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Wiltshire Council Business Plan Principles 2022 to 2032

Your council

Wiltshire Council strives to be the highest performing council in the country and wants to deliver over and above its statutory duties.

To achieve this, we will continue to operate as an efficient organisation and we will work ambitiously with our partners, have strong checks and balances in place and a workforce that thrives on its opportunities to innovate and conduct critical analyses.

Our Identity is clear about the organisation we want to be and for our staff this means that they understand what is expected of them and what they can expect from us.

  • we are public servants, innovating and collaborating with partners and residents to build stronger communities
  • we are an evidence-based, high performing organisation, we reward achievement, recognise effort and are unequivocally focussed on making a difference and delivering the best outcomes for our residents
  • we are one Council, which is an inclusive and agile environment where we celebrate each other's successes, recognising that our residents don't live their lives in the compartmentalised way that services historically have run.

This will all be underpinned by the following principles.

Delivering value (financial, performance and risk management)

We set our budget based on the contribution that spending makes to delivering our vision and mission.

We have a business-like approach with an up-to-date commercial policy, good returns on our assets and clear business cases for everything we do. Our procurement processes consider the wider social value that can be delivered - for example, carbon reduction, smoking cessation and enabling local and other SMEs to tender for council contracts.

We enable sensible risk taking and report regularly on progress delivering the outcomes in the upcoming business plan.

The Business Plan will be supported by an annual corporate planning cycle which develops more detailed approaches and resource assessments for delivering each of the outcomes. These will be updated annually and used to inform the annual budget setting.

Progress will be monitored using performance measures that are Cabinet-approved and delivered in conjunction with the Council's Business Intelligence function.

Cabinet will receive combined finance, performance and risk reports on a quarterly basis.

Skilled, agile and engaged workforce

We ensure staff have the knowledge, skills and confidence to be able to respond flexibly, where decisions are underpinned by evidence and data and where we strive to be high performing.

Our Identity is embedded across the organisation and we will deliver a new People Strategy which encompasses organisational (service and job) design, behaviour, ways of working, upskilling, agile and flexible deployment and being able to respond to changing demands.

We build our own engaged and skilled workforce while attracting, selecting and recruiting the best staff - ensuring there is good ongoing recognition and engagement of staff.

Transformation and Business Change

We have clear insight into how our services work from the customer's point of view and measure how well they are performing.

We redesign services through a rigorous programme and project-based approach, with regular checkpoints and benefits analysis.

We create a culture within the Council which enables us to absorb, anticipate and adapt to change, creating organisational resilience through a cohesive vision shared by council officers across all services and supported by Members.

We establish the principles, standards and a framework for our range of projects across the council and develop and deliver a programme consisting of a balanced, affordable and deliverable portfolio that enables the council to meet its strategic aims and ambition.

We proactively identify opportunities to advance the council's strategy and vision through transformation initiatives that will deliver measurable performance and business improvement and culture change, embedding the vision set out in Our Identity.

There is clear coordination of transformation activity happening, we will bring services together, ensuring alignment with the business plan and key principles and preventing duplication of effort.

Transformational change is not only delivered successfully, but also embedded in the council's capabilities and operating models are as efficient and effective as possible, being fit-for-purpose in achieving our strategic aims.

Quality, timely and well-structured information and technology

We ensure the communities and businesses we serve can engage and transact with us responsively and seamlessly, irrespective of the services they access.

We empower decision makers with access to accurate, consistent and timely information that supports understanding and insight to deliver the best outcomes for our residents.

We invest and transform digital infrastructure to underpin all of Wiltshire's operations and services.

We redefine the digitally enabled democracy to provide simple but innovative ways to collaborate between residents, businesses and councillors.

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