Strategic Partnership for Council Operating Model Transformation

Derbyshire County Council is seeking a strategic partner to design and implement a comprehensive operating model transformation programme. The Council has identified five key strategic areas for improvement: creating an efficient support function (One Council), restructuring the organisation to improve effectiveness, simplifying and digitising customer-facing processes, transforming children's services through strategic commissioning and automation, and reducing third-party spending through analysis and procurement initiatives. All workstreams must align to a single Target Operating Model framework to ensure integration across the organisation. The programme is projected to deliver approximately £42.7 million in financial benefits. The Council requires a Design and Implementation Partner because the scale and complexity of this transformation exceed internal delivery capability. The partner will be expected to design an implementation-ready package, lead full-scale implementation, and transfer knowledge to build internal capability throughout the engagement. This transformation is essential to prepare the Council for Local Government Reorganisation scheduled for April 2028 and to improve resident satisfaction metrics, which currently fall below national benchmarks. The successful provider must incorporate Local Government Reorganisation dependencies, assumptions, and design considerations into all deliverables and work collaboratively with internal teams throughout the programme lifecycle.