Issue - meetings

The Mayor and Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health submitted a report for Executive consideration.

The Council Plan, formerly known as the Strategic Plan, was the Council’s overarching business plan for the medium-term, and was refreshed on an annual basis. It set out the priorities of the Elected Mayor of Middlesbrough, the ambitions for Middlesbrough’s communities and the ways in which the Council sought to achieve them.

Part of the Council’s Policy Framework, the Council Plan required full Council to approval, as set out in the Constitution. As such, at a meeting of full Council on 8 March 2024, the Council Plan 2024-27 expressing Mayor Cooke’s priorities and ambitions for the town, was approved, and was attached at Appendix 1.

The Council plan articulated the four priorities of the Mayor and outlined the approach that would be taken to addressing those priorities.

To ensure focus upon, and to strengthen delivery of, the above outcomes a supporting workplan had also been developed, bringing together all current and planned activity in support of the Council’s priorities. The proposed workplan and initiatives was set out at Appendix 2.

ORDERED that Executive:

1.     Approve the Council Plan workplan and associated outcomes, to assure achievement of the Council’s priorities for the 2024-27 period; and

2.     Agrees the delegation of approval for minor amendments to in-quarter timescales to the Chief Executive, through the corporate performance management framework and policy arrangements, with any significant variation to approach or deliverables, reported to and seeking approval via the quarterly corporate performance reports to Executive.

OPTIONS

It was imperative that the Council effectively articulated and communicated an overarching plan to direct activity across Directorates and services, towards the achievement of its priorities and ambitions.

The only other realistic potential decision would have been to leave the Council’s strategic objectives unchanged on the assumption they were sufficiently robust to address and achieve previously identified outcome measures. This, however, was not correct and neither would it represent an appropriate response to the needs of the town, it would detrimentally impact local communities and the business of the Council for some years ahead.

The only other feasible decisions, therefore, related to the structure of the document, and its horizon (i.e., reverting to an annual plan). It was strongly in the Council’s interest to plan over the medium-term, (between 3 – 5 years) in line with the indicative budgets over this period outlined by the Government. The proposed document achieved this whilst also providing an appropriate level of detail for all audiences on the Council’s planned activity over this period.

REASONS

To enable the Executive to endorse, following approval by full Council, the supporting workplan to the Council Plan 2024-27, ensuring that it was reflective of major developments of the past year, and those anticipated in the coming three years.