A decade ago, Wigan Council responded to austerity by re-imagining our relationship with our residents and our approach to local government.
Rather than a top-down corporate strategy, a highly effective movement for change emerged.
We had a commitment to innovate and political backing to think long-term and creatively to support our borough through austerity.
The approach, which we called ‘The Deal’, has remained the underlying philosophy for Wigan Council over the past 10 years.
A key part of The Deal’s success has been its longevity and ability to flex with new and emerging issues and ideas.
Like all movements it became a simple, shorthand way of describing things that were complicated and profound.
And like all good movements, it wasn’t owned by anyone, or the creation of anyone – it was picked up, adapted, refocused and owned by various organisations, groups and cohorts.
It is singularly associated with Wigan Council - a distinct brand and approach for innovative, community-focused public service reform, and progressive approach to workforce and culture.
The ingredients of the Deal were based on a handful of principles while the interpretation and application could be adapted for individual, team and neighbourhood expression.
Those ingredients were characterised as:
• An asset-based approach that recognises and nurtures the strengths of individuals, families and communities to build independence and self-reliance.
• Permission to innovate through a culture that encourages new ways of working and supports frontline teams to think differently, take decisions for themselves and re-imagine how they work based on conversations with our residents, communities and businesses that use our services.
• Investing in communities by moving away from doing things to residents and communities and instead getting alongside them whilst investing in community
organisations to build capacity through long term and dedicated investment funding – with clarity for the workforce on community
options and an expectation to know the communities they work in.
• Co-located place-based teams built around primary care and schools as the key anchor points in communities that have full resident coverage - and the places issues are first likely to emerge - promoting a long-term ambition to switch to a largely preventive approach.
• A set of behaviours and a systematic and wholehearted commitment to them. These behaviours are: Be Accountable, Be Courageous, Be Positive, Be Kind.
Having emerged from a period of emergency response that required immense agility and resilience, we are now facing a period of economic and policy turbulence.
Our residents, communities, businesses, partners and workforce need our renewed clarity of purpose.
We are at a moment in time where we want to both re-commit at scale to our shared purpose while checking what remains relevant to our residents, businesses, partners and workforce.
This will ensure we are responding in the right way to new challenges and are strengthening elements in The Deal that our self-reflection and various external evaluations and commentaries have identified and more importantly will improve the lives of our residents.
New challenges have emerged and our borough’s present and future is very different to when The Deal was created in 2013.
Reflecting on all of this, we are now set to undergo a refresh of our philosophy and purpose. Now is an exciting time to be both reflect on the past and look to the future.
By refreshing our strategic purpose we will be retaining what made us strong and helped us achieve so much in a difficult decade.
But crucially for our residents, we will be ready for a new era with an ambitious blueprint for what the future of our council, and possibly even local government, should look like.
Be part of shaping a new era for Wigan Council
Wigan Council is seeking collaborative partners to work on the development of a refreshed movement for change.
The council aim for this to identify and retain the strengths it has developed through ‘The Deal’ over the past decade as well as respond to the challenges it is now facing.
The approach will also identify priorities for the future and put the council in the right place to build a refreshed movement with purpose and intent.
The council sees the following as deeper components of its future intent:
• A focus on inequality and a commitment to address it throughout our philosophy, strategy
and approach;
• A commitment to community health and wealth building and sustainability as key ingredients to improving outcomes for residents, communities and businesses;
• A more confident, mature and systematic approach to deep engagement and co-production at strategy, service and operational levels.
Wigan is looking for a partner or partners to:
• Identify an approach to embed themselves with us and establish a process to carry out research and a review of what works and what’s missing.
• Lead, with our support and learning, on a deep engagement approach in our communities – both to create a product to inform our refreshed approach, and embed a legacy for ongoing listening and shared learning and response.
• Help us, alongside our communities, partners and workforce to establish a refreshed commitment as relevant to today as the Deal was a decade ago.
• Leave us with new skills and tools to embed practical approaches that fully realise our
refreshed approach; creating the momentum, excitement and belief for widespread adaption and adoption.
This opportunity is published on ‘The Chest’ procurement portal: www.the-chest.org.uk
This article is sponsored content for The MJ
