Refreshed council plan reveals priorities and opportunities

Derbyshire County Council has published its refreshed Council Plan which sets out its priorities for the next three years.

Last year the authority revealed a new Council Plan for 2021-25 setting out its key priorities, ambitions, challenges, opportunities, achievements and headline initiatives.

The plan is updated each year, and the 2022-23 refreshed plan has now been published and can be read here www.derbyshire.gov.uk/councilplan2022

The refreshed plan, with a new foreword by county council Leader Councillor Barry Lewis, details key accomplishments by services from across the council, highlights the council’s budget and how it is spent and the challenges and opportunities currently and in the years ahead.

Councillor Barry Lewis said: “Taking the time to refresh our Council Plan is extremely important as we can recognise the achievements made, revisit our priorities and reshape them where needed, as well as ensuring we are progressing with planned work and introducing new initiatives that will drive us forward and help us to overcome any challenges.

“It is vital that we have an up-to-date clear plan and our residents can see what our aims and priorities are and feel reassured that we are as ambitious for the county as they are.

“While the last two years have been the toughest most of us will have faced we are continuing to work alongside our communities and partners to ensure we are delivering the best we can for Derbyshire. That means protecting our environment and reducing carbon emissions as we strive to become a net zero county, helping businesses to prosper, encouraging the growth of clean, green industries and supporting communities and the local economy to thrive.”

The headline initiatives for the next 12 months are:

• Delivering devolution and the levelling up agenda across Derbyshire as one of nine early County Deal pathfinder areas, helping to boost economic performance and improve opportunities and outcomes for people and places
• Leading the county’s economic and community recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic delivering a £15m fund to support local businesses and residents in need
• Investing £40m in well managed roads and pathways and developing sustainable methods of travel
• Taking action on climate change – including exploring initiatives for low carbon local energy generation and identifying areas where the natural environment can be further enhanced while also supporting the green economy – providing community grants for sustainable and green projects, and continuing to drive the Green Entrepreneurs scheme to help local people and businesses to reduce carbon emissions
• Working with partners to benefit the health and wellbeing of people in Derbyshire by better integrating health and social care and developing the Better Lives transformation programme
• Driving forward the ambitious improvements in Children’s Services to positively strengthen outcomes for children and young people, resulting in children’s services being judged ‘Good’ or better by Ofsted
• Working alongside communities to improve resilience and outcomes for local people and communities, reducing demand for high-cost services, as part of the council’s Thriving Communities approach.
• Promoting our employees’ wellbeing and developing their potential.

Derbyshire residents can comment on the refreshed Council Plan by emailing policy @ derbyshire.gov.uk