North Northamptonshire Council

The challenge

As a newly formed unitary authority, North Northamptonshire had developed a “One Council” programme of integration and change to address the challenges presented through the reorganisation process. However, with significant financial pressures to confront within their medium-term financial plan, the leadership team wanted to explore a more transformation-focused approach to the design of their future organisation.

The result

Ignite worked with the council over the course of four months to develop and deliver a wide range of whole-council discovery activities, ranging from detailed activity analysis, process deep-dive workshops, benchmarking and structured reviews of their strategy and policy framework.

With the output and data from the discovery work, we were able to develop a fully documented portfolio of transformational change and quantify the potential financial savings that could be delivered and contributed to meeting the needs of the medium-term financial plan. Against this portfolio, we undertook a full review of their “One Council” programme and prepared an appraisal of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats each approach represented for the council in their move to a transformed, more customer-centric and financially sustainable future state.

What made it successful

• Strong engagement with senior leaders: the engagement with the council included extensive working with key leadership groups across the council, including the corporate leadership team, the leadership network and departmental management teams.

• Building capability: we focused on building the capability of the in-house business change and data team, and this has allowed the council to be more self-sufficient in the use of the outputs from the discovery activity and the delivery of the transformation opportunities.