By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Almost £800,000 will be spent on six new roles to help Nottingham City Council deliver improvements to its services and finances over the next year.
One of the highest-paid roles is an external specialist, who will be paid £172,000 to lead the council’s improvement and transformation work between March and December this year.
The Labour-run authority has been under the scrutiny of a Government-appointed improvement board ever since the publication of a report into the collapse of Robin Hood Energy in 2020.
The board, chaired by Sir Tony Redmond, has power to both advise and instruct the council towards financial and operational stability.
To meet the strict deadlines set by the board, and avoid further intervention from the Government, the council has been using external support, agencies and consultancy firms to help fill gaps in its expertise and workforce.
While the council avoided costly commissioner intervention at the beginning of February this year in favour of stronger powers for the improvement board, it also had to allocate £2.1m to help meet a set of instructions given by the board.
According to a series of council delegated decision documents, all published on May 15, a further £747,000 will now be spent on a number of roles to help the authority continue to make improvements.
The first role is an external specialist to support the delivery of the council’s transformation programme, up to December 31 this year, at a cost of £172,000.
This decision is an extension of the existing contract of the transformation director, who is managing the improvement and transformation office at the council.
The second role is a programme lead supporting the same office, for a period up to December 31, at a cost of £142,000.
Concerning the two roles, council documents say: “This resource will be responsible for a mixture of coaching and developing council staff across a broad portfolio of change projects at all levels of the organisation.
“They will oversee a complex portfolio of work, helping in-house and external resources to design projects, create processes, engage stakeholders, manage priorities, track progress, and assign activity across programmes, projects and delivery teams.”
Another external programme lead specialist is also needed to support the improvement and transformation of the council’s Corporate Landlord programme until the end of March 2024, at a cost of £148,000.
The Corporate Landlord programme was set up to help the council more efficiently manage property assets.
A further £95,000 will also be spent on a programme lead supporting the improvement of the council’s Children’s Services, for a period of six months until the end of September.
It comes after Ofsted inspectors rated Nottingham City Council’s services as ‘inadequate’ in 2022, and said children had been left at risk of harm.
After the inspection the council pledged up to £6.5m to external consultancy firm, Newton Europe, to help deliver improvements.
At the same time the authority also allocated another £2.4m to a partner to deliver a programme of improvements to the council’s Children’s Services.
Similarly, the fifth role will cost the council £95,000.
The money will go towards an external programme lead supporting improvements of adult social care services over six months until end of September.
Finally, another £95,000 will be spent on an external programme lead to improve the council’s customer support transformation programme for six months until the end of September.
All six roles will together cost the council up to £747,000.
The financing of the roles was agreed in a series of delegated decisions, meaning the decisions were made outside of a council meeting.
Regarding the need for the roles, council documents add: “The capacity, skill-set and experience is not currently available within the organisation.”