Clarity and impact of core values and direction setting on service delivery

Everyone had accepted the council’s core values, but that was perhaps because they were commonsensical and there was nothing in them that anyone could contest. However there was scope for them to be revisited, made more specifically demanding and directed towards action in order to realize their potential. There were too many values, and these were neither meaningfully translated into ways of working nor explicitly linked to preferred outcomes or any performance management system. They had been launched with a fanfare some time before, and no investment had been put into their continued dissemination and implementation.

Everyone in the council had a mix of agendas to work to: various corporate policy priorities, service delivery priorities, inter-agency working and development initiatives. Greater clarity was needed throughout the council about what outcomes were being sought and how they could come together at every level. All managers and service heads felt the tension of multiple demands and needed an effective process for balancing these demands and setting personal and team targets.

The corporate policy priorities had a tremendously varied degree of ownership, due partly to the lack of clarity around what they actually meant, and also to a suspicion whether the political leadership and corporate managerial leadership were really committed to driving them through. They did not translate easily into a vision for a better city that employees could rally behind, and therefore the result was confusion and a growing cynicism, rather than commitment.

There was little evidence that people were rewarded or recognized for moving the corporate agenda on, and the lack of ongoing budget provision for these corporate initiatives also indicated a hesitancy when it came to putting money where the mouth was.