Introduction
Islington Council (1) is a high performing and stable authority, with ambitious leadership and a recently appointed Chief Executive, Victoria Lawson (2). The council faces a number of immediate challenges, however, including: the need to deliver on significant political commitments before the 2026 council elections; the need to find and deliver significant savings while maintaining top quartile performance over the next financial year; and a need to build readiness for further organisational change in the years ahead as the prospect of a new set of policies in Westminster and ongoing societal change looms large.
The Challenge
In April 2024, London Borough of Islington (LBI) commissioned Leapwise to support with the development of a 2-year delivery plan for the council aimed at ensuring absolute clarity on the current delivery priorities for the organisation. The Plan also aimed to give assurance that political ambitions will be delivered in the parliament and provide an anchor for future financial planning and change decisions. Alongside the Delivery Plan, Leapwise supported the development of a new change framework to enhance organisational readiness for change through well-defined change principles and change-governance structures.
Our Approach
The primary purpose of the 2-year Delivery Plan was to bring together and effectively communicate all major change initiatives being delivered across the council by 2026. As communication and clarity were critical we worked with leaders to make early design choices on the Delivery Plan format. We rejected the traditional approach of a long wordy document covering all business as usual activities and small changes because Directorates already had such documents for their own planning purposes. Instead, we opted for a succinct two-sides of A3 document with clear, plain English articulations of major priority changes. We took a three steps approach to the development of the plan:
Firstly, we clarified the “as-is position” by mapping all initiatives planned across the council based on the level of change involved and phase of implementation by 2026. In order to do so, we reviewed 7 Directorates Business Plans, the Islington Together 2030 Plan, and Islington Manifesto to anchor our analysis within existing political commitments and missions for the council. Additionally, we carried out 2 workshops and 27+ interviews with senior leaders to identify change priorities for each directorate up to 2026. We found 602 initiatives planned across the council, of which 238 related to change, which we defined as “overarching processes producing significant change in the way the organisation operates and/or modifying cross-departmental practices.”
Secondly, we conducted a prioritisation exercise aimed at fostering alignment on the priority actions implementable by 2026 to be included within the delivery plan. We conducted 5 cross-directorate workshops with senior leaders and an iterative validation process via email to foster engagement with and shared understanding of council-wide change priorities. We ended up with a shortlist of 33 change initiatives connected to the Islington Together 2030 Plan’s 5 missions: “Child Friendly Islington, A Safe Place to Call Home, Community Wealth Building, Greener & Healthier Islington, and Fairer Together”; and, 10 actions aimed at enhancing organisational health and readiness to change through improvement of cross-departmental ways of working.
Finally, we validated and confirmed the final shortlist of commitments with the Corporate Management Team, and presented it to Senior Leaders through a final cross-directorate workshop ensuring it was ready for councillor and leader scrutiny and sign off. A key part of these discussions involved identifying steps to ensure full confidence in delivery of these critical priorities within the two-year delivery window, including through discussions of how Directorates could work together to ensure success.
Results
The support provided by Leapwise helped to provide a comprehensive snapshot of the current state of work within the council and a clear strategic direction for future ambition. In particular, Leapwise’s support led to:
- Enhanced clarity on current council wide changes through a comprehensive directory of all initiatives undertaken and planned within each directorate, categorised by their level of change and implementation phase; and, mapped against the Vision 2030 missions and Manifesto commitments;
- Increased understanding of cross-directorates changes including linked initiatives, interdependencies and risks of duplicated activity;
- Higher clarity and alignment on the main change priorities to be delivered up to 2026;
- Better readiness for the budget process which will ensure delivery priorities are appropriately resourced and planned;
- Clear change principles and greater alignment on how future changes would be developed and delivered across Directorates;
- Better understanding of major areas of improvement within current business planning, performance management and governance processes across the council.
“Having partnered with Leapwise before, I engaged them to support our Delivery Plan because I knew they would bring strategic insight, pace and a truly collaborative approach. The team quickly understood what we needed, how to get the best from leaders across the organisation, and how to facilitate sensitive and important decisions. We’ve been able to quickly get total clarity on the top priorities we are delivering for residents, avoid this becoming a bureaucratic process that just produced a long document no one reads, and become even more confident we will deliver the changes that matter most to our communities“
– Victoria Lawson, Chief Executive Islington Council
This culminated in the Chief Executive presenting a report to Executive on leading Islington over the next two years, supported by the clarity in the Delivery Plan. This plan is now being rolled out across the organisation with a full week of engagement with all colleagues as they continue on their journey to put purpose into action.
Contact us today to learn how we can support your council in achieving its ambitious goals and ensuring sustainable success.
