Agenda item

On 19 October 2021, Full Council will discuss the adoption of a new 10-year Business Plan for Wiltshire Council. This will follow its consideration by Cabinet on 27 September 2021.

The Business Plan sets the council’s overarching strategy and its purpose is to enable Chief Officers to lead and manage the organisation to achieve the priorities and objectives set by elected members. In September, each select committee will be invited to comment on Business Plan priorities relevant to their remits, with comments being referred to Cabinet to consider at its meeting on 27 September 2021.

The final Business Plan will be an influential document when OS is developing its forward work programme, with experience showing that OS is most impactful when it focuses on the council’s key priorities. Alongside select committee engagement on the Business Plan, the chairs and vice-chairs will be meeting with their Executive counterparts and directors during September to gain a more informed understanding of plans and projects and to discuss how OS can engage most constructively. These two processes should lead to a well-developed OS forward work programme that reflects the key priorities of the council.

The Business Plan sets out the council’s overarching principles by which the organisation would be managed. The current plan was set out for 2017-27. This had been updated on 21 July 2020 to include an addendum relating to climate change.

Following the election in May 2021 the Business Plan had been reviewed and a draft Business Plan Principles 2022-32 was circulated to Overview and Scrutiny members on 18 September 2021 and then published as detailed in Agenda Supplement 2. The Select Committees each met informally on 20 September 2021 to discuss the draft document.

Councillor Richard Clewer, Leader of the Council, supported by the Chief Executive, Terence Herbert, and other members of the Executive, presented the draft Business Plan. It was explained that the document was intended to serve as the guiding principles for the organisation, and would inform service delivery plans, and metrics would then be used to measure the performance of the council in meeting those guiding principles. It was intended that a finalised version of the Business Plan principles together with service plans would be considered by Full Council in February 2022.

The Leader detailed the approach taken in developing the Business Plan principles, focusing strategically on systemic problems and how to bring resources together across all areas to address them, rather than services operating in isolation. The guiding themes including of prevention and early intervention, improving social mobility and tacking inequalities, understanding communities, and integration, were detailed.

The Chairman of each Select Committee then raised points discussed at the informal meetings which had considered the draft document. In addition to textual suggestions there were comments relating to references to delivery of housing, scrutiny influence on annual corporate planning, the involvement of scrutiny on transformation of council services, and how the themes could be reviewed by the Select Committee structure. There were comments that the document was not detailed on some of the specific challenges that the council faced or was not specific enough in relation to young people, with some previous commitments reduced. In response the Leader noted that much detail would be within service delivery plans, and the guiding principles would not be an exhaustive list of specific challenges or proprosals.

Other points raised in discussion included the need for further scrutiny of the developing service plans to accompany the Business Plan. Some Committee members noted the changed approach from the previous Business Plan and sought details of measuring if it had achieved its aims. The Leader considered that the two plans were structured and would be monitored in very different ways, and did not consider it would be appropriate to expend resources examining the details of the previous Plan as the new Plan was developed. Some also raised that whilst the Business Plan set out broad themes, that they felt it was important to be explicit around inclusion of children and young people issues. The importance, through the Plan, of working with partners such as parish councils, was discussed.

At the conclusion of discussion, it was,

Resolved:

1)    To ask Cabinet to take note of the comments of the Committee on the Wiltshire Council Business Plan Principles 2022-32 document, which will be set out in the minutes to be approved by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman.

2)    To note that a final, more detailed Wiltshire Council Business Plan 2022-32 would be presented to Full Council in February 2022. 

3)    That the Leader, Chairman and Vice-Chairman will agree the timetable for further scrutiny input on the Business Plan, to be reported back to all select committees.