Agenda and minutes

The Chief Executive submitted a report, the purpose of which was to set out the Council’s approach to improving its productivity, that was already embedded within its current plans to transform and improve service delivery.

The report also proposed a draft productivity plan for the Council, which, if agreed, would be submitted to Government for consideration.  The report was considered as urgent as plans were to be submitted to Government by 19 July 2024.

The report outlined that on 16 April 2024, the then Minister for Local Government, Simon Hoare MP, wrote to all Local Authority Chief Executives asking councils to produce productivity plans, which was announced as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement.  Productivity plans were also required under the conditions accepted by the Council when it accepted the ‘in principle’ approval of £13.4m of Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) to enable a legally balanced budget to be set for 2024/25.

Appendix 1 set out the Council’s proposed response to this request, which included reference to background context; transformation programmes; performance management; data and analytics; demands on services and ensuring that the needs of all residents were met; workforce; barriers to progress; and next steps.

OPTIONS

Other potential decision(s) and why these have not been recommended

No other options were considered as they were not applicable to the report.

ORDERED that the proposed productivity plan, attached at Appendix 1 of the report, be agreed and submitted to Government.

REASONS

The decision was supported for the following reason:

For reasons outlined in the report.

As the report was considered under urgency provisions, the decision will come into force with immediate effect and is excluded from the call-in procedures.