Issue - meetings

At its meeting on 26 April 2017 the Executive Committee considered a report which detailed the year two refresh of the Council Plan and RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that the Council Plan refresh be ADOPTED.

19.1           At its meeting on 1 February 2017, the Executive Committee had considered a report which detailed the year two refresh of the 2016/20 Council Plan. The Executive Committee had recommended to Council that the Council Plan refresh be adopted.

19.2           The report which was considered by the Executive Committee had been circulated with the Agenda for the current meeting at Pages No. 45-69. 

19.3           The recommendation was proposed by the Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee. He indicated that the Council Plan was a rolling programme with the only real changes being actions that had now been delivered being replaced with new actions which were needed to help the Council achieve its objectives.

19.4           During the discussion which ensued, a Member advised that he was happy to approve the refresh of the Plan but there was one area upon which he would like clarification. He indicated that one of the priorities was to maximise growth at the M5 junctions within the Borough and he questioned how this could be achieved in practice, particularly with regard to the planning process. In response, he was advised that economic development was a key issue for the Council and, in planning terms, policies in the Joint Core Strategy and Tewkesbury Borough Plan needed to align; however, the Council Plan was not a planning policy. The Chief Executive explained that the Council delivered on its Council Plan though its own Policy framework and this was closely linked to the national policy framework; the Joint Core Strategy and Borough Plan would be the decision-making framework which was used by Members at Planning Committee. The Council Plan was supported by a whole range of policies and Pages No. 5 and 7 of the Plan showed how it aligned to the Joint Core Strategy and Borough Plan.

19.5           Another Member referred to the statistics included within the document at Page No. 3 of the plan, and questioned whether they needed to be refreshed. She also queried whether the pictures would be refreshed and whether weblinks could be included in the document so that, when other plans and policies were referenced, they could be accessed easily. In response, she was advised that the statistics were up to date, that the pictures had been refreshed and that the idea of adding weblinks to the document was a good suggestion. In terms of the Council’s policy on commercial investments, a Member indicated that it would be useful to understand the yield for all investments made, and proposed to be made, on an annual basis. In response, the Chief Executive explained that those figures were provided to the Council and the appropriate Committees, and monitored through the Transform Working Group and the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, but they would not be put into the Council Plan as it was a high level document which did not contain commercially sensitive information. 

19.6           Accordingly, it was

                  RESOLVED          That the Council Plan refresh be ADOPTED.

To consider the Council Plan refresh and make a recommendation to Council.  

That it be  RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL that the Council Plan refresh be ADOPTED.  

92.1           The report of the Head of Corporate Services, circulated at Pages No. 66-90, set out a refresh of the 2016-20 Council Plan. Members were asked to consider the Plan, and actions proposed for year two, and recommend it to the Council for adoption.   

92.2           The Head of Corporate Services explained that the Council Plan was a key strategic document which established an overarching vision for the Borough and set out, in broad terms, the priorities, objectives and actions that the Council would focus upon to work towards its vision. The 2016-20 Plan had been approved by the Council in April 2016 and, as with the previous Council Plan, the actions under each priority theme were reviewed on an annual basis and refreshed where appropriate. In terms of the current refresh, it was proposed that the vision, values and priority themes remain unchanged. Each of the four themes: Finance and Resources; Economic Development; Housing; and Customer Focused Services were supported by a series of key objectives and actions to focus activity on delivery of the priorities and, whilst it was also proposed that the key objectives remain unchanged, the actions - which tended to be of an operational nature - would need to be updated where appropriate to reflect progress made during the year. All amendments and new actions were clearly shown on Pages No. 6-9 of the Plan and a summary was set out at Appendix 2 to the report. Examples of changes to current actions included the deletion of the action ‘to develop and roll out a new website’ as the project had been successfully completed in November 2016 and the inclusion of a new action to ‘develop a new garden waste system’ as this was a new project which was being set up.

92.3           Members welcomed the changes proposed and, accordingly, it was