Meeting documents

1 THE ISSUE

1.1 This report presents the Council's Corporate Plan 2003 - 2007 (in draft) for consideration by the Council Executive and for recommendation to full Council for adoption. It follows approval by the Executive and Full Council of the Corporate Plan Framework in November 2003.

2 RECOMMENDATION

2.1 The Council Executive is asked to:

a) Receive and consider the Corporate Plan 2003 - 2007 (as attached as draft), noting that this document incorporates the Financial Plan and recognising that this Plan is intended to supersede the Framework document approved by Full Council in November 2003;

b) Recommend to full Council the Corporate Plan 2003 - 2007 (incorporating the Financial Plan) for adoption as a Policy & Budget Framework item, superseding the framework document approved by Council in November;

c) Authorise the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Executive Member Resources and the Executive Member Economic Development, to make presentational improvements to the Corporate Plan prior to submission to Council.

3

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

3.1 The Corporate Plan subsumes the Council's 4-year Financial Plan, ensuring that decision making on priorities and resource allocation is fully aligned.

4 BACKGROUND

4.1 Prior to November the Council had a series of individual plans and strategies, but no umbrella plan. That umbrella role has traditionally been played by the Council Strategy and subsequently the Financial Plan, which was the one place where the Council's priorities have been resolved. Whilst this has worked quite well (the Council has been complimented by CPA and District Audit for our planning in this regard) it has inevitably meant that budget requirements have tended to dominate the Council's plans, without establishing the necessary linkages with service requirements. On occasion this has meant that service targets designed to achieve member priorities for the community have not been achieved because the necessary levels of resources have not been allocated.

4.3 The Corporate Plan has been developed by the Council Executive via a working party made up of Executive (Cllrs Hanney, Darracott, Todd, Crossley and Haeberling) and non- Executive (Cllrs P Gay and Gerrish) Councillors.

5. CONSULTATION

5.1 The lead Executive Councillors have discussed the preparation of the Corporate Plan with Trade Union representatives and representatives have attended the Corporate Plan Working Party as observers. The Council Executive will meet with Trades Union representatives on January 28^th to discuss both this Corporate Plan and the draft Budget for 2004/05.