Governance and accountability

Luton Council is governed by 48 elected members, with the majority party currently in overall control. The council is here to serve it’s 225,300 residents and 8,800 businesses.

The council follows an executive or ‘cabinet’ model of decision-making, with an executive leader of the council elected at full council every four years, a deputy executive leader and eight additional members appointed by the leader each year to form a ten-member single party executive. The executive is the primary decision maker for the majority of the council’s business.

Each member of the executive, including the leader and deputy leader, holds a portfolio of key responsibilities, however, decisions are taken by the Executive collectively.

Full council meetings are responsible for a range of administrative matters as well as approving the budget and policy framework matters, on recommendations from the executive. All 48 councillors sit as the full council.

The council’s executive is held to account by an overview and scrutiny committee and four scrutiny subcommittees, comprising of an overview and scrutiny board and three topic-specific scrutiny committees for health, children’s services and finance. Other policies and matters that require closer scrutiny are dealt with through time limited ‘task and finish’ groups.

Non-executive functions are carried out by regulatory committees, which deal with matters such as planning, licensing, audit and administrative functions. The council also has a standards committee, which is responsible for overseeing members’ conduct and probity, as well as a petitions and representations board, which deals with matters brought by members of the public through the council’s petitions scheme.

The council and its elected members are directly held to account by residents at local elections, held every four years, and by-elections. In addition, the council also seeks to engage with citizens regularly in a number of ways:

Formal consultations and engagement: new strategies and policy changes often require the council to undertake a period of statutory consultation. In some cases, this is not a legal requirement; however, the council seeks the views of residents anyway. Formal consultations often include a survey via our online consultation portal and engagement sessions held in the community.

Direct consultation: residents may sometimes be consulted on a specific issue affecting their local area or a service they use. For example a planning application or road layout changes within a neighbourhood or changes to policies relating to schools or care services.

Member-led engagement: Elected members often carry out engagement within their local wards, either through surgeries or direct engagement on issues affecting their area.

Citizens’ panels or assemblies: Citizens’ panels and assemblies are often used as part of the wider Luton 2040 programme linked to specific topics such as climate change or the fairness taskforce. These panels enable residents to shape services linked to these priorities, not just within the council but across the town.

Residents’ perceptions surveys: Luton Council carries out an annual perceptions of Luton survey, which asks residents for their views on a range the town’s features. This includes questions around education, employment opportunities, community safety and services provided by the council and partners. These surveys are representative of all parts of the community and help to shape the future of the town and services.

Corporate plan:

• The corporate plan is aligned to the Luton 2040 vision, based around the same five priorities, with an additional sixth priority, which enables us to better deliver as an organisation.
• The corporate plan sets out our internal delivery of the Luton 2040 vision as an organisation at a high-level, including how we lead the local system, work with partners and deliver through our services.
• The corporate plan includes a list of corporate KPIs, which are used to monitor our performance as an organisation against our six strategic priorities.
• The chief executive and corporate directors are responsible for overseeing the delivery of the corporate plan.

Service plan:

• Service plans set out in more detail how each of the council’s fourteen service areas will deliver on its objectives. These service plans are set annually, with objectives aligned to the strategic priorities. Service level KPIs are also set to monitor progress and these are aligned to the corporate KPIs.
• Service directors are responsible for setting and overseeing the delivery of their service plans.

Team plans:

• Within each service area, individual teams will have a detailed plan or programme of work. This is updated annually and provides greater detail than service plans, with key objectives and milestones included to monitor progress and delivery.
• Managers are responsible for setting and delivering their team plans.

Individual performance plans:

• Managers within teams agree individual performance plans with their staff to set objectives and targets from their team plans. This will include individual tasks that staff will undertake. Managers perform regular check-ins with their staff on a quarterly basis to monitor performance and feed this back up to report on progress of team plans and feed into service plan reporting.

Development of the council’s internal delivery is an intelligence-led process. Intelligence and performance monitoring is a golden thread which is used to shape all service plans and team plans to achieve our vision for Luton 2040. These plans are also underpinned by all of the elements of our sixth strategic priority, including our medium term financial plan, people plan and transformation programme.

The council contributes to the wider performance of Luton 2040 and the target outcomes set for the town as a whole within each of the five strategic priorities.

Measuring progress against these target outcomes is set out in detail within the Luton 2040 vision and is monitored through the minimum income standard model, which measures poverty in the town, and Luton’s thriving people index, which monitors wider outcomes for our community.

The council also has to measure the progress of its own activity, to monitor the impact of its direct contribution towards achieving the Luton 2040 vision, as well as the performance of key statutory services.

To monitor the council’s progress, we have agreed a list of corporate KPIs (key performance indicators), which are attached as an appendix to this document. These KPIs are aligned to our six strategic priorities, as well as the legal and statutory responsibilities that we have.

The corporate transformation programme is a major journey of organisational modernisation. It will help ensure that we make the most of all of our resources – people, places and finances – and, as importantly, find new ways to work in partnership with our communities and partners. It will touch every part of the Council, building on what is already great and encouraging everyone to think about how we become a more resilient and agile organisation that delivers on what matters most to Luton’s diverse communities. The programme is expected to run for 3 years and will be a key part of delivering a solid foundation for achieving our 2040 ambitions.

In line with our council delivery framework, the corporate set of KPIs are used to develop more detailed performance measures and targets for each of our services and their teams.

Monitoring of our corporate KPIs is carried out by the council’s business intelligence team and these KPIs are updated regularly as part of our intelligence-led process.