Leadership

"From the most senior levels of the Council: Chief Executive, Leader, Corporate management team"

Any programme of change, on the scale, and to the depth necessary for achieving the Council of the Future, requires strong leadership from the highest levels of the organisations involved. For the council, that means from the Chief Executive, the Leader of the Council, and from the whole of the Corporate Management Team. Without this, any attempt to implement the Council of the Future is unlikely to succeed, and is likely to result in significant waste of resource with little or no significant benefit.

A few key points:

• Making the change to the Council of the Future cannot be delegated to the Head of ICT, or to the Head of Customer Services, or indeed to anyone else, unless it is backed strongly and actively by the most senior management of the council
• Leadership can be taught and developed - so if leadership is currently weak, it can be remedied
• Buying in consultancy is not a substitute for leadership - consultants can't lead for you, but they can support you and they can teach you leadership skills.