Corporate Strategy 2021 – 2025
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Contents:
This Corporate Strategy sets out the key priorities, activities and campaigns that the Council will pursue over Page 2. Our Vision the next four years. Page 3. The Council’s Strategic Framework Its themes and design principles have been developed in consultation with Members, lead officers and our Page 4. Budget partners. Page 6. The Councils Priorities The strategy builds on good practice and strong Page 7. Strategic Priority 1: Pride in our leadership and is intended to foster an innovative culture communities, places and environment where continuous improvement is everyone’s Page 8. Priority Outcome 2: First rate futures for 8 responsibility. children & young people, quality support for our Our commitment and aspirations for the next four years adults and elderly will be communicated to the public through a variety of channels and conversations so they know what to expect Page 9. Priority Outcome 3: Better jobs, good homes from us and can hold us to account. and improved opportunities for all We hope the ambition and themes are inclusive and Page 10. Enablers, Themes, Design Principles engaging and this strategy encourages leaders, Page 11. Performance employees, partners, stakeholders, customers, businesses and residents across our City to participate in the design, development and delivery of public service.
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Our Vision:
“To create together a Peterborough residents are proud to live, work and grow up in and where services deliver what local people need and give value for money”
This strategy signals a strong commitment to:
- Our communities, seeking engagement and contribution, ensuring everyone can play a part in improving their own lives and the lives of others living in Peterborough; and 9 - Our environment, which is central to how we think and act. Reversing the trend of increasing consumption and delivering on our commitments to becoming a truly sustainable city.
Peterborough City Council has been developing an ambitious programme of change, with a determination to improve lives for local people despite an increasingly challenging financial context.
This work has prepared the Council well for the next period of significant challenge and change when the demand for our services is expected to continue to grow, in line with the rapidly increasing Peterborough population, the urgent need to tackle the climate emergency, and the available funding for our services set to decrease.
We recognise that we are one organisation in a hugely complicated system, where everyone has a role to play. Building a whole system approach around shared priorities, community outcomes and cost efficiencies is a crucial part of the Council’s response to this context and requires a greater degree of collaboration between local public services, voluntary, community and faith sectors, other providers, local businesses, partners and the public than has ever previously been experienced in Local Government.
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
The Council’s Strategic Framework
The Council’s current plans and strategies will be brought together into one framework to drive a shared vision for Peterborough. The strategic framework will focus on achieving positive outcomes for individuals and communities through the following elements:
A Corporate Strategy, describing the vision for Peterborough, the outcomes we strive for and our priorities for change; A set of ambitious performance measures which will be used to hold us to account for improvement; The Council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy, which describes how we will commission and deliver services to deliver outcomes within the resources we have; 10 A suite of key strategies describing the management of core activities e.g. finances, workforce, digital services and assets; A set of partnership agreements and action plans which describe multi-agency approaches to deliver improved outcomes across Peterborough; A Council wide ambitious programme of transformation to ensure that we are making the best use of the resources we have to deliver the best possible services at the right time and in the right place. A Strategic Performance Management and Improvement Framework which provides insight across a range of comparable Value for Money and Performance data for services within the main funding streams relating to Peterborough City Council
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Budget:
The Council has been operating within a challenging financial environment following years of austerity measures, low funding, and rising demand for Council services. Despite all of this the Council has continued to perform well, providing vital services to its 202,000 residents, whilst at the same time managing demand and keeping expenditure low.
The diagram on the right gives an overview of the Council’s income for the 2021/22 budget.
11 Funding from Central Government has significantly reduced over the years. The diagram to the right shows that the Revenue Support Grant only equates to 2.5% of the Council’s total funding. A significant reduction compared against previous years.
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Budget:
The diagram below outlines the Council’s current expenditure and shows how spend is distributed and how we plan to
spend our £423.4m across a range of council services.
In Peterborough we have a robust approach to financial management, which includes monthly budget monitoring, expenditure controls and a rolling budget setting programme that allows us to identify where savings and investment need to be made. 12
Based on our current plans, we estimate that the Council will need to continue to make further savings over the next four years, where we are proactively planning to meet these financial pressures.
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Our Priorities: Priority Outcomes Pride in our communities, our places and First rate futures for our children & young Better jobs, good homes and improved our environment: people, quality support for our adults and opportunities for all: elderly:
Peterborough is a clean, safe and Peterborough’s Children and Young Peterborough continues to sustainable city providing a welcoming People all have the best start in life to sustainably grow, is a thriving and environment, with a strong arts, culture enable them to realise their full connected city attracting 13 and leisure offer for its citizens and potential businesses, investment and tourism visitors Good quality education, skills and Job opportunities are available People are able to utilise spaces in training, which is accessible for all, enabling people to be economically Peterborough for walking, cycling, enabling children and young people independent recreation and their health and wellbeing the best opportunities All adults have access to skills Communities and neighbourhoods value People are safe and protected from training to increase their and respect each other and are involved risk or harm employment and volunteering in making choices that affect their people, opportunities places and environment People are able to support themselves and their communities, leading to The availability and choice of The city works together as one to address improved health and wellbeing and housing increases as Peterborough the climate emergency, getting us on the ability to retain their independence grows and becomes more path to net zero emissions by 2030 sustainable
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Priority Outcome 1: Pride in our communities, our places and our environment: Peterborough is a vibrant, diverse and exciting place to live, work and visit and we want everyone to feel welcome, and enjoy all that it has to offer. The council and its partners and communities remain committed to ensuring that our City is clean, safe and inviting whilst working collaboratively across the city to address the climate emergency.
The impact of the recent pandemic has underlined the importance of accessible public spaces to support the health and wellbeing of our residents, be it for walking, cycling or recreation. We will continue to ensure that these are well maintained areas which are clean, safe and accessible and continue to embrace our arts and culture offer to ensure there are ‘places to go and things to do’ for all residents and visitors.
14 Our voluntary, community and faith sector has been at forefront of the COVID-19 response providing a range of support including food delivery, information and advice, befriending support and reaching out to vulnerable and hard to reach communities. We will continue to engage, support and work with them to ensure we not only maintain a thriving voluntary, community and faith sector across the city, but also to ensure our Communities and neighbourhoods are cohesive and involved in making choices that affect their people, places and environment.
We will work together as a community to support greater integration, helping to build bridges between different parts of the community, tackling social isolation and contributing to making Peterborough a safe, friendly place.
"We want safe, friendly and healthy neighbourhoods with open spaces, roads, pavements and cycle paths that are well maintained and free from litter and mess"
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Priority Outcome 2: First rate futures for our children & young people, quality support for our adults and elderly:
Children and Young People are a priority to this Council and we remain committed to working with our partners and communities to improve outcomes to ensure Peterborough’s Children and Young People all have the best start in life to enable them to realise their potential.
We want to ensure that every child and young person across the City has access to good quality Education, Skills and Training that meets their educational needs. This will enable them every chance to have the best possible opportunities and life chances and to 15 achieve the best academic results they can for their future.
We are committed to extending our work with partners and communities, supporting and enabling people to do more for themselves from within their local community, improving their health and wellbeing and enabling them to live independently for as long as possible.
We will ensure the needs of the most vulnerable are met, and that children and adults are safe and protected from harm or the risk of harm are a priority.
"We want to improve opportunities for education and training and to help people to do more for themselves, for each other and for their communities”
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Priority Outcome 3: Better jobs, good homes and improved opportunities for all: Peterborough is a City of growth - We want to ensure that as the City grows, it continues to do so in a sustainable way.
By ensuring that Peterborough is a thriving and well connected City, we will continue to develop our partnerships with local businesses, as well as attract new businesses and new investment, therefore creating job opportunities, boosting the City’s economy and the financial independence of all residents.
Outstanding education and economic opportunity supports people to thrive in the changing and challenging environment. By ensuring that all adults have access to the right skills and training that match the needs of the local economy, this will enable people to not only increase their employment opportunities but also their chances to be economically independent.
16 We have committed to the development of a University in the City which will not only provide even greater opportunities for learning and development, but will assist in both attracting and retaining talent in the City.
As Peterborough grows and becomes more sustainable, we will ensure that the availability and choice of housing increases to meet the needs of the City. We will increase the supply of homes which people can afford, continue to improve the conditions of existing housing to support health and wellbeing, and ensure that there is a range of supported and specialist accommodation available.
"We will grow our city in a sustainable and fair way to create job opportunities and address poverty. As we grow, we will invest in the quality and availability of housing"
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Themes & Design Principles:
To support our priorities, a set of themes and design principles have been developed to be applied across the whole council, its directorates and services. In addition, we will look again at the values and behaviours we expect from each other as we work together. When taken together and consistently these themes, principles and values will drive innovation and change across the Council.
Council-wide themes to deliver change
Building strong Pursue and access the Systematically involve our relationships with our Ensure our new Local Increase our commercial
17 right investment and Target services more citizens in the design, partners to ensure we Authority Trading activity to ensure we are infrastructure from the effectively, so that the development, and - where work together Company works in maximising revenue and Combined Authority and right services reach the appropriate - delivery of effectively in our ways and in places that minimising the cost to the Government to support right residents. our services. commissioning and matter to citizens tax payer our economy delivery of services
Council-wide design principles
Meet need in a Develop more Get better at way that Focus on Support citizen forward looking Be committed collaboration - Focus on modern, improves the communities, self-service Be business-like information to continuous across the Council automated and quality of life and places and the wherever and commercial which guides learning and and across the lean delivery. reduces environment possible actions and improvement System. inequalities decision making.
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Peterborough City Council - Corporate Strategy 2021 - 2025
Performance:
We have developed a Strategic Performance Management and Improvement Framework which provides insight across a range of comparable Value for Money and Performance data for services within the main funding streams relating to Peterborough City Council. We have brought this together to provide strong performance reporting to enable us to take a strategic view across all portfolios and allow us to review our performance to make sure that we are monitoring, delivering on our aims and continuing to make progress towards our vision, priorities and objectives. By linking the Performance Management and Improvement Framework to our Strategy, it will help us to: Clearly articulate our priorities and desired outcomes Provide and demonstrate value for money 18 Provide good services and satisfaction for users and the local community Improve performance Motivate and manage our staff
Performance overviews are provided annually, and a bi-monthly ‘deep dive’ into performance is provided to enable Cabinet to review the performance of any particular area in detail within the context of the overall strategy. If performance is not at the expected standard, the Council will implement an improvement programme, as well as taking a report to the Cabinet explaining the situation and what action is being taken to get back on track.
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