Issue - meetings

NEW CORPORATE PRIORITIES AND PLAN

The Board considered a report which sought its views in respect of the proposed new draft corporate priorities and the outline timetable for developing a new corporate plan in order to support the Council with the development of new corporate priorities and a corporate plan to provide the strategic framework for managing its business and resources effectively.  The Executive would be invited to agree the priorities for public consultation purposes at its meeting on 21 January 2020.

Although the Council approved its current Corporate Plan for the period 2018 to 2023 at its meeting on 15 May 2018, since the Borough Council elections in May 2019, members of the Executive had discussed new corporate priorities and these had been the subject of a workshop for all councillors held on 13 November 2019.

The following points arose from questions, comments and discussion:

·             The Citizens’ Panel was a demographically balanced consultative group with a membership of 1,000 people selected by a company to be representative of the local population in terms of age, gender etc and not exclude any group.

·             The consultation in respect of the corporate priorities would include an online survey to ensure that all residents and stakeholders had an opportunity to submit views and a telephone survey to provide a representative response to the identified priorities.

·             Although the priorities were generally supported and would be further developed with refined and focused outcomes, the following comments were made:

o      the priority “Providing the housing that people need” should be more clearly defined to reflect the need for affordable housing located in the urban areas to protect the greenbelt.

o      the wording of the priority “Regenerating Guildford town centre” should include a reference to producing a town centre masterplan to guide regeneration in order to make Guildford a nicer place for people to live and work.

o      There should be a priority “Making it easier for people to live and work closer together” to reduce commuting and congestion whilst tackling climate change.