Creating the Conditions for Partnership with Essex County Council

ECC established a transformation programme that realigned operations from a service provision to a commissioning led model.  This was driven by the need for an authority capable of delivering flexible, outcomes based services that created savings of £200m over the Medium Term Financial Plan.  We were engaged to create the conditions where the council became more agile, commercially minded and responsive to change, with a culture where people could work effectively to commission services through partnership.

What we did:

  • Worked with the HR business partners and the transformation programmes to develop a set of integrated HR and OD strategies that delivered a more mobile and agile workforce
  • Developed a revised service model for HR that reflected the culture and values of a commissioning based organisation, prioritised self service and greater use of technology and shared services for transactional activities
  • Developed a people transformation plan that was fully integrated with the wider business transformation and enabled the delivery of improved customer outcomes

What we achieved:

  • An HR service provision capable of achieving targeted cost savings within 2 years
  • A strategy for HR and OD that was seen by the executive team to be wholly aligned to transformational change with a strong commercial case for investment
  • Increased support from directors and programme managers who were able to cite delivery of the HR Plan as a dependency to their performance