13 Aug Transforming Local Government: Lessons from Member–Officer Action Learning Sets

Transformation is about positively reshaping organisations, so they operate more efficiently whilst delivering services that are more effective and impactful. But achieving such significant change comes with its challenges. Transformation is complex. Changing processes alone does not lead to successful transformation; it requires a change in culture too.

Between September 2024 and March 2025, on behalf of the Local Government Association we ran three online Action Learning Set cohorts with Councillors and officers from twelve authorities. The aim was to create a forum for councillors and officers to discuss their project issues, increase accountability on actions and create stronger political and managerial partnerships.

The four most important questions shared by participants were:

• People change and buy-in to capitalise on the benefits of transformation: How can we make transformation everyone’s business, build trust in the process and potential of technology, and encourage collaborative working?
• Navigating the complexities of existing delivery models and capacity: How do we work within current delivery structures and capacity constraints to delivery whole scale change?
• Finance and savings: How do we ensure a strategic approach to making savings and ensure long term financial sustainability?
• Data driven, evidence-based approaches: How do we gather and make best use of existing data and insights to shape transformation?

Each councillor and officer pairing had the opportunity to present an issue they were trying to address in their council. The issue was discussed with their group before their peers presented possible solutions to their issues, or different perspectives on how their issue could be viewed.

Members of the group helped each other problem-solve next steps, including actions to:

• Build buy-in of key staff by offering training to develop skills, and storytelling to highlight the benefits of approaches or priorities.
• Running exercises to help prioritise and focus efforts.
• Co-designing KPI’s with the teams or partners that will need to deliver them.
• Developing resources to clarify roles and responsibilities.

One of our key areas of learning was around the power and value of close working between a council member and officer pair. In sessions, officers could bring challenges to life through their more frontline, operational view, while the member reframed those ideas with a political angle. This dual perspective strengthened the trust between political and operational sides – and participants reported how much this helped open up member-officer dialogue in their councils outside of sessions as well. These member–officer partnerships didn’t just generate ideas together, but also laid the groundwork for shared ownership and practical progress.

Would you like to know more?

Read the full learning document from the transformation action learning set series here :LGA transformation action learning sets 2024-25.pdf