Nottingham City Council is preparing to invest up to £15m over the next three years to carry out fundamental changes to the way it operates.
The move follows the council’s production of a Recovery & Improvement Plan to respond to the recommendations set out in a Government report which looked at issues with the authority’s finance and governance arrangements.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has appointed an Improvement and Assurance Board to oversee the council’s progress against actions set out in its Recovery & Improvement Plan.
Delivery of the Recovery & Improvement Plan and organisational transformation requires significant investment in time, skills and technology to ensure that its impacts are meaningful in operational and financial terms. A blend of external specialist resource combined with the skills and experience of existing staff is needed to provide focus and a faster pace of change. The funding has been earmarked for short term, highly targeted spending and technology investment and won’t be used to fund everyday council business.
City Council Leader, Cllr David Mellen, said: “We are making good progress on our improvement journey, but we need to continue to build momentum and pace.
“I understand that it may seem counter-intuitive to earmark significant sums of money to address financial issues among other things. But this spending won’t impact on funding for services, and is required for us to make the radical changes we and Government have identified as being needed. This investment now will mean we become a leaner, more effective organisation for the future, better able to deliver the services local people need within our financial means while remaining ambitious for our city.
“We will implement robust systems, overseen by a newly-established Transformation Board and the Government-appointed Improvement and Assurance Board, to ensure the funding is used appropriately and effectively to drive forward our plans to change the way we do things.”