Agenda item

The Cabinet considered a report of the Chief Executive which presented the draft refresh of the Council Plan for the four-year period 2025-2029 before it was submitted to Council for approval (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Leader of the Council informed Cabinet that the refreshed Council Plan was now the fourth of its type since a review was undertaken in June 2022. Many of the issues faced by Council could not be solved by the Council alone. The Joint Administration of the Council had recognised the critical importance of working in partnership with others across the public, private, voluntary and community sectors. The updated Council Plan covered the period 2025 to 2029 and did not, and could not, include a list of everything the Council carried out. It was underpinned by a wide range of specific strategies and service specific action plans.

As a direct result of this years’ consultation, the plan provided more detail on how the Council would achieve its ambitions. The focus of the Council remained steady and like last year, the plan set out ambitions to support our economy, our people, our environment and our communities. It was important to ensure that resources continued to be used in a transparent and effective way and in line with the Medium Term Financial Plan.

The Leader of the Council referred to the peer review challenge which would take place later in the year. This would inevitably put more of a focus on the quality of strategic planning. This process would be informed by the government's best value standards which stated that well-functioning councils provided quality leadership by setting a clearly articulated, achievable and prioritised vision for officers to follow up. The vision must also put place, and local people, at its heart and the Council Plan did just that.

Over the last year, the Joint Administration had delivered on things that mattered to local people and local communities. The Council faced ongoing challenges in 2025, driven by increasing demand for council services whilst resources remained scarce. As such, prioritisation was key and it was important to allocate resources carefully and ensure delivery. The plan provided the common denominator for those functions.

Councillor R Bell, Deputy Leader of the Council commented that there had been a focus on using plain English and a much improved presentational style. He felt that the Council had clearly listened to business and local communities who had responded.

Councillor A Shield, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Equality and Inclusion spoke of the characteristics of a well-run Authority. The Council Plan was intelligence lead, evidence based and ensured that performance is monitored, measured and held to account, with clear and effective mechanisms to scrutinise across all areas. The evidence clarified that the Joint Administration were by no means ‘a coalition of chaos’ a termed by the opposition members and were, in fact a well-functioning authority.

Councillor E Scott, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Economy and Partnerships said that the progress made under the Joint Administration was cause for celebration.

Councillor J Shuttleworth, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Rural Communities and Highways highlighted that hard work had continued across County Durham and spoke of the improvement in the condition of classified roads, the restoration of historical Baileys in the City of Durham and Whorlton Bridge, the additional investment in the Public Rights of Way network and the award winning cleansing of streets and pavements as well as being trailblazers for carbon zero work. Councillor Shuttleworth added that the rural nature of County needed to be built into all plans.

Councillor Wilkes, Cabinet Portfolio for Neighbourhoods and Climate Change said that the real impacts of climate change were now being seen across the world with accelerated extreme weather events all being linked to Climate Change. It was therefore encouraging to see the prominence of environmental issues being brought to the forefront of Council decision making, demonstrating a forward thinking authority.

Councillor C Hood, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Adult and Health Services highlighted that health and wellbeing were very much at the forefront of the Joint Administration and would continue to be.

Resolved:

That the recommendations contained in the report be approved.