Agenda item

The Mayor will be in attendance to provide the Board with an update on the Council’s Continuous Improvement Plan.

The reports attached for OSB’s consideration were considered and approved by Executive at its meeting of 3 March 2026.  

The Chair invited the Mayor to present the Continuous Improvement Plan update to the Board.

The Mayor stated there was a need to achieve a balance between finance and performance reporting and potential for different officer groups to provide updates to both Executive and OSB to demonstrate how the two disciplines would work together.

The Town Board, referenced in Appendix 1 of the report, would be Member led and would be the first step on a journey to close off recommendations made by the Middlesbrough Independent Improvement Board. The Chief Executive commented that during the Best Value period the Council had lost sight of what good looked like. However, there was now an opportunity to refine complex processes and demonstrate value for money. One mechanism to achieve this was to re-instate service action plans to improve monitoring across the Council. This would help show the health of the organisation more clearly and move towards integrating finance and performance reporting information.

The Chair thanked the Mayor for his update and invited questions from the Board. A Member queried if there was an update on the MDC action plan. The Mayor responded the action in question had been assigned to the Council in order to resolve the hiatus. There was a review being carried out and the Council was working with the TVCA to resolve the matter of asset return to the Council.

The Member continued by drawing the Mayor’s attention to page 81 of the report and queried how many audit days were planned for the year. It was commented a report on this matter would be submitted to Audit Committee in June.

Following a query about Independent Persons sitting on Audit Committee, it was also confirmed this issue would be addressed at the June meeting of Audit committee.

With regard to return of assets from the MDC, a Member asked if the Council had resources to develop those assets. It was confirmed the Council would likely enter into partnerships, where appropriate. It was commented it would likely be June before there was clarity on this matter.

A conversation took place regarding the effectiveness of the MDC during which it was commented there was a cautious approach to the return of assets and there was a need to get those initiatives back on track.

A question was raised regarding the Council’s approach to equality and diversity. It was commented there had been investment in the Council’s HR services and recognised good work had been carried out in this regard. A further question was raised about how data could be used to monitor continuous learning. It was commented the Council had worked with various partners and stakeholders to refresh the performance indicators it used to monitor the Council’s effectiveness in this area. This would be demonstrated over the coming months.

A Member raised a query about the status of the Crown after having attended several Local Plan meetings. It was agreed that when further clarity was available this issue would be brought back to the Board my means of an update.

AGREED that

1.     An update on the status of the Crown be brought back to OSB when further information was available. 

2.     The information presented be noted.