Issue - meetings

Annex 2, Equalities Impact Assessment, to follow.

It was proposed by the Leader and seconded by Councillor Whitehead that:

1.  That Thanet District Council approves the proposed Corporate Plan for 2024-28 and implements this with immediate effect.

Members agreed.

Report to follow

The report in front of Cabinet members this evening proposes a new Corporate Plan which intends to set the direction of travel for the council over the next four years. Having a clearly defined plan is essential to support the council to work towards achieving our longer-term aspirations for Thanet, and to ensure that resources across the council are focused on what matters most to local people.

Having a clear and concise Corporate Plan will help us to ensure that the community and our stakeholders are aware of the work the council is delivering, and, through regular reporting of our performance, will have an oversight of the progress being made. The draft plan has now been out for public consultation for a period of seven weeks and my thanks to everyone who took the time to respond. There is, encouragingly, broad support for the proposed new priorities for the council which are:

·  To keep our district safe and clean;

·  To deliver the housing we need;

·  To protect our environment;

·  To create a thriving place;

·  To work efficiently for you.

As I have said before, these are clear statements which reflect the ongoing feedback we receive from our constituents when they tell us that they want their streets to be kept clean, to be able to feel safe and to have thriving towns in the district. My thanks also go to the Overview and Scrutiny Panel for their consideration of this draft plan at their meeting last week, and for their support.

Within our ten year vision we aspire to the prosperity of our residents increasing. As such, I would like to propose an addition to the draft Corporate Plan. This is to include a reference within our priorities which acknowledges the work the council carries out with our partners to address the health inequalities we know exist across the district.

Whilst we may not be directly responsible for delivering those services, we have a key role to play in supporting this activity, and the plan should refer to this point. With this in mind, I move that the Cabinet recommends the draft Corporate Plan; taking into account the proposed addition - for final approval at full Council on Thursday 8 February.

Cabinet agreed to:

1. To recommend the draft Corporate Plan for final approval at Full Council on Thursday 8 February 2024.

Hannah Thorpe, Head of Strategy and Transformation introduced the report and said that a public consultation was conducted in December which ran through the Christmas period. The results were now being reported to Council with the final recommendations on the new corporate priorities.

One Member said that the Council ought to learn from the responses received through this residents’ survey, to determine who the respondents were, their age groups and find ways of engaging young people and professionals in order to improve the feedback from similar consultations.

Members noted the report.