Corporate Plan 2025 - 2027
Argyll and Bute Council · 8 May 2025
Back to Policy and Resources Committee — 8 May 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL POLICY AND RESOURCES COMMITTEE CUSTOMER SUPPORT SERVICES 8 MAY 2025 CORPORATE PLAN 2025 - 2027 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 This report introduces the new Corporate Plan 2025 – 2027 which the Policy and Resources Committee is asked to consider and approve for onward transmission to Council. 2.0 RECOMMENDATIONS 2.1 The Policy and Resources Committee is asked to approve the new Corporate Plan, which contains the new Council Priorities, for onward transmission to the Council. 3.0 DETAIL 3.1 Members agreed revised strategic priorities at the Council meeting in September 2024. Those priorities replace the ones outlined in the previous Corporate Plan for 2023 – 2027 and can be found on the Council website here Priorities of Argyll and Bute Council | Argyll and Bute Council. 3.2 An updated Corporate Plan has now been developed to cover the remainder of the Council term to 2027 and includes these new priorities. 3.4 In the recently published Best Value Audit of the Council, the Accounts Commission recognised that since the change in Administration in 2024, they recognise that the Council now has many critical pieces of work in the pipeline. One of those is identified as the new Corporate Plan. This new Plan seeks to set the strategic direction for the Council, which will allow the Council to ensure financial sustainability as well as meeting the needs of service users across Argyll and Bute. 3.5 The new Plan maintains a clarity of vision, keeping the focus on the long term, sustainable future of the area in terms of population and economy. Population continues to be a challenge for our area, as we can see from the projected long-term decline. But it is important to remind ourselves that in 2012, the NRS projected that by 2022 our population would drop to 82,753. This did not happen, and our actual census position in 2022 was 87,810. Maintaining our
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focus is essential to turning this projected trend around and provides clarity for the alignment by all supporting strategies and policies. 3.6 The new Corporate Plan will be underpinned by more streamlined and focused performance reporting and the development of Key Performance Indicators to drive continuous improvement. Members will be aware of the ongoing Performance Excellence project, reported on regularly to the Audit and Scrutiny Committee, which sets the direction for delivering on this action. 4.0 CONCLUSION 4.1 A new Corporate Plan is now presented to the Policy and Resources Committee Council incorporating priorities agreed in September 2024 for approval. This sets the overall strategic framework for Council activities and is part of our overall Corporate Planning, Performance and Improvement Framework. It is a critical piece of work identified by the Accounts Commission and maintains clarity of vision for the long term future of council services for our communities. 5.0 IMPLICATIONS 5.1 Policy: The Corporate Plan sets out the strategic policy framework for the Council. 5.2 Financial: The Corporate Plan sets out the priorities and strategic direction of the Council which is important for ensuring financial stability. 5.3 Legal: The Corporate Plan is a critical document in ensuring that the Council delivers on its statutory duty of Best Value. 5.4 HR: None arising directly from this report. 5.5 Fairer Scotland Duty: An Integrated Impact Assessment for the Corporate Plan will be available on the Council website. 5.5.1 Equalities - protected characteristics: none arising directly from this report. 5.5.2 Socio-economic Duty: none arising directly from this report. 5.5.3 Islands: none arising directly from this report. 5.6 Climate Change: None arising directly from this report. 5.7 Risk: The new Corporate Plan mitigated the risk of failure to deliver on the agreed priorities of the Council.
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5.8 Customer Service: None arising directly from this report. 5.9 The Rights of the None arising directly from this report. Child (UNCRC): Pippa Milne, Chief Executive Council Leader, Jim Lynch April 2025 For further information contact: Jane Fowler, Head of Customer Support Service, jane.fowler@argyll-bute.gov.uk Carolyn Cairns, HROD Manager carolyn.cairns@argyll-bute.gov.uk Appendices Appendix 1: Corporate Plan 2025 – 2027