One Council Operating Model Transformation

Derbyshire County Council is seeking to enter into a strategic partnership with an external organisation to undertake the Design and Implementation of the Council's Operating Model Transformation Programme, to deliver a more efficient and effective Operating Model for the Council.

Building on this diagnostic work, the Council has developed an Operating Model Transformation Programme, focussed on five strategic areas:

• One Council - Creating a cohesive and efficient support function across the organisation.
• Organisation Design - Restructuring to align with service purpose and improve spans and layers.
• Customer Experience - Simplifying and digitising high-volume processes to ensure consistency, improve experience and efficiency.
• Children's Services - Developing a strategic commissioning approach and implementing automation to reduce costs and reliance on agency staff.
• Third-Party Spend and Procurement - Reducing external spend through robust analysis and targeted savings initiatives.

Ensuring all workstreams align to a single, coherent Target Operating Model (TOM) framework to prevent siloed designs and ensure integration across the Council.

The Council is estimating that the programme is expected to deliver financial benefits of approximately £42.7 million, excluding savings already being realised through existing projects. However, the scale and complexity of change exceed the Council's internal delivery capability and capacity. To ensure successful implementation, the Council intends to procure a Design and Implementation Partner to Design an implementation-ready package and then move to full Implementation at pace and scale.

The Provider will be expected to work collaboratively with internal teams, transferring knowledge and building capability throughout the lifecycle, with clearly defined deliverables for knowledge transfer.

This transformation is critical to position the Council for future challenges, including Local Government Reorganisation scheduled for April 2028, and to improve resident satisfaction, which currently falls below national benchmarks for value for money and overall performance. The Provider must incorporate Local Government Reorganisation dependencies, assumptions, and design considerations into all deliverables.