Breckland Council's Corporate Plan

Ourcouncil

Breckland is a Council that cares, listens, and supports people and businesses within our district. We are proud of our district, and as an organisation we are working hard to make it a place where people and businesses can thrive, inspiring them to live, work, visit or do business here.

Our Corporate Plan sets out what we’re going to do to make this happen and how we plan to do this. Through our actions we want to make things better. But we know we can’t do this alone, which is why we work together with others to make a greater impact. This includes a commitment to leading our area into a greener future, in partnership with others, so that we – and future generations – can continue to enjoy and benefit from our natural environment.

As a council, we have big ideas and challenge ourselves to come up with new and creative ways to meet the needs of the communities we serve, especially those who need our help the most. We are also an employer that encourages our staff to grow and develop, empowering them to achieve their full potential and deliver for our district.

Our district

Breckland spans over 500 square miles of beautiful countryside and forest in the heart of Norfolk. We boast a range of thriving rural village communities as well as five bustling market towns of Attleborough, Dereham, Swaffham, Thetford and Watton. The area’s rural nature is characterised by its 112 parishes, numerous villages and low crime rate, making Breckland one of the most attractive and safe places to live in the UK.

Breckland, with over 60,400 households (in 2021), is a growing district. In fact, we’ve been amongst the highest growth local authority areas across England and Wales in the last 10 years. Although whilst growing we are also aging, with a higher proportion of older residents and a median age of 46 (compared to a national average of 40).

The district’s population is set to grow further from the current 140,500 residents to 159,400 by 2041. Half of the current residents live in one of the five market towns with the emainder living in rural village homes, which means our population is thinly spread across much of the district.

Agriculture, advanced engineering and manufacturing, logistics and forestry are the dominant business sectors with professional, scientific, and technical and food processing not far behind.

Breckland’s local economy continues to grow, bringing new employment to the area. Thetford and Attleborough are key areas for future housing and business growth which is expected to deliver economic benefits for the whole district.

Our Partners

Partnership is at the heart of our approach, and key to us being an effective district council. Many of our services are provided in this way, including: our award-winning Anglia Revenues Partnership; our tripartite waste and recycling contract with Kings Lynn & West Norfolk Borough Council and North Norfolk District Council; our pan-Norfolk procurement service; and our local collaborations with the NHS and voluntary sector partners.

We work with partners to agree shared priorities that we all support. For example, our Future Breckland Board – represented by the private, public, voluntary, and skills/education sectors –has been set up to help support major investment decisions and make sure we work in a joined-up way.

We also recognise the important role of the different tiers of local government in improving the lives of residents across Norfolk. By working closely with our towns, parishes, and the county council, we want our residents and businesses to be able to enjoy seamless and joined-up local services.

Our long-term vision

Through this plan, and the work we will be progressing over this plan period, we’ll be setting out some clearer guiding principles and a vision for the long-term future of the District. Whilst the focus of our current plan is on what we can achieve in the next four-years, we want to make sure we are creating a longer-term view of the kind of District we want to build for ourselves and future generations.

Our ethos – Breckland Cares

Building on the existing work of our services and support, our Breckland Cares campaign programme continues to shine a light on some of issues that are most important to us and our communities. This targeted activity is part of our commitment to make sure that when we say we care about something we do something about it.

Our corporateplan

This Corporate Plan sets out our approach to delivering a vision for the district and the people we serve. It builds on the achievements of the plan we launched in 2021, and is intended to update the Council’s priorities to reflect a new political leadership team and a changed set of local circumstances.

This includes tackling the challenges of major cost of living pressures and constraints on public spending; whilst seeking to position the District to benefit from the opportunties of rapidly changing technology and the national economy.

Evolving our successful approach to date, the Council will work through an ambitious programme for the future based around three key themes:

Inspiring Communities: Enabling everyone to lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives.

Thriving Places: Creating opportunities for skilled jobs and economic grow.

Working Smarter 2035: Protecting our environment – now and for future generations; and putting customers first by delivering quality, value-for-money services that meet their needs.

You can find out more about what we plan to do to achieve the goals within these themes over the following pages. Our priorities focus on bringing about positive outcomes for individuals, communities and businesses and are nationally-recognised for their innovation.

We don’t limit ourselves to the statutory services we have to deliver; we are focussed on doing what will make the most difference locally.

Through this plan we want to challenge ourselves – and others – on the critical role that a district council, like Breckland, can play in improving the lives and experiences of its residents and businesses.

We want to build on the many strengths of our local communities so that everyone can lead happy, healthy, fulfilling lives in Breckland – supporting people through targeted services that make a difference. We care, and we want to be there when people need us most. We want all our residents to enjoy quality of life, have a place they can call home in Breckland, and feel proud to be here.

We will do this by providing excellent, accessible services that recognise and support the different needs of our residents and local areas, and enable stronger, more resilient communities. As a member of the Health and Wellbeing Partnership and wider Integrated Care System, we will play our part in levelling up health inequalities and care, especially for the most vulnerable residents in our communities.

What we will achieve

Through this plan we will deliver on the following key outcomes:

• To address vulnerability and care for the most disadvantaged members of our communities to improve their quality of life

• To work with partners to tackle health inequalities through our Health & Wellbeing Partnership and Integrated Care System

• To improve the health and wellbeing of Breckland’s residents by providing enhanced leisure facilities and wellbeing activities

• To take a lead role in joining up partners and people to make best use of shared resources.

How we will do it

Working with our partners to achieve these outcomes, we will:

• Continue to deliver our Community Grants scheme;

• Provide early help services that care for and support our vulnerable residents and prevent crisis level support;

• Prevent homelessness in the district;

• Make sure that our residents have suitable, safe, and secure homes;

• Continue to take a robust approach to Anti-Social Behaviour; and noisy neighbours;

• Work with communities to make sure we have plans to respond to – and recover from – local emergencies;

• Play our part in tackling health inequalities;

• Help to enhance leisure and wellbeing provision within the district;

• Make sure that our regulatory services continue to protect residents and visitors to Breckland;

• Help enable our communities to be resilient and thrive.

• Increase tree canopy cover by planting trees in the right locations, working with the right partners, as part of a districtwide tree planting strategy;

• Increase uptake and education on waste and recycling, through our waste contract;

• Support our businesses to dispose of their waste in a sustainable way through expanding our trade waste scheme;

• Grow our approach to environmental enforcement to protect our natural environment, taking a zero-tolerance approach to such crimes;

• Continue to monitor air quality in the district;

• Make sure our larger industrial businesses are compliant with air quality standards.

Breckland Council will support positive growth in the local economy, and through its Future Breckland programme bring forward and shape large-scale projects and activities, to unlock employment and housing opportunities. By listening to people, by understanding what they need, and by working together, we can shape what we have to offer in our places to benefit those who are already here and those who choose to come – to live, work, visit or do business.

We will work with communities, partners, and businesses to continue to set – and deliver – a long-term vision for how we want our places to be shaped and thrive, as we continue to respond to the changing world around us.

What we will achieve

Through this plan we will deliver on the following key outcomes:

• To help Towns and villages thrive, helping them achieve their unique potential and support their positive growth in the future

• To help our high streets and local businesses succeed through continued collaboration and further proactive engagement

• To secure or attract investment for local priorities and make the district an attractive place for businesses and residents – both current and new.

How we will do it

To achieve these outcomes, we will:

• Deliver on the mandate set to us through the ‘Future Breckland’ Programme – bringing forward priority projects across the District, both big and small, and continuing to work with communities to ensure plans are delivered;

• Proactively work with partners at a local level to deliver Breckland’s priorities;

• Improve the volume and value of local job opportunities, helping grow the number of jobs available to residents in the District;

• Lead a new local skills agenda, bringing partners together to target local priority needs, and set an agenda for longterm change;

• Help bring more activity and creativity into high streets and locations across the District, helping drive footfall and attract new visitors;

• Work through the planning system, and with partners, to help increase the supply of housing, particularly in areas of priority need;

• Use our enforcement powers to support confidence in the businesses that operate in Breckland, and protect the quality of our places;

• Focus on the support we provide to our businesses, new and old;

• Work with partners to ensure Breckland’s strategic infrastructure needs – transport, digital, walking and cycling –are understood and being supported;

• Attract new investment and Government support and funding for key programmes.

• Shape our planning service and the Local Plan to deliver our sustainability goals;

• Deliver a strategy for electric vehicle charging across the district that will increase the number of locations where there are charging points.

We are a dynamic, innovative organisation that embraces new, environmentally-friendly ways of working, delivering a nationallyrecognised programme of change designed to help us put residents and businesses at the heart of everything we do.

Our aim is to continually improve the delivery of services so that we are not only meeting or exceeding customer need, but also offering valuefor-money. We do this through building strong and trusted relationships with our partners, and by developing a high-performance work culture. Enabling remote working has seen us break down the barriers of sitespecific working, so members and officers are empowered and enabled to work at the location and time which meets business demand and best supports the delivery of high-quality services.

Through our culture of trust, support and empowerment, we aim to be an employer and partner of choice: where others want to work for – and with – us. Together, we can make great things happen for our district. Our approach to working in a greener, more sustainable way, will underpin everything we do as an organisation, informing the decisions we make and the actions we take: from how we collect waste and recycle, and what our towns and villages will look like in the future, through to how we use our own office spaces.

We recognise that as a community leader, we have a responsibility to take positive action in support of this. The way we plan to do to this is set out in our ‘Breckland 2035’ Sustainability Strategy.

What we will achieve

Through this plan we will deliver on the following key outcomes:

• Provide exceptional services in a flexible way to meet our residents’, businesses’, visitors’, and partners’ needs, ensuring services are accessible to all

• Continue to innovatively use our resources to produce a balanced budget to enable the delivery of our (statutory and additional) services

• Make sure we are using the best mix of service delivery models to deliver value for our residents and businesses

• Continue to reduce our carbon footprint and enable residents to take actions for themselves

• Protect and enhance our outstanding local environment through proactive action to prevent environmental crime

• Support and enable communities and businesses to protect their local environment and reduce carbon emissions, taking enforcement action where needed

• Continue driving efficiency and innovation through our waste and recycling contract - to not only deliver strong performance and efficiency, but to educate our residents about reducing waste

How we will do it

To achieve these outcomes, we will:

• Develop a ‘smarter working’ organisation using data to better predict, plan for and provide services;

• Review our ICT systems to improve customer experience and reduce costs;

• Invest in digital service delivery, including our website, giving customers more choice, control and convenience in how they access our services – and giving us more time to spend with those who need extra support;

• Deliver a financially sustainable balanced budget in the short, medium & long term; through prudent investment and cost-saving plans;

• Maximise external funding income and undertake external borrowing to invest in our priorities where the business case supports this;Protect the organisation by making sure we are well-governed, democratically accountable, and legally compliant;

• Support and empower our people to be the best they can be through wellbeing support, development, and training;

• Promote our council to protect and enhance its reputation, helping us to attract and retain high-calibre staff; and making sure we are seen to be a partner of choice to work with others across the district, and beyond;

• Work towards delivering the council’s target to be NetZero by 2035, embedded in the wider Corporate Plan through a range of plans and activities:

• Make improvements to our buildings and explore renewable energy options to reduce their carbon footprint.

In addition to the Corporate Plan’s three themes, Breckland Council continues its commitment to delivering a programme of caring activity spanning the entire organisation and focusing on all its people, including our staff, our residents and our businesses.

The Breckland Cares programme is focused on driving projects and activity which helps us deliver on our commitments to support our communities, especially our younger people and our most vulnerable residents, as well as creating a caring culture for our staff and elected members.

Breckland Cares includes a range of projects which are delivering specific and important changes. We will develop plans that include:

• Strengthening our commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant;

• Reviewing the Council’s policies to ensure we are an inclusive employer;

• Providing mental health training and awareness to support our communities; and

• Under the banner of Health & Wellbeing, shining a spotlight on workplace health.

We are proud to be a forward-thinking organisation that cares, and we will continue to take action, alongside our partners, to ensure we deliver meaningful change within our organisation and across the district.

Our focus for the remaining term of the Corporate Plan will be:

Future Breckland

In 2021 the Council concluded one of its biggest-ever pieces of planning work, looking at the next 10 years’ priorities for each of our Market Towns and their surrounding areas, based on the specific tangible projects our communities want to see brought forward.

Building on this, we are now developing a wider suite of plans and commitments, intended to set – and work towards – a bold and positive vision for the future of the District where:

• There are sufficient homes, of different types and tenure, to meet the diversity of needs of our community – and homes which are good quality, and provide beautiful places for our communities to live in

• Everyone has access to quality healthcare and local services, which are designed to keep up with expected population growth

• Young people have a diversity of career options locally, and are well prepared to access these through quality education and training

• People can access the things that are most important to them –education, work, leisure – easily and effectively through a range of transport options

• Our Towns and villages are truly sustainable, because they can meet the changing needs of local populations, with vibrant high streets and local centres catering to a new model for leisure and retail offer

• We’re predicting – and planning for – major infrastructure needs

• We’re able to accommodate major shifts in land use, and land needs, whilst preserving the historic characteristics that make Breckland unique

• We’re able to understand and respond to the needs of our changing population, and provide effective provision and support, especially for those who need our help the most

We know that in setting this priority, we are choosing to take on something far more difficult than required from us by Law. However, we do so because we feel it’s the right thing to do for our residents – and the right challenge to set ourselves to make sure we are on track to realise greater, long-term benefits for our District.

The next building blocks in assembling this vision will include; the Council’s refreshed Local Plan (due 2026), the Council’s refreshed Housing Strategy (due 2024) and an interconnecting long-term vision for the District to 2050. These will be delivered alongside continual refreshes of our Future Breckland Town Delivery Plans and District Wide Prospectus.

Notes