The Corporate Peer Challenge (CPC) is a free peer review process run the by the Local Government Association (LGA). A small team of experienced local government councillors and officers from across England assess a council's performance and provide constructive challenge and support.

We requested a CPC as part of our commitment to continuous improvement and to meet the Best Value Duty, which requires Councils to take part in one every five years.

It is not an inspection and does not rank or score the Council in any way. It only serves to provide feedback and ideas.

As part of the Challenge the Peer Team visited the Council offices an ran a series of workshops, focus groups and interviews with Councillors and Officers from across the Council.

Each CPC is structured around the following five core elements:

• Local priorities and outcomes
• Organisational and place leadership
• Governance and culture
• Financial planning and management
• Capacity for improvement

In addition, we requested further advice and feedback on town centre regeneration, our approach to scrutiny and digital transformation.

We shared a Position Statement with the Peer Team outlining our approach to each of core elements and focus areas ahead of the Team's in person visit.

The Peer Team was made up of the following experiences Councillors and Officers from Councils across England.

• Larissa Reed, Chief Executive, Swale Borough Council
• Cllr Chris Vinson, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Dover District Council
• Peter Geraghty, Executive Director, Hertsmere Borough Council
• Karey Summers, Director of Customer Experience, Charnwood Borough Council 
• Emily Yule, Executive Director of Resources, Norwich City Council 
• Corey Gooch, Business Intelligence Manager East Lindsey BC (shadow peer team member)
• Ellie Greenwood, LGA Peer Challenge Manager 

The Peer Team's findings presented a very positive picture of the Council as an organisation and as a partner. You can read their published feedback report in full. Particular strengths and good practice examples identified by the Peer Team include:

• The clarity of the priorities in our Corporate Strategy (6 MB).
• Successful delivery of several impressive place-based projects such as Fareham Live, Daedalus and Welborne Garden Village, that bring positive impacts to our residents.
• We demonstrate strong political leadership and officer stewardship.
• Effective partnership working with numerous partners was observed with the Council consistently willing to host, support and lead.
• We have an astute approach to commercial acquisitions and asset management.
• Effective and improved service delivery in major service areas was highlighted by the Peer Team. This included recent work to reduce the number of people in emergency accommodation, that resulted in significant financial benefits.
• The recent adoption of a new performance measures approach will strengthen oversight and challenge by Councillors.
• There is a supportive organisational culture at the Council, which has been enhanced since the change of leadership.
• There is an impressive coaching offer available to people working at the Council.
• A recent focus on embedding organisational values and strengthening internal communications was highlighted.
• The Council is well controlled and governed, with good management of our finances meaning that we are in a comparatively healthy financial position.
• Relationships between Councillors and officers are good at Fareham, with Councillors reported to be knowledgeable and supportive.

In addition to the strengths identified by the Peer Team, they also made several key recommendations to help support continuous improvement at the Council. The individual recommendations are shown below. We have put together a detailed Action Plan which includes updates on the progress we have made.

1. Build on your existing strong partnership working to develop a more strategic approach to partnerships and place leadership, considering the legacy structures that can focus on Fareham post Local Government Reorganisation(LGR).
2. Consider how you are promoting the good work that you do, as well as being open with others about the shared challenges all councils have.
3. Enhance the performance, risk and budget data available to Councillors, with clearly quantifiable metrics linked to services and corporate strategies that go beyond statutory requirements, enabling effective challenge and scrutiny. Assure yourself that your risk management approach is fully robust.
4. Reform your approach to scrutiny. Consider separating advisory and scrutiny roles and review where performance reporting is currently considered. Consider commissioning a Centre for Governance and Scrutiny (CfGS) review and / or training to support members in a revised model.
5. Build a member development offer for all members to enable effective participation in a model of more distributed leadership and reformed scrutiny / advisory panels. Draw on Local Government Association (LGA) and other external resources to develop this.
6. Benchmark budget and governance arrangements against best practice set out by CIPFA, Solace and Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) codes and guidance, such as budget monitoring frequency, independent member on Audit and Governance Committee, 'golden triangle' management arrangements.
7. Build on your impressive work and due diligence in support of individual bold investment decisions to draw together a single asset management framework, with clear principles for investment decisions and risk appetite, so that decisions are considered as elements in a larger financial and strategic context, and less on a standalone, case-by-case basis.
8. Strengthen the governance arrangements (e.g. by introducing a programme or delivery board) to drive forward and monitor the asset management framework and associated decisions, to ensure they are meeting the corporate objectives of the organisation in a cohesive way.
9. Organisational culture appears to have significantly strengthened following changes in political and officer leadership. Continue work to embed these changes and the new organisational values in a consistent way, with a particular focus on teams not in the corporate/civic centre, and implement the People Strategy in the context of LGR.
10. Champion the place of Fareham in Hampshire's LGR discussions and consider how to mitigate the risk of any loss of identity or dilution of priorities in a potential future unitary

A progress review, including a day visit by the Peer Team, took place in late 2025. Our senior leadership reported on the progress made in implementing our Action Plan, discussed early impacts or learning, and received further feedback. The Corporate Peer Challenge has now concluded following the progress review feedback and we will continue to engage with the LGA as part of our commitment towards continuous improvement. The next Corporate Peer Challenge will take part in 5 years and will be undertaken as part of the new enlarged authority.

Based on the recommendations from the Corporate Peer Challenge, the below themes were reviewed.

• Committees and governance
• Partnerships and investment
• Organisational development

The progress review feedback presented a very positive progress on the recommendations provided during the Corporate Peer Challenge. You can read their published progress review feedback report in full .Below are some particular notable findings with the progress made.

• Positive progress with the new board and panel model and a more comprehensive member development offer was noted and it was recommended to new structure under review, with a formal review point to assess effectiveness once the model is embedded.
• Golden triangle arrangements have been strengthened and it was recommended that the council should work with authorities in its LGR cluster to identify lay members for existing audit committees to ensure there will be experienced independent members available when the new authority comes into existence.
• Progress with town centre regeneration, housing and Daedalus has been noted as particularly positive and it was recommended to continue working to ensure the identity of Fareham (and other places) will be retained and reflected within the governance structures of a new, enlarged authority.
• The Peer Team noted continued positive feedback on organisational culture and recommended to consider how the Council is resourced in the longer term to ensure it is in a stronger position going into LGR.