North Yorkshire Council
Corporate and Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee
15th June 2026
Update on Transformation Portfolio
Report of the Assistant Chief Executive Local Engagement
1. PURPOSE OF REPORT
1.1. To update the Corporate and Partnerships Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the progress of the transformation activity within the council.
2. SUMMARY/INTRODUCTION
2.1 The CouncilÕs transformation portfolio continues to evolve as part of its longer-term journey to become a more integrated, efficient and digitally enabled organisation. Following the initial phase of convergence after Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), the focus is now shifting towards a smaller number of cross-cutting priorities that support delivery of the Council Plan 2026-30 and Medium-Term Financial Strategy.
2.2 This approach provides greater clarity on the respective roles of:
á Organisation-wide cross-cutting programmes
á Enabling and cornerstone programmes, including technology, data, finance and customer platforms
á Service-led programmes and ongoing service improvement activity
2.3 In practice, much of the change required to deliver transformation outcomes will continue to be designed and delivered within services, supported where appropriate by the Transformation Service. Cross-cutting programmes provide a mechanism to ensure that this activity is aligned and contributes to shared organisational priorities.
2.4 Progress continues across a range of areas, including the development of core enabling capabilities such as data and finance systems, and the implementation of new platforms to support service delivery and customer experience. A number of service-led programmes are also progressing to support operational improvement and future service sustainability.
2.5 The portfolio will continue to be refined over time to ensure that activity remains aligned to council priorities, that resources are directed to areas of greatest impact, and that services are supported to deliver change effectively.
2.6 To support the CommitteeÕs role, it is proposed that further updates on key programme areas are brought to future meetings, providing an opportunity to explore progress and delivery in more detail over time.
3. Transformation Portfolio Update
3.1. The current portfolio reflects a wide mix of activity which has been necessary to achieve the changes required following LGR, Management Board have now agreed that the change portfolio will shift to fewer, larger cross-cut transformation priorities with greater clarity on what sits within services vs what is led directly by Transformation. The revised portfolio operating model, including the distinction between cross-cutting transformation, service level programmes and service-led activity, and the principles of graduated support (Full, Targeted, Enabled) for services to deliver change are illustrated below:
3.2. To ensure that the committee has a clear understanding of the organisation wide cross-cutting and enabling programmes it is proposed the remainder of committees this year take a more focused view. A proposed forward agenda is below:
|
Scrutiny Meeting |
Programme |
|
September 2026 |
á The Way We Work á Data |
|
December 2026 |
á Customer á Finance |
|
March 2027 |
á Demand Management á One Tech |
3.3 Cross Cutting Programmes
The cross-cutting programmes will deliver major organisational-wide change that will help move the council towards its vision to be Ôa forward looking, digitally enabled council that delivers seamless, accessible and efficient services, empowering residents, communities and business to thrive. To ensure services are high-performing, efficient, effective, and trusted.Õ
3.4 The Demand Management programme remains at an early development stage until sufficient resources are available to redirect onto this programme. Some candidate projects have been identified that could sit within this programme and there may be some opportunities to rationalise some service specific programmes into this area to ensure a more joined up approach to prevention and managing demand for services.
3.5 Customer
The Customer Transformation Programme is a whole‑council change programme involving all services, focused on making it easier for residents, communities and businesses to access and use council services. At present, many services operate separately, which can make things more complicated for customers. The programme is working to bring this together over time so services are more joined up, easier to use and more consistent, regardless of how someone contacts the council. This includes improving how services are designed, simplifying how people get in touch, and replacing older systems or improve them to support a better customer experience and a more efficient way of working across the organisation, in line with our CARE commitments to provide services that are Consistent, Accessible, Responsive and Easy.
3.6 In March, all contact centres were moved onto a single Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform. This brings customer contact into one place for the first time and provides a more consistent and resilient approach to handling enquiries across the council. The platform is currently in its foundational stage and will be developed further over time. This includes the potential for improvements such as better routing of enquiries, greater use of digital channels, and more modern approaches using tools that can understand customer requests in plain English and help provide quicker responses.
3.7 Work is also underway to develop a new Customer Platform (CRM), which will replace a number of legacy systems currently used across the organisation. The aim is to create a more consistent Òfront doorÓ for customer contact over time. Initial services being built and onboarded include Highways, Registrars and Blue Badge, with further services following as part of a phased programme. Alongside this, the council has developed a Customer Target Operating Model (TOM), which sets out the shared standards and ways of working to ensure services are designed and delivered in a consistent, customer‑centred way across the council.
3.8 Progress is also being made to strengthen the councilÕs approach to complaints handling. A new system has been introduced alongside clearer definitions of enquiries, service requests and complaints. This is intended to support more consistent handling, clearer ownership, and improved oversight across services and channels.
3.9 In practical terms, this means that over time residents will be able to access services through clearer and more consistent routes, whether by phone or online. As services move onto the new approach, there will be less need to navigate multiple systems or contact points, and services will increasingly work together to handle enquiries in a more joined‑up way. It also supports simpler online services for reporting, booking and applying for council services, alongside improvements in how phone and digital contact is managed. These changes will develop gradually as more services adopt the new platforms and ways of working.
3.10 Overall, the programme is establishing the foundations for a more consistent and accessible approach to customer services across the council. This is a long‑term change and will be delivered incrementally as services adopt the new platforms and the Customer TOM, ensuring alignment to a shared, customer‑centred way of working overtime.
3.11 The Way We Will Work
The Way We Will Work programme focusses on improving the productivity of our people and reducing operating costs by creating a modern, flexible and inclusive working environment.
3.12 Recently the programme launched a number of focus group sessions and staff suggestion opportunity to provide feedback on process barriers and opportunities to simplify these, ensuring that staff have the delegations in place to make decisions at the right level.
3.13 Work is also underway to ensure a single strategic planning process to consolidate the planning of activity for each service, linking finance, transformation and service improvement with council plan priorities. This should enable:
¥ Clear line of sight from Strategy and improvement areas to action
¥ Ensure that services are well informed and equipped to deal with the challenges that they face in the short, medium and long term
¥ Provides clear actions that will drive service improvement deliver the councilÕs MTFS
¥ Clear reporting on progress and impact of actions (e.g. performance, savings, customer experience)
¥ Ensure visibility and alignment across services and join up activity and effort
¥ Ensure alignment of enabling resources to the councilÕs priorities
3.14 A system to support the process and provide an improved view of progress and performance is due to be available at the end of quarter one.
3.15 The councilÕs approach to innovation has also made progress, with the establishment of a process to scan for new ideas, test those that appear to have merit for NYC, scale up those that are shown to be viable and then look to adopt these more widely:
3.14 Alongside developing the process to manage new innovations an Innovation Panel has been established, the purpose of the panel is to Ôfoster a culture of innovation, champion emerging opportunities, and provide strategic guidance on the implementation of innovation projects. The panel will serve as a forum for the evaluation of new ideas, the sharing of best practices and the promotion of collaborative problem- solving across departments.Õ The Panel includes representatives from all directorates and key enabling functions to help ensure that ideas can be considered and progressed at pace. Innovation week is taking place from Monday 15 to Friday 19 June throughout the county to get colleagues talking about innovation. There will be multitude of information sharing sessions and case studies covering AI Assistants, digital scribes, research approaches, co-pilot etc, and provide the opportunity for staff to try new tools and share ideas.
3.16 In April Management Board approved the councilÕs AI Strategy. The strategy aims to ensure the councilÕs approach to AI is firmly built on the foundation of responsible transformation, harnessing the opportunity whilst ensuring safe, ethical and accountable usage. The Innovation team will be sharing more on the councilÕs approach to AI at a memberÕs seminar on 7th October Feedback is welcome on what would be useful for members to hear about at this session.
3.17 Enabling Programmes
The Finance programme is focussing efforts on going live with the new finance system for the council, this has been delayed from its original go-live date of April 1st 2026, with the project team and the supplier working to complete the build and testing of the system as soon as possible to go live later in the summer.
3.18 The Data programme provides the enabling tools for the council to make the best use of the data that it holds. The first use case of the new data platform has been completed, this use case related to Commercial waste and holiday lets Ð matching the data regarding homes assigned as holiday lets and designations on the waste system to ensure that the correct charges are made and collected, this initial case has been trialled for the Scarborough area which has a high level of holiday lets. A project to converge all seven of the Local Land and Property Gazetteers (LLPGs) has also been completed in this period, this provides a single source of information to improve resilience, simplify addressing and improve data quality.
3.19 A ÔOne TechÕ programme has been developed with the vision to Òensure a resilient, future-ready technology foundation for North Yorkshire Council that delivers modern corporate capabilities, simplifies and consolidates systems, and empowers the organisation to meet evolving needs with efficiency, security, and innovationÓ. Currently the programme is planned to be split across four workstreams with the following objectives:
i. FfF Technology Foundations: To implement fit for the future (FfF) technology foundations for NYC
ii. Corporate Capabilities: To provide corporate technical capabilities that meet the needs of the organisation
iii. Technology Consolidation: To consolidate remaining systems and technology
iv. Security, Data & Future Readiness: To enhance security, data capability, and digital foundations.
3.20 The programme will have a number of benefits, including savings from the consolidation of systems and associated support costs, efficiency improvements from the streamlining of processes as well as legislative compliance and cost avoidance from threats and cyber incidents.
3.21 Service Specific Programmes
There are several service specific programmes of work, with some key updates in this period set out below:
Sport & Active Wellbeing programme consolidation of sport and active wellbeing activity under the Active North Yorkshire banner is continuing. The contract has been signed for a new Leisure Management System that can be used across all of the sites, a single system and contract will reduce the cost of supporting several systems and provide a unified experience for customers across the county. Within the Leisure Investment programme work has also begun at the Richmondshire Pool site and a draft programme of work issued, business cases for the Selby and Skipton Wellbeing Hubs are also being developed.
Waste programme has successfully rolled out service changes at the HWRCs whereby residents register their vehicles to use NYC sites, it is anticipated that this will lower disposal costs to the council by reducing out of county and commercial like vehicle usage of the sites. The roll out of new bins is also continuing with work in the twin bin roll out in Richmondshire beginning, due to be completed by October 2026.
SEND ProgrammeÐ Work on the SEND reforms has focused on engagement with partners and stakeholders. This has primarily related to the consultation response and how the local system will work together to support inclusive mainstream education. The programme will be being reviewed to reflect any changes as a result of the reforms. Alongside this progress continues with the new Digital EHCP system with a view to be live by the end of the year, subject to additional development work being completed on time.
Housing Improvement Programme Ð work is underway on a number of areas within the Housing Service to ensure that the council is best placed to meet the needs of its tenants and its statutory obligations. The Service has several systems which they are looking to refine and consolidate over the next 2-3 years that will better meet their needs as a landlord. Work is underway on the interim to ensure that management and compliance information is available to operate the service and meet statutory reporting requirements.
Planning Improvement programme Ð Alongside work to complete the convergence of all former planning systems into a single system (due for completion in the autumn) the programme is also starting to look other elements of the planning process, including CIL and S106 processes and pre-planning advice.
Transport programme Ð activity is underway to replace a number of core business systems and deliver targeted improvements to both internal and customer facing processes. Joint working between Environment, ChildrenÕs and Young People Service and Health and Adult Services progresses well, with a focus on cost-effective commissioning of transport, closely working with Procurement. All work has been underpinned by the ongoing utilisation of local authority networks to share learning and best practise, with a focus on continuous improvement.
4.0 REPORT RECOMMENDATION
4.1 The Committee is asked to:
i. Note and comment on the contents of the report
ii. Agree areas of focus for future transformation updates, as proposed in paragraph 3.2 above
Rachel Joyce
Assistant Chief Executive Ð Local Engagement
County Hall
Northallerton
4 June 2026
Report Author Ð Amani Anderson Leefe, Assistant Director Transformation
Presenter of Report Ð Amani Anderson Leefe