Leadership at Liverpool Council has not displayed “sufficient pace, urgency or grip” to tackle the issues it faces, commissioners overseeing the authority have concluded.
Whitehall appointed officials have delivered their second report into the city council this morning and delivered an excoriating verdict on performance at the Cunard Building. The team, led by Mike Cunningham, said key aspects of the council are failing and require urgent reform and overall, Liverpool Council is not meeting its statutory duty to provide best value and must take “urgent action”.
Mr Cunningham’s team said the council faces a lot of work in the next 12 months and its improvement journey “is at risk”. In their 26 page briefing, the commissioners said the local authority has not addressed financial challenges with sufficient pace or urgency and faces a “stark” financial situation, with particular criticism levelled at the process for the setting of this year’s controversial budget.
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The report said: “Very little progress has been made to address structural weaknesses. Core functions that support the management of public money, notably procurement, are under-resourced and under strain.”
The government appointed officials said gaps in workforce capacity and capability existed across the organisation and plans to manage them were “inconsistent”. It added: “The processes and culture for rigorous, transparent decision making in Liverpool Council are not in place.
"Too often, the council does not take decisions in a strategic, considered way, and the cabinet are not sufficiently sighted on urgent and risk-bearing issues.” The handling of council contracts was heavily criticised in the findings, with commissioners reporting that the local authority “has made no significant progress in improving the way it manages its contracts, or the mechanisms it has in place to purchase goods and services.”
It added how the council does not have the “elemental tools it needs to track the benefits it gets from its contracts, nor does it have robust systems to manage execution, extensions, renewals or impact in a systematic way. This is evidenced by the number of contracts that are extended at short notice and without full, timely evaluation of options, cost, and risks.”
On the expensive energy contract debacle, the Whitehall officials said it was an example of “the failure of having mixed accountabilities in procurement decision making across the Council. This is not a sustainable or effective model.”
The report said the risk management culture is weak and must improve and the” managerial leadership of the council has not displayed sufficient pace, urgency, or grip to tackle the issues identified in the Best Value Inspection and by commissioners.
“Overall, the council is not meeting its statutory duty to provide Best Value and LCC must take urgent, whole-Council action to progress on their improvement journey.”
The commissioners, who have outlined a series of recommendations to the authority to improve performance, said in their conclusion the work ahead would be a “substantial challenge for the leadership to deliver and will require whole council improvements at every level of the organisation. Given the evidence set out across the five areas in this report, we have come to the conclusion that the Council’s improvement journey is at risk.”
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