Culture Review and Improvement Programme for Adults, Wellbeing and Health Partnerships
In late 2023, Surrey County Council (SSC) Adults, Wellbeing and Health Partnerships (AWHP) commissioned 31ten to design and deliver a programme of cultural engagement to assess the current culture and develop a practical roadmap for change.
The purpose of this review was to further the AWHP improvement journey and support the ongoing development of the Service’s leadership team, continued commitment to address cultural issues, enable managers and staff, and align efforts with broader Council-wide initiatives.
The Role
During our discovery phase, we developed an understanding of the Service’s key priorities, external pressures, and existing cultural data and information. We conducted an extensive series of one-on-one interviews with Service leadership and management to understand the local context and inform the approach for staff engagement sessions.
We designed an all-staff survey to complement and build on existing AWHP and Surrey survey data, allowing the entire workforce to share their views on Service culture and behaviour. From this information, we distilled five key improvement themes – ratified with and refined by two all-staff drop-in sessions.
We then hosted a series of cultural improvement workshops with the Service Senior Leadership Team (SLT), exploring roles and behaviours as senior leaders in relation to the five improvement themes, defining ways of working with key stakeholder groups, and finally, creating a roadmap of pragmatic actions to achieve the desired culture.
Key Outcomes
- Quantified level of support for current vision, highlighting areas and levels within the Service where backing was more limited.
- Staff-led definition of current culture, ideal culture, and pragmatic ideas for change – overall and split by Service area and grade.
- Five key themes for improvement – generated and ratified through extensive staff engagement.
- Alignment and coherence of priorities for the newly formed senior leadership group.
- Cultural improvement roadmap and action plan – developed in partnership with SLT, supporting leadership in overlaying the voice of the workforce with strategic priorities across the AWHP landscape.
