Stockport Council's Corporate Peer Challenge Progress Review published

In November 2022, Stockport Council invited officer and political peers from the Local Government Association (LGA) and other councils to Stockport to carry out a Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC). This process is intended to provide robust challenge and support to councils and provided us with valuable insight and learning. The peer team described Stockport Council as “an impressive organisation” and identified areas for further development.

During November 2023, we welcomed back members of the CPC team for our progress review. The revisit allowed us to show how far we have come in the last 12 months and reflect on where we can do more for our residents and communities. The summary letter on the outcomes of the revisit has now been published and highlights the following:

• The CPC team was impressed by what they saw and acknowledged that we had gone further than expected in delivering on their recommendations. They praised our strong leadership role and recognised how this enables real and ambitious change whilst working closely with partners to commission and deliver high-performing services that meet the needs of our local population.

• They also noted that we are looking to the future, focussing on longer-term transformation through our One Stockport: One Future agenda. The peer team highlighted the ‘sophistication’ of our approach to neighbourhood working, which brings together communities, health, physical places, and public services to work together ‘as one’ – the breadth and scale they have not seen brought together before in other locality models.

• They were impressed with the strength of cross-party working in our diverse political environment. They were also impressed by the relationships between councillors and officers and commented on the ‘great deal of thought and capacity’ we have put into our member induction programmes since our last all-out elections in 2023.

• They also praised our purposeful and targeted approach to developing our workforce - our ‘One Team People Plan’- instilling our core values and a sense of pride in our staff. They could see that we have clear priorities, big ambitions and strong financial management and were ‘pleased to hear that the council is unashamedly focussed on doing the basics well.’

• They recognised our ‘strong financial position’ as illustrated by setting balanced budgets, the achievement of savings targets and underspends in recent financial years.

The CPC team concluded that we have a well-established mechanism to support our continued improvement and encouraged us to focus on equality, neighbourhood work, and performance management as we move forward.

Read the report Stockport Progress Review