Our Council
Mission statement
Brent Council is determined to be one of the top performers in British local government and to provide a wide range of excellent services to our highly diverse local community. To achieve these dual objectives, we are committed to reviewing critically everything we do and making whatever changes are needed to improve customer outcomes in all service areas.
We will adopt a consistent "One Council" approach where departmental and professional boundaries become less important and where internal and external partnership working is seen as our natural and expected way of doing business. We will embrace innovation and new ways of working and we will not be afraid to make changes wherever problems of inefficiency, poor performance or customer dissatisfaction persist. By 2012, we will have become a more effective, dynamic and customer focused organisation which has made significant and measurable improvements across all areas of service delivery.
What will success look like?
Significant year-on-year improvement will be evident in all service areas, including current high performers.
Performance outcomes will be comparable to councils already rated as excellent.
Brent will be widely seen as an innovator and exemplar of good practice.
Service improvement will be owned by all staff, managers and councillors.
There will be rising customer satisfaction levels, fewer complaints and LGO referrals.
Multi-disciplinary working, internally and externally, will be seen as the norm by all staff and departments.
All staff will see themselves as part of a Brent Council "officer team" that is ready and willing to try new approaches.
A stable, skilled, motivated and well paid workforce - a council that attracts and keeps the best people in local government.
The majority of PIs will be in the top two quartiles.
No key PIs will be in the lower quartile.
One Council
The great majority of high performing organisations in both the public and private sectors have a strong brand comprising a clear central vision and core values, a common sense of purpose in terms of organisational objectives and priorities, a solid infrastructure including rigorous performance management and consistently high standards of practice in all areas and which support the work of the whole organisation. We remain some way away from presenting a genuinely coherent and consistent face to staff, residents and other stakeholders and need to look, feel and act more like a single organisation if we are to be customer-focused and efficient; to work effectively with our partner organisations; to drive out wasted effort spent on projects which detract from the pursuit of key corporate priorities; to achieve economies of scale; to ensure that our systems and technologies "speak" to one another and to act as a fair employer.
Key characteristics we are seeking to achieve are as follows:
- A strong Council-wide ethos and value system, widely publicised, understood and owned by both members and staff including a deep commitment to service excellence, respect for diversity in all aspects of our work, a real willingness to work constructively with a wide variety of partners and commitment to democratic local governance and public engagement.
- An explicit framework of high standards of personal behaviour, professional conduct and organisational governance. It is vital that we can demonstrate that we take these issues seriously and have effective arrangements in place to ensure compliance in all areas.
- A clear commitment to corporate working and the avoidance of narrow departmentalism and professionalism. Staff should, of course, feel committed to their service areas and professions but this must not be at the expense of working for the wider benefit of the Council and the borough as a whole.
- A robust and resilient infrastructure based on effective Council-wide systems and consistently applied procedures. Unified systems are likely to offer greater value-for-money and be more effective than a plethora of local arrangements.
- A powerful and appealing public image and consistent branding which conveys a clear message about who we are. Our customers and partners rightly see us as one organisation and need to be reassured that we are a good organisation to do business with.
- A consistently high level of customer service regardless of the means used to make contact. Whoever and wherever our customers are, they are entitled to expect different parts of the organisation to talk to one another and respond to their needs with uniformly high standards of courtesy and professionalism.
- A culture of strong cross-council or multi-disciplinary working. Most of the big challenges facing councils require multi-faceted responses and co-ordinated action with other specialists and agencies and staff will increasingly need to see this as the norm.
- A council which is creative, transparent and organisationally agile and encourages innovation, new approaches and modes of working. Brent Council must always be flexible, open-minded and receptive to new solutions.
- A council where everyone helps to shape corporate policies and procedures and is expected to adhere to them once adopted. Appropriate action must be taken to ensure that necessary procedures are implemented by everyone in the organisation.
- An organisation where we all see ourselves as partners in a shared endeavour rather than as competitors in an internal battle for resources, profile and influence. While staff are properly passionate about their service and its needs, pursuit of local ambitions can result in the wider picture being neglected.