Agenda item

Councillor S J Conboy, Executive Leader and Chair of the Cabinet to present the refreshed Corporate Plan for approval by the Council.

(The Plan was considered at the meeting of the Cabinet on 19th March 2024 and the Executive Leader will provide an update on the Cabinet’s deliberations).

With the assistance of a report by the Business Intelligence and Performance Manager (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) the Executive Leader Councillor S J Conboy presented an updated Corporate Plan for 2023-24 to the Council for approval.

By way of introduction, the Executive Leader reminded the Council that the Corporate Plan set out the Council’s priorities, desired outcomes and how it proposes to achieve these during the period.

In presenting the refreshed document, Councillor Conboy drew attention to the proposed amendments to the refreshed Plan. These included changes to the wording of the priority ‘Doing our Core Work Well’ to make it easier to understand and reference, together with the proposal to widen the lowering of carbon emissions to encourage the reduction across the District. Attention was also drawn to the proposed actions for 2024/25 and the amendments which were proposed to the operational performance indicators for 2024/25. The Council were informed that several additional indicators were expected to be required by the Office for Local Government to support local government to improve performance. It was hoped that these could be utilised to identify areas of strength and development as well as benchmarking so that the Authority could understand how to drive better value public sector value for money and improve performance on behalf of Huntingdonshire residents.

In responding to the remarks by the Executive Leader, the Leader of the Opposition Councillor J A Gray reiterated the importance in ensuring that targets were set appropriately. He also commented on the absence of any apparent self-reflection within the previous year, naming Civil Parking Enforcement and the pay negotiations as examples.

In terms of the number of actions within the refreshed Plan, Councillor Gray acknowledged that this was ambitious but urged the Joint Administration not to lose sight of the day-to-day functions that a growing number of residents were increasingly dissatisfied with. Reference was made specifically to grass cutting, bin collections and the garden waste subscription scheme. Comments were made regarding the increasing problems with rubbish and litter and blocked drains in the rural areas which in his opinion were not being addressed as adequately as in the urban areas.

In responding to the comments which had been made, Councillor S Ferguson acknowledged the importance of setting realistic, appropriate, and stretch targets for the Council and undertook to work with the entire Council to ensure that this was achieved. He also acknowledged that there had been challenges over the course of the previous two years. With regards to the issue of blocked drains, Councillor Ferguson also took the opportunity to advise the Council that in 2023 in St Neots alone, Cambridgeshire County Council had cleared 6,099 drains compared to the 5 years prior to when he was elected in which there had been no clearing of drains in St Neots and Godmanchester under the previous administration. Councillor S L Taylor suggested that the introduction of the green waste subscription charge would enable additional budgetary provision to be spent on other statutory duties.

Councillor S Wakeford then took the opportunity to refute the suggestion that the Administration were primarily concerned with the urban areas of the District. He also commented on the continued focus which the refreshed Plan gave to the enabling and influencing of work outside of the District Council’s control which would address some of the greater challenges facing the District’s residents, for example rural transportation.

Councillor L Davenport-Ray took the opportunity to respond to comments which had been made regarding the relationship between the Joint Administration and the employees of the Council. In so doing, she referred to the recent agreement of the pay award which demonstrated the strides which had been made to improve relationships with the Council’s employees and the aim within the Corporate Plan to be an employer with improved staff recruitment and retention.

With regards to target setting and the setting of challenging but realistic targets, Councillor P J Hodgson-Jones urged the Overview and Scrutiny Panels to assist with the scrutiny, delivery, and achievement of these targets.

During the debate, Councillor N J Hunt took the opportunity to highlight some of the successes of the Joint Administration during the previous year which were relevant to the younger residents of the District. These included the provision of 544 new affordable homes, an increasing number in users of new junior memberships at One Leisure, the approval of a new tenancy and housing strategy and the efforts being made to recruit graduates and apprentices to the Authority.

Whereupon and having been proposed by Councillor S J Conboy and seconded by Councillor S Wakeford, it was

RESOLVED

that the refreshed Corporate Plan (as attached at Appendix 1 be approved).