfully hosted Surrey County Council, Surrey Police, a care provider and a local museum. Building on that success, the Council is seeking additional occupier(s) to reduce the costs to the taxpayer.  In addition, MVDC will consider if further capital investment in Dorking Halls and the civic offices would ensure property efficiencies, generating more income, or reducing running costs, while contributing to decarbonisation.

The Council will also consider the potential to change the use of (or sell) some its properties. Similar considerations are also being made by the directors of MVDC’s wholly owned company known as MOVA.

In line with the new Procurement Act, MVDC adopted a Sustainable Procurement Charter in 2022. It will continue to embed stronger procurement practices, improve supplier engagement, seek social value opportunities and reduce scope 3 carbon emissions while reviewing contract management opportunities, optimising the performance of our service/concession contracts and exploring the opportunities to bring some services back in-house.

A review of fees and charges has ensured that MVDC is recovering its costs, and that charges are in line with those of other authorities.

In addition to piloting a new approach seeking to improve the investigation of crimes/regulatory breaches in a cost-effective way, MVDC will review some of the grants and subscriptions it offers to ensure that they represent value for money.

MVDC will also review how to reduce the number of empty homes and second homes through the effective use of council tax premiums, while reconsidering the Council Tax support scheme to ensure that it remains fit for purpose and is operated efficiently.

Service level budgets are allocated to a named Cabinet Member within budget and monitoring reports. Similarly each Service area’s budget is allocated to a named Executive Head of Service who liaises with the Cabinet Member for their service area.  Executive Heads and Cabinet Members take ownership and responsibility for developing their budget proposals and answering questions on their services and budgets when items are considered at Scrutiny Committee, Cabinet and Council.

At a more detailed level, each service and cost centre on the financial system has a named business manager who is responsible for producing a business plan for their service area and for the allocation of the service level budget to cost centre level. Business managers monitor the budgets monthly to Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) and bi-monthly to Cabinet. During 2023/24 the Council’s outsourced internal audit partner reviewed the Financial Governance arrangements for setting and monitoring the Council’s revenue budget. They concluded that there was a reasonable level of assurance over the controls and arrangements in place, the audit only recommended one action which was implemented immediately.

MVDC uses Granicus’ govService to provide over 80+ online forms for service requests, govDelivery to enable newsletters and consultations and is implementing govTech to automate and integrate requests into the Revenues and Benefits systems. It is anticipated this approach will enable customers who want to do so to self-serve 24/7 on most services, getting immediate responses in some cases. It will reduce failure demand by having a centralised log of all requests, which can be searched and assigned to staff, and will be viewable by the customer on the dedicated portal.  This will reduce reliance on emails which are generally recognised as being inefficient in this context.

MVDC also uses continuous improvement staff in the CSU to monitor and update forms based on feedback or create new ones. PowerBi reporting is used on the forms for data analytics and staff are developing more insight with Google Analytics to understand the customer journey and why forms are abandoned. This enables continuous improvement of the website to provide a better user experience and deliver results in a quick, efficient and accessible way.

MVDC has two main legacy systems on-premises – Finance is being migrated to a new version in 2025, and it is anticipated that Revenues and Benefits could follow. Remaining legacy systems are lightly used and will be migrated to cloud alternatives, either by using a supplier’s cloud version, or folding it into the online forms application, coded by our in-house developers.

Cloud based systems are expensive with high licence and single sign on costs. API (Application Programming Interface) integrations don’t always exist or are costly. Without an API, process redesign is compromised and/ or opportunities to realise the benefits of the new software are compromised.  This can result in it being cheaper to double key (employ a human ‘API’) rather than incur the cost of purchasing and implementing an API.  Accessing MVDC’s data can also be an issue as this can’t be done directly in the same way as on-premises solutions.

The cost of switching from one cloud-based software to another is often distorted as, whilst the licence fee may look attractive, the work involved in configuring the successor product, testing and migrating is typically significant.  This can result in being tied into legacy systems for longer than is ideal.

Data sharing is essential. MVDC shares non-sensitive data with other authorities for a range of reasons including monitoring performance, benchmarking, learning from best practice and problem solving. Sensitive information sharing for the benefit of our residents follows strict guidance from DWP, NHS and other agencies where appropriate. This is restricted to key staff on specific systems and in accordance with legislative requirements and MVDC’s Data Protection Policy.

Are there opportunities to use new technology to improve workflows and systems, such as predictive analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Having been an early adopter of Iken cloud and subscribing to Practical Law which offers FastDraft capabilities to assist in legal transaction documentation, MVDC is currently installing govTech to enable customers to manage their Council Tax and Benefits accounts online. As this integrates into relevant back-office applications it is anticipated that it will result in 70% of customer requests being dealt with automatically. The Council has also been monitoring the development of the ICS.AI solution and is keen to implement this on the website and phone line to provide assistance 24/7 to residents and businesses.

To reduce the number of ICT solutions in use, MVDC will use the Microsoft stack of products. The release of more AI integration into the MS Security portal will provide better visibility/ action on malware attempts.