Breckland Council Corporate Plan 2021-2025
Introduction Breckland Council is an organisation that cares, listens, and supports people and businesses within our district. We are working for everyone in our area - especially those who need our help the most. We are proud of our area, and through driving investment and enabling opportunities, we can maximise its full potential. We want to inspire aspiration to live, work, visit, or do business here: we want our district to be one of choice. Our Corporate Plan brings together our strategic priorities for the coming years and outlines what we’ll do to make a difference in Breckland to ensure it is a place where people and businesses can thrive. This includes a commitment to leading our area into a greener future, in partnership with others, so that together we can bring sustainable outcomes. The council has big ideas and we are innovative in our approach, coming up with ways to meet the needs of the local communities that we serve. Through our actions, we want to make things better. But we know that we can’t do it alone. We are a collaborative organisation and we work together with others to make a greater impact. We are also an employer which supports its staff to grow and develop and we empower our officers to achieve and succeed. Our priorities for the future are grouped across four key themes. You can find out more about what we’ll do to achieve these goals over the coming pages.
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Our priorities for the future are grouped across four key themes. You can find out more about what we’ll do to achieve these goals over the coming pages.
Inspiring Communities We want to build on the many strengths of our local communities so that people can lead happy, healthy, fulfilling lives in Breckland and we support people through targeted services that make a difference. We care, and we will always be there when people need us most. We want all our residents to have a place they can call home in Breckland, and feel proud to be here.
Thriving Places We continue to drive investment to unlock the significant potential and opportunities in our district. 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.
Breckland 2035 We will be a role model for sustainability, take action, and enable others to make informed choices so that together we can all make an impact and contribute to greener lifestyles. Our approach to sustainability will underpin everything we do as an organisation, informing the decisions we make and the actions we take.
Working Smarter We are a dynamic, innovative organisation which embraces change and new ways of working. We take a commercial approach and empower our people so they can make a difference for our local communities, and the businesses and people we serve. People want to work for and with us, including indirectly delivering services on our behalf. We are a forward-thinking employer and a trusted partner of choice. 3
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Breckland Council will help our residents to live safe and healthy lives by playing an active part in local communities. We will do this by providing and enabling excellent services that understand and support the needs of our residents and local areas enhancing the quality of life for all.
What we will achieve
How we’ll do it
By 2025 we will have delivered on the following key outcomes:
To achieve these outcomes, we will focus on:
• To lead the recovery from Covid19 supporting all Breckland’s communities and businesses
• Ensuring that our residents have suitable, safe, and secure homes
• To address vulnerability and work with the most disadvantaged members of our communities to improve their life chances
• Supporting vulnerable residents through our £1 million Inspiring Communities programme
Working collaboratively with our partners, as part of a community led approach, we will work to address vulnerability in Breckland. This will be delivered through our Inspiring Communities programme.
• To enhance the health and wellbeing of Brecklands residents as part of Norfolk’s Integrated Care System and by providing excellent leisure facilities.
Covid-19 has left a lasting effect on our communities, and we are committed to supporting our residents and businesses to recover from the pandemic and to support them to adjust to life with covid into the longer term.
• Preventing homelessness in the district
• Continuing to deliver our Community Grants scheme • Continuing to take a robust approach to Community Safety • Working to address health inequalities in our communities • Actively work with partners to further develop Breckland’s communities • Enhancing leisure provision within the district • Continuing to support our businesses and residents’ recovery from Covid-19.
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Breckland Council will play an active role in creating the right conditions for new and existing local businesses to thrive. We will continue to support growth in the local economy, bringing forward and shaping large-scale projects and activities, which will unlock significant employment and housing opportunities.
What we will achieve
How we’ll do it
By 2025 we will have delivered on the following key outcomes:
To achieve these outcomes, we will focus on:
• To support our five town centres to become better places and to highlight their own unique offerings as destinations for local shoppers and visitors • To secure or attract inward investment and make the district an attractive place for new and growing businesses
• To support local businesses by through continued Each of our five town centres are different. collaboration and further proactive engagement. We will lead and enable strategic action within each of them and their hinterlands, working with key stakeholders and partners, to drive investment and change which will help the towns to thrive now and in the future.
The Covid-19 pandemic means the council is keen to support businesses effectively recover from its impact. Our Breckland 2035 commitment also means we are keen to support sustainable business growth and environmentally focused initiatives.
• Developing a coherent Strategic Infrastructure Plan / Growth Pipeline for the future • Improving housing supply in Breckland • Ensuring the success and effectiveness of the Future Breckland project • Developing a new deal, and new way, for town-Level support and investment including a refresh of the role and function of the Market Towns Initiative Programme • Building out, in each town, opportunities of significant strategic impact to unlock future growth, and with a full pipeline of investable opportunities in the longer-term • Developing a focus on creating an ‘Inclusive Economy’ • Focusing on the support we provide to our businesses, new and old • Continuing to work with our businesses to help them adapt their covid security as the pandemic evolves allowing them to thrive during these challenging times • Ensuring our covid support and enforcement work continues to be robust giving residents’ and visitors’ confidence in Breckland communities and businesses (Covid in Communities) • Attracting new investment and Government support and funding for key programmes.
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Breckland Council has recognised that there is a climate emergency that needs our urgent attention, and as a result we have created our ‘Breckland 2035’ Sustainability Strategy which sets out the direction of how we play an active part to help mitigate its impacts.
Our approach to sustainability will underpin everything we do as an organisation from how we collect waste and recycle, what our towns and villages will look like in the future, through to how we use our own offices.
We will lead by example as an organisation taking action to reduce our own impacts to achieve net zero emissions by 2035. We recognise that we cannot achieve this alone so we will use our resources and regulatory powers to create an environment in which our residents and other key stakeholders are enabled to act for themselves to contribute to this agenda.
What we will achieve
We recognise that Breckland is an amazing place of outstanding natural beauty that needs to be protected to allow our residents and future generations to continue to access in a safe and sustainable way.
By 2025 we will have delivered on the following key outcomes: • To lead by example and start to deliver our sustainability strategy, reducing our carbon footprint and enabling residents to take actions for themselves • To protect and enhance our outstanding local environment by taking a proactive approach to preventing environmental crime • To build on the success of our tripartite waste and recycling contract - to not only deliver strong performance and efficiency, but also use it as a mechanism to educate our residents about reducing waste
How we’ll do it To achieve these outcomes, we will focus on: • Delivering a community green grants scheme to enable community activity • Increasing tree canopy cover by planting trees for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee as well as creating a woodland of thanks • Delivering a strategy for electric vehicle charging across the district that will increase the number of locations where there are charging points • Making improvements to our buildings and explore renewable energy options to reduce their carbon footprint • Working towards delivering the council’s target to be NetZero by 2035 • Increasing uptake and education on waste and recycling, through our waste contract • Supporting our businesses to dispose of their waste in a sustainable way through expanding our trade waste scheme • Shaping our planning service and the Local Plan to deliver our sustainability goals • Switching our energy supplier to a fully renewable option when our current contract ends • Growing our approach to environmental enforcement to protect our natural environment.
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Prior to the pandemic Breckland Council committed to a significant transformation programme to change the way in which the Council’s members and officers undertake their respective roles, ensuring we put our residents and businesses at the heart of everything we do. The outcome will allow us to continually improve the delivery of services, make better use of space and resources, and future-proof the organisation – enabling us to operate as a modern council. Ultimately, making the organisation more efficient and effective whilst continuing to operate within our established budget. Enabling agile working will see us break down the barriers of site-specific 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.
We are continually developing our culture, with a proactive focus on wellbeing for all (members, officers, partners, residents, and businesses) and embedding being performance led organisation. We will use data to strengthen our organisational intelligence to inform our decisions, so we make the right choices at the right times.
• Rationalising our IT estate to improve service and reduce costs • Providing an exceptional customer service for residents, businesses, and partners by providing a simple user experience no matter how they choose to engage with us • Transforming our website, providing a frictionless user experience
What we will achieve
• Having a financially sustainable balanced budget in the short, medium & long term which supports diversification of our investments
By 2025 we will have delivered on the following key outcomes:
• Identifying a deliverable efficiencies programme and deliver it over the life of the Medium-Term Financial Plan
• Provide exceptional services in a flexible way to meet the needs of our residents, businesses, visitors, and partners, ensuring services are accessible to all
• Maximising external funding income
• Continue to innovatively use our resources to produce a balanced budget to enable the delivery of our (statutory and additional) services • Build on the success of our tripartite waste and recycling contract with strong performance and efficiency.
How we’ll do it To achieve these outcomes, we will focus on: • Developing a ‘smarter working’ organisation (strengthening our existing organisational intelligence), using data to shape and inform decisions
• Protecing the organisation by making sure we are well-governed, democratically accountable, and legally compliant • Supporting and empowering our people to be the best they can be through wellbeing support, development, and training • Promoting 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 • Ensuring that we have an efficient asset portfolio by diversifying it as necessary, allowing us to seek new investments, which will continue to generate an income which will support our services.
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In addition to the Corporate Plan’s four themes, Breckland Council has also launched a programme of activity spanning the entire organisation. The Breckland Cares initiative is focused on driving projects which help the council deliver on its commitments to: support our communities, especially our most vulnerable residents; create a caring culture for our staff and members; and use our powers and influence to help protect our environment for current and future generations.
Some of the projects within these strands also focus on raising awareness of a social movement and generating a constructive discussion with our communities, for example raising a flag at the council’s office and looking for opportunities to engage with staff, councillors and members of the public on important social issues. We are proud to be a forward-thinking organisation that cares and we will continue to take action, alongside our partners, to ensure deliver meaningful change in Breckland.
There are seven key strands to Breckland Cares: • Armed Forces • Mental Health • Personal Safety / Domestic Abuse • Climate Change • Diversity and Inclusion • Pride / LGBTQ+ • Chairman’s chosen charity Breckland Cares includes a number of individual projects which are delivering specific and important changes. This includes strengthening our commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant, reviewing the council’s policies to ensure we offer equal opportunities regardless of somebody’s age, race, disability, or sexual orientation, offering lone-worker guidance, and training mental health first aiders to support our communities.
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