The London Borough of Bexley has published its Productivity Plan, demonstrating its commitment to delivering services as efficiently and effectively as possible.
The plan illustrates how the Council continuously finds new methods to enhance productivity for its residents through savings, innovations and partnerships.
However, it also warns of significant financial challenges and external pressures impeding its progress. The Council calls on the new national Government to take action to support its drive for even greater productivity.
With strong ambitions for the borough - set out in its Bexley Plan - the Council constantly seeks opportunities for growth, improvement and efficiency and has undergone significant transformative changes in recent years.
The Productivity Plan – a new requirement of all local authorities, introduced by the last Government – outlines the Council’s work to maximise its efficiency and effectiveness. These include:
- how we have transformed the way we design and deliver services to make better use of resources (e.g. through shared services and community engagement; a focus on prevention; and better use of data and technology).
- how we plan to use technology to improve our services (e.g. through our new Customer Experience Strategy, centred on a major digital transformation programme, and application of Artificial Intelligence to speed up more basic or administrative tasks).
- our plans to reduce wasteful spending (e.g. through Overview and Scrutiny Committees; internal and external auditing processes; and newly established entities such as the Council’s Spend Panel and the Economy, Efficiency and Effectiveness (3Es) Board).
It also sets out key barriers to progress and makes recommendations on actions the new Government should take to support even greater efficiency and effectiveness. These recommendations include:
- providing enhanced, flexible financial support in recognition of the great pressures facing Councils due to external factors
- continuing to be flexible with support in the medium and long term, due to the unpredictability of our budget assumptions
- establishing multi-year settlements to help us plan services strategically and take invest-to-save decisions, removing the uncertainty driven by single-year settlements
- providing adequate funding for the new mandates and requirements given to Councils, thus far without any recognition of the financial burden this causes (e.g. changes to
- waste management requirements and building standards, new inspections for funeral directors and Youth Justice System updates)
- making improvements and modernisations within our administrative systems, specifically in schools and courts
- reforming the national Government’s own Temporary Accommodation system, which currently sets its contracted agents actively in competition with us in our own private rental markets, driving up prices and leaving us without housing available in our own borough, compounding the difficulties and high levels of demand on this service
Councillor Baroness O’Neill of Bexley OBE, Leader of the Council, said:
We are wholly committed to serving Bexley residents as efficiently and effectively as we possibly can. We continuously find new ways to enhance our productivity through savings, innovative partnerships and technological advancements.
“However, in spite of this great work, we continue to face significant financial challenges and external pressures. We could do even more to enhance our productivity if the Government acted on the recommendations we have set out in our Productivity Plan.”