Agenda item

Resolved: a) that the Committee would take part in a pilot of the commercialisation training being developed by officers; b) that a further update on the implementation of the new ‘Lewisham Way’ would return to the Committee in the next municipal year (with a specific emphasis on progress – including relevant examples - that had been made in developing the Council’s commercial culture).

5.1    Adam Bowles (Director of Organisational Development and Human Resources) introduced the report – the following key points were noted:

·         The report followed on from the update by Katherine Nidd on income generation and commercialisation at the last meeting.

·         It outlined the development of the new ‘Lewisham Way’ behaviours for managers and training being developed for employees to support commercialisation.

·         The ‘Lewisham Way’ behavioural framework had been in place for 15 years. It was being refreshed to take account of changes over that period.

·         Officers drew on: relevant research; sessions with cabinet members; workshops with staff; the findings of the democracy review and feedback from the staff survey to inform the development of the renewed Lewisham Way.

·         The new Chief Executive had decided to carry out a further round of engagement before finalising the new framework.

·         It was intended that the new behaviours would be embedded in the Council’s performance management and human resources processes and policies (from induction, to hiring processes and performance management).

·           A number of new imperatives relating to commercialisation had been included in the new behavioural framework, including: ‘create and innovate’ – ‘measure and evaluate’ – ‘think broadly and find solutions’ (which had previously only included the impetus to ‘think broadly’) and – ‘maximise value’ which had previously been ‘maximise public value’.

·           The intention was to create new training processes relating to each of the new behaviours. In some cases, however, the training would relate to a number of the behaviours.

·           Courses would be developed for senior managers and for group managers.

·           The “leaders” course would be based on case studies and would focus on strategic approach to commercialisation.

·           The course for group managers would be longer and more in depth. It would be delivered in partnership between training providers and council officers in the strategic procurement and commercialisation team.

5.2    Adam Bowles responded to questions from the Committee – the following key points were noted:

·         It was recognised that leadership was important to embedding a commercial mindset in the Council. It was also important that people at all levels recognised their own capacity to develop new ideas and effect change.

·         There were three ‘linking words’ which formed part of the new Lewisham Way: ‘changing lives’ – ‘working together’ and ‘maximising value’.

·         Culture change in organisations took many years – and was difficult to do successfully.

·         Not everyone was going to be trained on every element of the new behaviours straight away. Specific training was being developed on commercialisation.

5.3    In Committee discussions – the following key points were also noted:

·         It was clear from the work carried out by the Committee to date that the Council’s approach to commercialisation had to be led from the top.

·         It was important that the Council’s approach to commercialisation continued to reference social value.

·         Members would welcome the opportunity to be further involved in reviewing the training (and determining whether it might be helpful for other Councillors to partake in it).

5.4    Councillor Amanda de Ryk addressed the Committee – the following key points were noted:

·         One of the key elements of a commercial mindset was developing an understanding of how much your services cost to deliver and then how much you could raise income to meet those costs.

·         The discipline and rigour of carrying out the analysis of fees and charges was the foundation of all future commercialisation work. The training would help with this.

·         Benchmarking with other councils could be used to understand the cost of delivering Lewisham’s services. This had to be carried out by services – with an understanding of the differences and similarities between delivering services.

5.5    Resolved: a) that the Committee would take part in a pilot of the commercialisation training being developed by officers; b) that a further update on the implementation of the new ‘Lewisham Way’ would return to the Committee in the next municipal year (with a specific emphasis on progress – including relevant examples - that had been made in developing the Council’s commercial culture).