Decision details

Councillor Crane, Leader of the Council presented the report which presented an update to the Council’s Corporate Plan that set out the key priorities for the next two years and beyond.

The Executive were supportive of the documents however suggested the following amendments/comments:

·         On page 17 of the agenda, within the sixth paragraph in the introduction the phrase ‘empty homes work’ should be amended to ‘empty homes programme’,

·         On page 17 of the agenda, within the same paragraph, clarity was sought on the wording relating to the increased visits to leisure centres as recent performance reports to the Executive may have included different information.

·         On page 19, the third bullet point under the priority heading ‘To make Selby District a great place to do business’ should be amended to read as “Work with education providers to support training and to provide appropriate skills for work”.

·         On page 23, the third bullet point under the priorities for the Economic Development  Framework and Action Plan should be amended to read as “Engage with indigenous business through our SME Advisory Service to support and provide resilience”.

·         On page 24, within the first bullet point under the heading ‘Just some of the things we have achieved since 2015’, the wording “and onsite for the family housing at Byram” should be removed as there was already a reference to Byram in the same paragraph.

·         On page 27, the first bullet point under the heading ‘We will focus on the following things in the next two years’ should be amended to read as “We will work with customers to get a better understanding of what our customers want and need to improve the quality of the customer experience and standards for customer service delivery”.

·         On page 28, within the fifth bullet point under the heading ‘Just some of the things we have achieved since 2015’, the wording “wider range on” should be amended to read “wider range of”.

·         On page 29, within the fifth bullet point the wording ‘ensuring the chosen option continue to deliver’ should be amended to read as “ensuring the chosen option continues to deliver”. It was also felt this paragraph should refer to the customers and residents and not just be about the authority.

·         On page 30, in reference to the paragraph on business rates, it was felt that greater clarity was needed to inform residents that the Council was not just increasing business rates to invest in the Programme for Growth but rather using one off payments received.

·         The Executive felt that the document should be circulated more widely and felt that one option would be to produce a special edition of Citizenlink based on the document. It was acknowledged however that further consideration needed to be given to the costs for this option.

RESOLVED:

To note and endorse the updated Corporate Plan, prior to seeking approval at Council on 24 April 2018.

REASON FOR DECISION

The Corporate Plan 2015-20 sets clear long term ambitions for the Selby district underpinned by a set of clearly articulated priorities. However, those priorities were born of circumstances that prevailed over three years ago. The time is now right to re-appraise those priorities in light of the circumstances that face the district in 2018.

Furthermore, it is a chance to refine the broad proposals set out in the original plan and set the programme of activities for the next two years - providing a clear picture of the expected outcomes, particularly as they relate to the quality of people’s lives. This enables the Council to better sequence activities, performance manage them and deploy capacity more effectively by tackling the things that are most important.