Assistant Chief Executive service plan

This service plan sets out the key priorities for the Assistant Chief Executive’s Directorate over the period 2007 to 2009. It also forms the basis for the Directorate’s four service area’s team plans, as well as individual Performance and Development Reviews (PDR). 

The Assistant Chief Executive’s Directorate is responsible for some of the Council’s key corporate functions:

• HR and Organisational Development – provides advice and support on HR management issues; enables the recruitment, retention and development of a fit for purpose workforce; and drives organisational transformation.
• Communications – the Communications team provides a number of services including: media relations/reputation management; internal communications; direct external communications; graphic/creative design; event management; marketing; and corporate identity/brand management.
• Policy and Performance – the Corporate Performance Team supports and drives improvement in the Council through the regular production, analysis and reporting of performance data and information. It is responsible for the Council’s response to all statutory performance and inspection requirements. The Corporate Policy Team provides research and community intelligence; leads on service plans and corporate policy development (supported by analysis of national and regional polices potentially affecting the County) and coordinates the County Council’s contribution to the community strategy, including the provision of information and analysis. The Team also provides support to improve the strategic capacity of the voluntary and community sector, including equality and diversity issues.
• Partnerships – the Partnership Manager will lead and drive the countywide community strategy, further embedding and developing the Local Area Agreement and promoting the Countywide Partnership and Countywide Assembly locally, regionally and nationally. 
• Executive Member Support – the Cabinet Member Support Officer provides policy and administrative support to the Leader of the Council and the Cabinet, supporting the Executive to provide a more outward looking advocate role for the Council.

The Assistant Chief Executive also has a strategic role to play in: 

• Supporting the Chief Executive in driving continuous performance improvement
• Working with Members on policy development
• Leading on the partnership agenda
• Representing the organisation externally
• Driving organisation transformation.

The Directorate’s key challenges are:

• Delivering more added value to the organisation at no extra cost 
• Supporting continued and sustained performance improvement across the organisation
• Raising the identity and impact of the collective outputs of the Directorate
• Achieving our value for money targets 
• Meeting, and exceeding, customer requirements and expectations 
• Being innovative and transformational, whilst also providing a solid and robust service 
• Providing a catalyst for organisational transformation 
• Anticipating and responding to national, regional and local issues 
• Meeting changing legislative and statutory requirements.

The Directorate’s vision is ‘to support the organisation with a solution that provides value for money and works first time, every time.’

Our service specific priorities over the service plan period are:

HR and Organisational Development

• support the transformation and development of the organisation
• ensure that Directorate-facing HR services are consistent and responsive, enabling Managers to focus on delivering their services
• explore the opportunity for efficiencies through shared services
• improve employee relations and diversity.

Communications

• help Bedfordshire County Council strengthen its reputation within the county, regionally and nationally;
• help the County Council gain and maintain credibility with our communities and stakeholders; 
• ensure customers are better informed about the Council, its role in the community, its priorities, policies and services; 
• enable stakeholders to have a greater say in the shaping of policies and decision making, and; 
• foster better partnership working to deliver more effective communications.

Policy and Performance

• continue to enhance the Council’s performance management framework 
• supporting preparation for external inspection activities
• post-inspection, supporting and driving improvement across all service areas
• launch the community intelligence function
• continue to develop a coherent organisational planning framework
• continue to develop a policy horizon scanning function
• co-ordinate our support to Voluntary and Community Sector infrastructure organisations

Bedfordshire County Council (BCC) is an improved Council from twelve months ago. It has risen to the challenge of tackling previous under-performance, sustained more effective political and managerial leadership and continued to grow the capacity of the organisation. Significant improvements in services have been made. We have achieved the turnaround of the Council from a poorly performing organisation to one that is achieving consistently higher performance as measured by independent regulators. The Council is realistic about the challenges ahead and has strengthened its plans for future improvement. The Assistant Chief Executive’s Directorate is rightly proud of its role in improving corporate capacity and support to services, helping to enable this turnaround in performance to happen. Sustaining this is our key challenge for the year ahead, so we must develop our strategic leadership capacity to promote local ownership of performance management through:

• Establishing ourselves as champions of value for money.
• Having confidence in ourselves to make difficult decisions.
• Developing and sustaining much better working relationships with the private sector, and across all tiers of local government (including parish and town councils).
• Nurturing our ability to develop and maintain good and close working relationships across the county and regionally - especially around economic prosperity issues.
• Facilitating more 'convening' around critical issues - and the Countywide Partnership will be the critical structure to get right here, as well as role of all Elected Members (not just the Executive). The LAA is a tool in this, and is likely to generate more focus and be expanded, including across local government boundaries.
• Helping to develop more shared services and more forward thinking procurement policies and practices (to impact positively on efficiencies and supporting economic well being).

The Local Government White Paper and Local Government Bill have laid down a series of challenges, all of which have direct implications on this Directorate. We must respond (and be seen to respond) to reducing costs centrally and using technology and other process transformation to provide a more efficient and focused set of support services, which enable our critical (and explicitly seen) services to deliver continuously improving services. We must strive to become an ‘engine room’ for the organisation, always focused on the internal customer and in turn help deliver what works best for the residents, businesses and visitors to the County.

There is no doubt that 2007-08 is a critical year for this Directorate. We will be judged according to the delivery of first-class and responsive operational services and the extent to which we work closely with the two other central Directorates - Finance and Corporate Services & Customer Engagement. During the course of the coming year, we have to create a central services ‘offer’, which facilitates transformational change for Bedfordshire County Council, irrespective of whether the decision is made to grant us County Unitary status or not. The pace of change and the focus on continuous improvement will be relentless - but this will have to be delivered within an increasingly restrictive financial climate. As a result, innovation and flexibility will be the guiding principles for this Directorate. This will be seen through the way in which we interact with and support our internal customers, as well as through the delivery of value for money, operational services to our residents and other stakeholders.

This challenge is not an easy one and will require strong, strategic leadership from management, particularly when tough decisions need to be made. It will also require all staff within the Directorate to understand their individual and collective roles and responsibilities in delivering services and supporting change. Our staff will be supported and developed as necessary to meet these challenges, but success will still require a ’leap of faith’, hard work and determination to ensure high quality standards are set and then exceeded.

To read more on the Assistant Chief Executive's service plan, please refer to our related documents section below.