Agenda item

Report from the Assistant Chief Executive.

Recommendations:

That Cabinet:

1. Recommend to Council that the Council Plan 2025-30 be approved.
   
   
2. Agree the Year Ahead Delivery Plan for 2025-26.

3. Note that future progress reports will be presented to Cabinet in January and July 2026.

Consideration was given to the report which presented the new Council Plan 2025-2030 and the Year Ahead Delivery Plan 2025-2026. Informed by public consultation, the new Council Plan had been developed for 2025-30 and was attached to the report at Appendix 1. The Council Plan was a key document which set out the Council’s vision for the borough and priorities for serving residents and communities. The Plan provided the medium-term basis for targeting resources, informing the budget-setting process and planning cycles, and ensuring that residents could hold the Council to account for delivery. The Council Plan included a suite of performance measures

and targets for monitoring purposes.

Between September and November 2024, a programme of public

consultation and engagement took place to support the development of the

new Council Plan. This included online and postal surveys, focus groups

(internal and external), and a series of short interactions and engagement at

a number of events and locations across the Borough. There were 214 online

and postal surveys returned and over 1,950 interactions in total across all

methods of engagement. A summary of the consultation and key findings was

attached at Appendix 3 and was available on the Council website.

Informed by this programme of public and stakeholder engagement, the new

Council Plan for 2025-30 ‘Forging Ahead’ set out the ambition for the

Borough, including medium-term priorities and actions, building on and taking

forward commitments made by elected members to the Rotherham

community. The Council Plan was framed around five outcomes:

• Places are thriving, safe, and clean
• An economy that works for everyone
• Children and young people achieve
• Residents live well
• One Council that listens and learns.
  
  

Three cross-cutting policy drivers ran throughout the Council Plan, informing ways of working and helping the Council to achieve better outcomes:

• Expanding opportunities for all
• Recognising and building on our strengths to make positive change
• Focussing on prevention.

To enable the Council to work towards the Plan outcomes, a Year Ahead Delivery Plan, attached at Appendix 2, had been developed, setting out the key activities to be delivered over the next year (April 2025 – March 2026). There were 116 priority actions, milestones and measures alongside a further twelve social care measures in the Year Ahead Plan.

To ensure that the Council Plan was managed effectively, six-monthly progress reports would be produced for Cabinet and made publicly available. The reports would include progress in relation to the actions in the Year Ahead Delivery Plan, performance data relating to associated performance measures and case studies. The progress reports would have annual updates on the long-term measures of success as the majority of these were published annually. It was proposed that the first Council Plan 2025-30 mid-year progress report, covering the period April 2025 to September 2025, be reported to Cabinet in January 2026.

During the meeting Cabinet Members highlighted achievements relating to their portfolios from the previous plan and highlighted the outcomes that would be worked towards as part of the new plan:

Councillor Taylor, Cabinet Member for Transport, Jobs and the Local Economy highlighted the vast improvements to the brought roads, the government investment that had been secured, the opening of the Forge Island development and the success of the Employment Solutions Team. The new Plan would cover the development of Wath Library, Riverside Gardens and Rotherham Market. £300k would be invested in community facilities and work would start on the Health Hub for the Town Centre. Support would be provided for up to 20 businesses to improve shop units in the town centre and on other principal high streets through the new ‘shop units grants’ programme.

Councillor Cusworth, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, highlighted the millions of pounds of investment in Children’s services and the high quality services provided by the Family Hubs network. The Children’s Capital of Culture initiative was well underway and successful. Further, an additional 50 school places had been created for children with additional needs. Councillor Cusworth highlighted some of the activity in the new plan that would support Children and Young People. This included ensuring 90% of families registered their children with the Family Hubs network within 6 months of birth; the completion of the work on the Special Educational Needs and Disability Centre at the Eric Manns Building and the delivery of Independent Travel Training to at least 30 children and young people. Work would also be undertaken to improve play areas, improve the time taken to issue Education, Health and Care Plans and to deliver Baby Packs.

Councillor Allen, Cabinet Member for Housing, noted the ambitious Council Homes Delivery Programme which had achieved over 650 new homes across the borough, against a target of 1000 by 2027. High quality homes had been delivered in the Town Centre. Work had also been done to reduce the number of homeless people staying in hotels. The Council had also received the Northen Housing Award for Best Affordable Housing Development for the East Herringthorpe ‘No Gas’ Scheme. As part of the new Plan, a new Housing Allocation Policy would be agreed, and work would start or be completed on a number of new housing developments.

Councillor Baker-Rogers, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, welcomed the activities and themes within the new Council Plan. Reflecting on the previous plan she noted the success of the Baby Pack initiative and the improvements in Health Visitor checks and Adult Social Care visits. Key activities from the new Plan that were highlighted included supporting 1000 residents to set a quit smoking day; the start of work on the Town Centre Health Hub and improvements to Rothercare. Councillor Baker-Rogers also confirmed that the building work for the Castle View Day Service would be completed in 2026.

Councillor Alam, Cabinet Member for Finance and Safe and Clean Communities, highlighted the activities related to keeping residents safe such as agreeing a new Community Safety Strategy and tackling hate crime and anti-social behaviour. Work would also be undertaken to issue a minimum of 60 fixed penalty notices for fly tipping.

The report was considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Management

Board (OSMB), who advised that the recommendations be supported. Concerns had been raised around the consultation process, the lack of prominence of children’s services in the consultation and overflowing bins. Additional concerns were raised around how to engage with the South Yorkshire Mayor. As a result of the discussions, OSMB requested:

• A schedule of when bins were emptied in each ward of the authority, including details of how many times those bins have been missed and why they have been missed.
• That consideration be given to widening the consultation process for future significant projects including:
  • A suggestion to consider utilising members in their ward capacity to support consultations.
  • Another suggestion to consider was the collection of consultees postcodes to give an indication of which area of the borough they were from.

Resolved:

That Cabinet:

1. Recommend to Council that the Council Plan 2025-30 be approved.

2. Agree the Year Ahead Delivery Plan for 2025-26.

3. Note that future progress reports will be presented to Cabinet in January and July 2026.