Plan for Change: Local Authority Guide | The Access Group

Announced as part of the government's mission-driven approach to public service reform, the Plan for Change sets out ambitious milestones across six key areas that will reshape local authority priorities over the coming years. These missions aren't abstract policy goals but concrete commitments that will directly affect how councils operate, what they're held accountable for, and ultimately how they serve their communities. 

The Plan for Change emphasises a shift from managing decline to driving growth, from reactive crisis management to proactive prevention, and from siloed service delivery to genuinely integrated approaches that put citizens at the center. For local authorities already stretched by years of funding constraints and increasing demand, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity to fundamentally reset how services are designed and delivered. 

Preparing Your Organisation for Change

The Plan for Change isn't something that will be imposed on local authorities at a future date it's already shaping government expectations and will increasingly influence funding decisions, inspection frameworks, and performance management. Forward-thinking councils are taking action now to ensure they're positioned to thrive in this new environment.

Assess Your Current Readiness

Conducting a readiness assessment is a critical first step. This means honestly evaluating your current capabilities against the demands of the Plan for Change across multiple dimensions. Can your systems provide the integrated view of residents that joined-up working requires? Do you have the data and analytics capabilities to demonstrate outcomes and predict demand? Are your processes designed around organisational convenience or resident needs? Is your workforce equipped with the skills and tools for new ways of working? This assessment shouldn't be a one-off exercise but an ongoing process of evaluation and improvement.

Invest in Integrated Technology

Investing in integrated technology platforms provides the foundation for everything else. Trying to deliver mission-driven government with fragmented legacy systems is like trying to build a modern house on crumbling foundations. While technology investment requires upfront resources, the alternative attempting transformation with inadequate tools wastes far more through inefficiency, duplication, and inability to demonstrate impact. The key is choosing platforms that are designed for integration, built around outcomes, and flexible enough to adapt as requirements evolve.

Build Data Literacy Across Your Organisation

Building data literacy across the organisation ensures that evidence-based decision-making becomes embedded in culture rather than confined to specialist teams. This means training frontline practitioners in understanding and using data, equipping managers with analytics skills, and ensuring senior leaders can interpret complex information to inform strategic decisions. It also means establishing clear data governance that balances the benefits of information sharing with responsibilities around privacy and security.

Redesign Processes Around Outcomes

Redesigning processes around outcomes rather than outputs requires fundamental rethinking of how services operate. Instead of measuring social workers by the number of assessments completed, focus on whether children's situations improved. Rather than counting housing inspections, track whether properties became safer and healthier. This shift from activity to impact requires different performance frameworks, different management approaches, and systems that can track outcomes over time rather than just recording transactions.

Develop Strong Partnership Infrastructure

Developing partnership infrastructure creates the foundations for genuine collaboration across organisational boundaries. This includes formal arrangements like data sharing agreements and joint governance structures, but also the informal relationships, shared understanding, and trust that make partnerships effective. Technology can facilitate this through shared platforms and information exchange, but the human dimension of partnership-building remains essential.

At The Access Group, we've been working with local authorities for years to develop solutions that align with the principles now articulated in the Plan for Change. Our platforms are designed specifically to support the integrated, outcome-focused, evidence-based approaches that mission-driven government requires. 

Access Mosaic provides comprehensive case management for children's and adults' social care that breaks down silos and enables holistic support. Rather than separate systems for different service areas, Mosaic creates a unified view of families and individuals, enabling practitioners to understand context, coordinate interventions, and track outcomes across multiple touch points. Built-in safeguarding features ensure that risks are identified and escalated appropriately, while workflow automation reduces administrative burden and enables practitioners to focus on direct work with residents. 

Core+  delivers integrated youth support that connects early help, education support, and youth justice pathways in ways that align perfectly with the Plan for Change emphasis on breaking down barriers to opportunity and making streets safer. The platform enables multi-agency working, tracks young people's journeys across services, and provides the outcome data needed to demonstrate impact and continuously improve provision. With funding constraints making every intervention count, Core Plus helps ensure that support is targeted effectively and that learning from what works is embedded in practice. 

Access Adam Housing supports the housing services that are fundamental to multiple Plan for Change missions, from kickstarting economic growth through housing supply to building an NHS fit for the future through healthy homes. The platform enables efficient management of temporary accommodation, supported housing, and private sector housing, with compliance monitoring, financial management, and outcome tracking built in. As Awaab's Law and other regulatory requirements raise expectations around housing quality and safety, Adam Housing provides the tools to demonstrate compliance and drive continuous improvement. 

Access Synergy streamlines education management for early years settings, schools, and local authority education teams, supporting the mission to break down barriers to opportunity. From managing the Early Years Census to tracking pupil outcomes and coordinating SEN support, Synergy provides the data infrastructure that enables evidence-based improvement in education. Integration with social care and health systems enables truly holistic support for children and families, ensuring that educational disadvantage is understood in context and interventions are coordinated effectively. 

Across all our solutions, common principles support the Plan for Change agenda. Interoperability ensures that information flows appropriately between systems and organizations, enabling the integrated working that missions demand. Real-time analytics and reporting provide the evidence base for decision-making and accountability. Mobile access supports flexible, community-based service delivery. Workflow automation and intelligent case management reduce administrative burden while improving quality and consistency. Regular updates ensure that systems evolve alongside changing policy requirements and emerging best practice. 

While the Plan for Change presents significant challenges for local authorities already managing complex demands with constrained resources, it also offers a genuine opportunity to reset the relationship between councils and communities. By moving from managing decline to driving improvement, from measuring activity to demonstrating impact, and from siloed services to integrated support, councils can rediscover their role as genuine forces for positive change in their areas. 

This transformation requires leadership that can articulate a compelling vision, investment in the infrastructure that makes new ways of working possible, and cultural change that empowers practitioners to work differently. It means being honest about what isn't working, learning from what is, and having the courage to fundamentally redesign services around the outcomes that matter to residents rather than the convenience of organisations. 

The councils that thrive in this new environment won't be those that simply react to government requirements but those that proactively embrace the opportunity to deliver services that are more effective, more efficient, and more responsive to community needs. Digital transformation is central to this, not as an end in itself but as the enabler of better outcomes. The technology exists to support everything the Plan for Change envisions, the question is whether councils will seize the opportunity to implement it.